Page 29 of Daddy!

My Daddy didn't relent at all, though—not one inch. He did exactly what he said he would, unfortunately for me.

But how could I explain any of all of that to Bette? So, I took the coward's way out, taking a sip of my whisky and saying, "I don't think I can. It's either something that turns you on desperately, or it doesn't."

"That's a cop out, and you know it."

I raised my glass in salute to her. "Fuck, yes. So, sue me."

Chapter 9

Surprisingly, it took me till nearly the end of the year, just before my Christmas vacation, to get myself into real, serious trouble with my Daddy. Who'da thought it would take so long? Things were working out so well between us, too.

By then, I had, for all intents and purposes, moved in with him. I still had three months on my lease, and there were still some things over at my place, but the majority of my stuff had been moved into his house. It was a slow, casual process. I just started bringing loads over whenever I went back to his place after staying at mine for any length of time, and he was the one who was encouraging me to do so. The two drawers I'd had originally had expanded into four, and finally, my whole dresser was there. It didn't match with his, but neither of us cared. All we cared about was being together.

On the Friday before Christmas break, which was abnormally long this year because of how Christmas and New Year's Day fell, we were predicted to have a Nor' Easter—a good, old fashioned New England blizzard. High winds, snow accumulations of over an inch an hour and, essentially, no visibility. There was black ice everywhere, and the plows were having a hard time keeping up with the sheer volume of snow that was falling.

As we'd already had a bad year for that kind of thing and were staring at another four months yet of snowstorms, and we were only scheduled for a half day, the powers that be decided not to cancel school instead of using another snow day out of our limited number of them. Of course, they'd cancelled it for four inches—which was, essentially nothing in the Northeast—a week ago, but what do I know?

Mane was at work because of a drill they were having that ended that morning. He called me early on, saying he was coming home and not to go anywhere till he got there, so that he could drive me in.

"You don't have to do that, Daddy."

"I know that, my darling girl. But I want to. My car's bigger, heavier, and has better traction than your tiny little cracker box. I'll feel better driving you myself. I don't want you out on those roads."

"But it's going to take you a while to get here, and then you have to bring me in. I could just drive in and be there in a half hour or so." I only lived a few miles from school, but I'd be creeping. He was right about my cracker box. It had zero traction in this stuff. I always just white-knuckled it into and back from school all winter. Never had a problem before.

Of course, that wasn't going to hold, because now I had him to be all, you know, annoyingly right. Not to mention authoritative.

"You will park your cute little bottom on the couch and wait for me. The kids'll wait."

No, they really wouldn't, actually. Left alone, the inmates would at least attempt to run the asylum. If I wasn't there, they'd have to scramble—on a day when lots of teachers probably wouldn't bother to come in—to get someone to babysit my first class.

I waited for him—I did—while it got later and later. To the point where, even if I started out at that very moment, I would still be a bit late.

And if there was one thing I didn't hold with—and there wasn't much that I did, really—it was lateness, in anyone else, but especially in myself.

So, I got into my car—which I had long since brushed off, but I had to do so again because of the rapid accumulation—and began to creep down the road. Usually, living near the school was an advantage. I could leave later than anyone else and still be on time. But, also because of that, there were no highways involved in my route. Highways were always the first—and the best—plowed roads around in a storm, plus, the sheer volume of cars using them kept them relatively clear. Residential areas, not so much.

I was one of only a few cars on the road, and there were none around me when I hit a patch of black ice near one of the salt marshes. I'd been driving in snow all my life. When I began to skid, I turned into it, like I knew I should have, which meant I ended up well off the road, buried nose first in a snow bank. Which was, I decided, once I stopped moving, better than having ended up in the water that also surrounded me.

The first thing I did, of course, was call my Daddy.

"Babygirl, I'm at your place. Where are you?" he asked, and I could tell he had me on speaker.

"Daddy, you're gonna be really mad at me, but I'm fine."

Probably not the best way to preface the conversation, on second thought.

"Tahlia. Tell me where you are." I'd only ever heard him use that voice with his men when he wasn't happy with them.

"I'm—I'm off the road. Kinda at the beginning of—or in—the Route 9 salt flats, but there's so much snow around that I'm kinda buried."

"Are you all right? Are you injured?" He went from Lt. Commander to Daddy in a split second. The concern that was rife in his voice was almost enough to bring me to tears.

"Yeah, I'm fine."

"Good. Then stay put. I'll come find you. In the meantime, can you reach the emergency stash in the back? The blankets'll at least keep you warm."

"Uh…" I could have, if it hadn't been a casualty of me needing space in my tiny car to bring stuff over to his place. I think it was in my spare bedroom, being absolutely no help to me whatsoever at the moment.