All for Maddie (11 page)

Damn. Why did he keep making
sense? I was the sane one, not him. “I don’t see anything in him. He is fucking
amazing in bed. That’s what I see.”

“Why aren’t you with
someone?”

“I don’t want to be with someone.
Will you go?”

He started moving. “If you
insist on going down to that fire pit and getting drunk, I’m coming with you.”

“Of course you are.”

I jumped off the cart before
it even stopped, walked over to the community cooler that I hadn’t pitched in
on, and got a beer. I walked over to Naomi and had half of it gone before I
reached her.

“Wow, Whit. It is true. Are
you really with that guy? Why didn’t you tell me?”

“What do you mean, it is
true?”

“Dana told Sue, Sue told
Wendy, Wendy told Joanne, and Joanne told Vicki. I overheard Vicki and Jordan
talking about it. Vicki said that you were taking Maddie and moving to Lincoln
with him.”

Great the whole fucking
resort knew. I needed more beer. “Yup, it’s true,” I said glaring at Alex as
Jaron handed him a beer.

“But he was with that girl,
the blonde, when he was here.”

“Oh, that was his sister.”
When did I become such an expert liar?

“I can’t get over how much
Maddie resembles him, now that the cat’s out of the bag.”

I snorted and walked over to
the cooler.

“Damn girl, you going for the
quick fix tonight?” Jaron asked.

“Yup,” I replied, taking two
beers.

“You gonna help pay for
that?”

“Alex will take care of me,”
I smartly replied, using his words with a daggered glare directly at him.

He smirked and took out his
wallet.

By the fifth beer, I was
feeling it. My hips began to move to the beat of Aerosmith’s, Dream on. One of
the camp guests that I remembered checking in that morning with a bunch of
guy’s eyed me all night. I discreetly gave it back. I wasn’t hiding it from
Alex. I knew he was staring at me, but I hid it well from my co-workers and
friends. I would have been taking him home had I not had a baby sitter.

“Why the hell aren’t you over
there, all over that? If that was mine, I’d be home in bed by now,” Naomi
asked.

“Yeah, well, we kind of had a
fight. I’m trying to ignore him? Let’s dance,” I coaxed, pulling her to the
dirt circle with some other guests.

Naomi and I grinded into each
other to ‘Don’t Spit Me Out’ and singing at the top of our lungs. I noticed my
eye candy joining us, hoping that he didn’t move into me. He did. I didn’t know
whether to keep dancing or tell him to back off. I was afraid to look Alex’s
way. I tried to inconspicuously get Naomi between us. She was too busy doing
some kind of nasty with her hips.

I just hopped around,
dancing, trying to get him to back off when I felt him behind me, placing his
hand on my hip, grinding into me. It wasn’t him. I had been around Alex enough
to know that smell. I turned, placing one foot between his legs and let him
show me his moves. I was drunk. Had I been sober he would have already been in
the fetal position, holding his nuts. Alex could move. Holy Fuck! Alex could
move.

“What the hell are you
doing?” I asked, leaning into his neck. Jesus Christ he smelled good. Oh Lord,
I needed to stop drinking.

“What the hell are you
doing?” He smirked down at me, placing his hand on my waist and pulling me into
his crotch. Yup, I needed to quit drinking.

“Exactly what I said I was
going to do. I’m getting drunk.”

“Not while you’re hanging all
over other men.”

“We’re not a couple. We’ll
never be a couple.”

“We are as long as we’re here
and around anyone that works here,” he assured me.

I tried to pull away from him
when the song ended. He stopped me and pulled me even closer when a slow song
started. “Where you going? We’re putting on a show, remember?” he asked.

“Alex, you need to back off,”
I said in some sort of low rasp. I should have known better than to get drunk
around someone that looked like he did.

He pulled me closer and
kissed my neck. Holy Fuck, I needed away from him. “Why’s that, Whit? Am I
making your pussy wet?” he whispered just below my ear. I could feel his warm
words as my eyes closed. Slowly losing control in his arms.

Get a grip, Whitley.

I wrapped my arms around his
neck, needing to be closer to him as well. I whispered the warm words to the
same place he had. “Yeah Alex, I’m sure my pussy is very wet right now. It’s
what happens when I get drunk. You see, I like to fuck when I’m drunk.” I could
play his game. I wasn’t the weak damsel he presumed me to be. He helped with
that when I was seventeen.

