Page 118 of Wanting What's Wrong

I tuck my feet under the seat as Cade moves in front of me to take his seat with a bright thrill in his eyes as I bounce the little girl on my lap. We’re on the first flight he could find to get us to Michigan. A fire at the airport where his private jet was kept shut down any flights coming or going for the next ten hours, and Cade did not want to wait that long to get us out of LA.

I’m excited to see Dorthia. She’s treated me like her own grandchild from the first moment we met. I get cards from heron every holiday. Even Memorial Day. Who knew there were Memorial Day cards?

Most people now send text messages with a ‘Happy Birthday’ or ‘Merry Christmas’ emoji, but there’s a thrill about real, stamped cards and packages coming in the mail. Since I never knew my father or his family and my mother was a foster child with no family of her own, Dorthia is the grandmother of my dreams.

But my gut knots knowing I’m responsible for her being confined to that wheelchair. I’m the one that almost killed her. Shame rots inside me, not only for my sins of the past but the more recent ones with Cade.

I’ve wondered if he loved my mother, is it her he sees in me? That thought has rolled around inside my gut and my head since he kissed me in that bathroom at the party.

Has his grief simmered for so long that his sense of obligation has become entangled with the feelings he had for his wife?

I shake the thought away for now as the cherub baby on my lap grips my hair in her tiny fist and tugs like a WWE female wrestler.

“I’m so sorry.” Her mother emerges from the restroom with apologetic eyes. “She’s a hairpuller, I’m afraid.”

Cade slides his hand around the back of my neck, fingers slipping up the base of my skull with a tight grip and a small tug no one else can see.

“She doesn’t mind.” He flashes one of his rare smiles through his beard and mustache to the stranger, running his other hand down his thigh, sleeves rolled up on his white button down, ink on full display and, Mother Mary…hisforearms.God help me, when I look at his forearms, I get wet.

The baby is returned, and I lean into Cade, my eyes fluttering shut as I think of how he put me to bed last night with his cock in my mouth, teaching me that it is a way for me to relax; and to my surprise, he’s right. I sucked as he instructed, like itwas my pacifier, slow and easy, not looking for his own release, just calming me as he stroked my hair. When I woke up hours later, he was still watching me and promptly stuffed it back in my mouth; only then, he was a bit more greedy about things.

I salivate at the memory, stunned by my new wanton lust and uninhibited nature with my stepfather. My boss.

Whatever he is, he’s become my everything.

Four hours later, the limo has dropped us at 452 RR 1 in Brooklyn, Michigan. They call this area the Irish Hills in Michigan because it was settled in the mid-1800’s by Irish immigrants escaping the horrible potato famine. It is green and rolling and, as the several previous visits here showed, a quintessential Americana small town.

I love it.

Life with my mother was always in big cities. Chaos and hustle and franticness. I was born in New York as an oops baby while she pursued the first part of her acting career. My father was a director, maybe, or someone in the entertainment world, but that was all she would ever tell me. She said it was one night, a mistake, and he disappeared after he found out about the pregnancy. I had questions over the years, but Lilith was a natural actress and willed away my queries in a way that left me less than satisfied but, somehow, not willing to fight for more answers.

Inside the front door of the white, turn-of-the-century Sears & Roebuck Craftsman Bungalow that smells like someone is constantly stirring a pot of vanilla and caramel, Dorthia gives me one of her special grandmother hugs. The kind where you feel no judgment. The kind where you could tell her the worst parts of you, and she would wave them away with a flutter of her hand and a fresh baked chocolate chip cookie paired with a cool glass of milk.

I don’t dare test that theory with the worst parts of me. The ones I hope she never knows.

“Mom.” Cade comes in with our bags from the rented Black Yukon. “Where’s the new van I sent over? You said it was delivered, it’s not in the driveway.”

Her house is immaculate with bright orange and yellow floral wallpaper straight out of the sixties and a classic mid-century modern vibe that is all the rage right now in LA. It’s a fun contrast to the craftsman-style house but somehow, it’s perfect and I want to flop down on the sofa and watch 80’s brat pack movies until my eyes bug out.

“Oh, that.” She waves her hand, winking my way. “It’s in the barn. I had one of those workers you sent over to redo the driveway and put it away for when the one I have wears out. Then I’ll use it.”

“Mother.” He releases a long breath toward the ceiling. His chest fills out his white shirt, and I’m struck by how sweet he is with her and how drop-dead gorgeous he is in general. Even more so as he runs his hand over his loose deep-golden hair, a hint of loving frustration at the corners of his shocking blue eyes. “You don’t have to wear out the old one to use the new one. That’s the point, I don’t want you out somewhere and the other one breaks down.”

“It’s only two years old for goodness’ sake! It has less than 20,000 miles on it. It’s practically new.”

“Just—”

She cuts him off, spinning in her chair on the burnt orange and olive-green rug that fills the center of the living room. “Come here, let me look at you.” She takes my hands and love the twinkle in her soft blue eyes. They are the same eyes that looked down at me in bed this morning as I took her son’s cum for the third time. Cum that is still seeping out of me and possibly making her a grandmother at this very moment. “You look positively glowing.” She squints, inspecting me, pulling medown toward her. “You have a boyfriend you haven’t told me about?”

She winks this time toward Cade, who grunts, turning toward the kitchen and the back hall where the bedrooms are.

I shrug and Dorthia gives me a conspiratorial smile. “You can tell me about it later. When your over-protective father isn’t around.”

This is going to be a bumpy ride.

What is going to happen if she finds out? And if this is real, how can she not?

Then, there’s everything else. Ryan was supposed to give me what he said was the only evidence left from the night of the fire, but he never handed over the flash drive. I never could get him to tell me why he had it in the first place, but that seemed secondary to just getting it and destroying it. Living with this cloud over my head was horrible before, but now that Cade and I are… well,different,losing him would be the end of me.

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