Page 38 of Hat Trick
I bark a laugh, but he’s not wrong. Mornings have always been my thing. For most of my childhood it was when I got to spend time with my dad. He worked long hours in the evening, so those were usually spent with Mom dragging me to and from games and practice. But those few hours before school, when the only sounds outside were the birds chirping and the neighbor’s sprinklers going off, that’s when I got to spend time with Dad. Sometimes, if it was nice enough, we’d go outside and he would slap shots into the small goal we kept in the driveway. I did my best to block them, and sometimes I even managed it. However, looking back on it, I’m pretty sure those are the ones he let up on just so he could see the smile on my face when I stopped it.
I’d help him make breakfast, and the two of us would have it on the table ready to go by the time Mom woke up. Didn’t matter if we cooked scrambled eggs or a continental breakfast. The smile on her face every morning was like she won the lottery.
After Dad died, I knew that was one thing I wanted to keep doing for her. A small way I could make her life easier somehow. Even though some mornings I could practically see the memory of Dad flash in her eyes before she’d softly kiss my head and quietly eat her breakfast. The only sound then was her sniffling as she tried to hold back tears.
Regardless, the habit has kind of always stuck. Most days I don’t even need an alarm.
The same does not go for my best friend. Even whenwe’re traveling for games and the two of us have to share a room, I feel like I’m trying to get a fifteen-year-old boy out of bed for school.
Liliana is no better. Some mornings she buries herself so deep into her pillow, I genuinely worry she’s going to get stuck there.
But I’ll take their grumpiness any morning I can get it.
“Am I going to get a good morning kiss from you too or are you just going to keep snarling at me?” Emerson’s sleepy eyes stare at me deadpan, so I add, “The sooner you give me what I’m looking for, the sooner you get pancakes and coffee.”
“And they’re really fucking good,” Lil mumbles from behind me. I look over my shoulder to find her sitting on the counter, cup of coffee in one hand and a stolen pancake in the other, half of it already in her mouth.
Chuckling, I turn around and face Emerson. “Tick, tock.”
He rolls his eyes,again, before grabbing the spatula in my hand and yanking me to him. With my front pressed up against his, I can feel the effects of themorningpressing against my stomach, letting me know he’s not as annoyed as he lets on. Then he mumbles against my lips, “You’re lucky there’s chocolate chips in those pancakes.”
My smile grows wider, if that was even possible. “Just trying to do myself a favor.”
He huffs a laugh before pressing a chaste kiss to my lips. “Good morning,Dominic.”
“Good morning,Emerson.”
I feel his cock twitch against me before he kisses me once more and heads over to where Lil is sitting on the counter.
Turning back around, I watch as he pours himself a cup of coffee and adds a splash of the creamer to it. Usually he drinks it black, but because he knows I keep it stocked here for Lil on the off chance she needs it, he’s sure to help me drink it instead of letting it go to waste. Then, he steps in between her spread legs, one hand resting on her bare thigh, the other holding his coffee, bends down, and takes a bite out of the pancake in her hand. Her face lights up as she giggles at him, and the muscles along his back flex as he moves his hand up and down her thigh.
The mornings are where I find peace. They’re when I feel centered. They’re when I feelwhole. Like, for just a couple hours, my life isn’t missing anything. Or at least that’s what I thought.
Because as I stand here in my kitchen, staring at the two of them, I realize that all this time, I think I was wrong. I try to wrack my brain for the last time this sense of peace has settled in my chest. Suddenly, the thought crashes into me like a freight train. I haven’t felt this way since the day before my dad died. All these years, all this time, I’ve used the sunrise as a way to find solace, but it’s only now, looking at the two of them, that I understand, I was nowhere close.
And as much as I want to get lost in the joy that is that moment, another thought hits me. This feeling, thisjoy, was already taken from me once. It was snatchedfrom my grasp without a second thought. The person who made me feel whole was taken from me, leaving me grasping for pieces of him in the morning light.
If the someone with that power over me was taken from me once, it can be taken from me again.
And I just know… Iknowthat’d I’d never survive it the second time around—or third.
1 Build Me Up Buttercup - The Foundations
CHAPTER 24
BABY DADDY TORTURE
LILIANA
I’m back at my apartment later that day, relaxing on my couch, full from orgasms, coffee, and chocolate chip pancakes. I have one of my headphones in as I listen to the female main character in this book getting railed by her three boyfriends, when my phone starts to buzz.
Gigi
We ran into Wes at the grocery store…
He didn’t even acknowledge Charlie
I’m not going to put in writing what I want to do to that piece of shit…