“I could fuck you,” he
offered, in some sort of girly voice. He was cracking. I could tell I was
making him nervous.

I could have sworn I felt his
cock twitch on my stomach. No, I knew I felt it.

“I’m sure you could. You like
fucking comatose women, don’t you, Alex?” I asked and spun out of his arms. 

I should have stopped
drinking. I shouldn’t have hit the bottle of Jack the first time or the sixth
or was it the seventh? I was fucked up. I was going to be sick.

“Naomi, come with me. I have
to pee,” I coaxed.

“I’m not riding on anything
with you,” she assured me as I stumbled, grabbing hold of the bed of Jaron’s
truck to keep from falling. I didn’t even know where Alex was anymore. I
stopped caring after um….a few drinks.

“I’m not going to the
bathhouse. I’m going in the bushes.”

I dropped my pants and
toppled over, laughing as I went down.

“That’s it. You’re done. What
the hell is wrong with you?” Naomi asked, pulling me up as I laughed harder.
“I’ve never seen you this drunk.”

I was done. I needed to lie
down before I threw up all over myself.

“Don’t even think about it.
Move over,” Alex demanded as I got behind the wheel in the cart.

“Why Alex? Because you’re a
really good driver? Do you drive really fast, or do you prefer driving really
slow. I like my men to drive really fast, you know, really force the throttle,”
I laughed.

That’s the last thing I
remembered until I woke the next morning.

I moaned. Wow, did my head
ever hurt. I wondered what time it was. It was dark in my room. Someone had
closed the curtain. Where was my cellphone? Shit, where was Maddie? I wondered,
sitting up and seeing the time, hoping she wasn’t cooking something. I looked
over at the clock. What? That wasn’t right. There was no way it was almost
noon. I dropped back to my pillow, remembering that my dad had her. And, oh
yeah, Alex was there. Jesus did my head hurt.

I climbed out of bed, looking
down at my nightshirt. I didn’t remember changing clothes. God, please don’t
tell me Alex did it. I slid on a pair of shorts and quietly opened my door. Ah man,
I hated bright lights. I squinted seeing Alex and Maddie lying on the floor
with two coloring books. Standing in the door, I silently watched them. He was
so good with her.

“No, not dat one,” Maddie
demanded, pulling the green crayon from his hand, “you have a use a pink one.”

“But grass isn’t pink,” Alex
explained. “Grass is green.”

“Nu-huh, I have a pink grass
in my Eeser basket.”

Alex laughed. “Okay, I’ll
make pink grass. Do you want to go to the store with me?”

“Um, how many sweep times?”

“How many sleep times?”

“Uh-huh.”

“It’s how she tracks time,” I
helped.

Alex looked up to me. I was
sure I looked rough. I felt rough.

“What do you mean?” he asked,
not understanding Maddie’s sleep times.

“Sleep times, like how many
days does she has to wake up before something happens.”

“You want to know how many
sleep times until we go to the store?” he asked her.

“Uh-huh,” she replied, going
crazy on her coloring page with a green crayon.

“Right now… What? Do you need
to check your calendar or something? Why do you get to use the green crayon?”
he asked.

I laughed.

“You have a pink one,” she
claimed, looking at him like he was an idiot for asking.

“Do you have any idea how
much like your mama you are?” he asked.

“Uh-huh.”

I tightened my lips to keep
from laughing and walked to the kitchen.

Great, no coffee.

“I take it you’re not a
coffee drinker,” I alleged, making coffee.

“I drink coffee. I just drank
it at eight o’clock this morning.”

“Do you know where my
cellphone is?” I asked, looking around. What the hell did I do with it? I
walked around, looking for it when it started ringing. I hadn’t even noticed
Alex dialing. I picked it up from the bottom of Maddie’s bookshelf. How the
hell did it get there? I wondered, shutting off his ring tone.

“Change it,” he demanded.

“You don’t like it?”

“No, and I think it’s very immature
of you. Change it.”

“I wonder if I can find one
about this guy. Do you know any songs about this guy?”

“I’m afraid to ask? This
guy?”

“Yeah, it’s what I refer to
you
as, you know.
This guy
thinks he is going to tell me what to do? Does
this
guy
think he is God? Is
this guy
for real? Does
this guy
have
a brain? Does
this guy
—
”

“Yeah, okay. I get it,” Alex
determined, cutting me off from my rant.

“Her is whiny,” Maddie said,
looking up to Alex. Traitor.

“Her is whiny. Let’s go to
the store and leave mommy alone with her coffee for a while,” he offered
standing from the floor.

“Why are you going to the
store?” I asked.

“We’re cooking out here with
your dad and Dana, later.”

“Oh, you invited my family
for supper without asking me first? What if I already have plans?”

“You don’t. Should I kiss you
goodbye?”

“Only if you don’t mind
walking funny all day.”

He laughed. “I’m going to get
the car seat out of your truck. We’ll be back in a little bit. Go take a bath
or something. You look like,” he stopped, remembering Maddie standing beside
him, holding his hand. “You look like you could use it,” he substituted.

“Hey, you want a go see my
beach?” Maddie asked, looking up.

“When?” he asked, looking
down at her.

Stretching her neck to look
up to him she stomped her foot and cocked her hip. “You need a check a
calwander?”

Oh my, that girl didn’t miss
a beat. I loved it. He picked her up and threw her into the air, causing her to
squeal with laughter.

“Where is your beach?” he
asked, kissing her cheek.

“It over der,” she pointed in
the wrong direction.

“We’ll cook out by your
beach. We’ll go there later,” I told her, willing the coffee to drip faster.

<><><> 

I soaked in a hot tub with a
washcloth over my eyes. That was it. I was never drinking again. I had the worse
hangover ever.

I didn’t care about what I
looked like. I pulled my long hair into a messy bun not even brushing it out
and pulled on jean shorts with a t-shirt. I wasn’t trying to impress Alex
Stupid Wesson; he could go to hell.

Alex came in carrying Maddie
and holding her out. I could see right away that she’d had an accident. I
instantly had a smirky smile when I saw the wet spot on his shirt.

“I pee,” she admitted as he
sat her down.

“Why’d you do that?”

“I thought she could hold it.
I didn’t want to go into the ladies room, I wasn’t going to let her go alone,
and I wasn’t sure if it was okay to take her in the men’s room,” Alex
explained, removing his wet shirt.

Holy. Sweet. Baby. Jesus.

“You could have taken her in
the men’s room. When she says she needs to potty, you need to get her there.
She can’t hold it yet,” I said, taking her hand and leading her to the bathtub.
I needed to get away from that…that…Jesus, I couldn’t even begin to describe
those abs, that stomach, that sexy as hell line of hair just below his belly
button, that statuesque chest, the jeans that hung low on his hips. Okay,
maybe
I could describe it. My eyes needed to be reverted.

“I did eat a bug,” Maddie
said, helping me out of my bafflement.

“You ate a bug?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Why did you eat a bug?”

“My daddy say me could.”

I looked over my shoulder
with a frown.

“It was out of the bubble gum
machine. Don’t worry, it was cherry flavored,” Alex clarified.

<><><> 

I couldn’t believe my own eyes.
Alex had his jeans rolled up, wading in the water with Maddie. I did kind of
smile. I couldn’t help it. She looked so darn cute, holding on to his pant leg,
trying to balance herself as she walked across the tiny stones.

“Are you happy?” my dad asked,
tearing me from my trance of Maddie with her daddy. I was glad that I was
staring happily at them. I didn’t want him to think I was leaving him to be
miserably forced to live with a man I detested. 

I smiled a weak smile over at
him as he slid his arm around me and kissed the side of my head. I wanted to
start crying.

“I just want you to be happy,
Whit. I want Maddie to be happy, and I can see that he does love her. I don’t
want to lose either of you. I love you both to pieces, but I understand. I
think Alex is a good man, I think he will be good for both of you. You have my
blessing, sweetie.”

“Thanks Dad, that means a
lot. But what about my house? We just built it. How am I going to make the
payments if I’m not working? Maybe you can rent it out too. That should make
the payment.”

“I’m not renting out your
house. Alex and I talked about it this morning. He wants to pay it off so that
you and Maddie have a place to stay when you come home.”

That pissed me off. There was
no way I was letting him pay off my house. I worked hard for that house. He
wasn’t swooping in and holding that over my head too. No way in hell. I, of
course, decided to save that fight for later. I was trying my best to keep my
dad in the dark as much as possible, letting him think that I was in love with
Alex as much as Maddie was. I wanted him to think I was happy. I didn’t want
him worrying about us.