Page 32 of Off Limits
Jean-Luc would be furious if he saw Kye’s big Jeep Rubicon backing out of the driveway, and me waving to him.
Or then again, maybe he wouldn’t be. If Jean-Luc cared who drove me home from school, he wouldn’t have stopped doing it himself.
I don’t leave my room when I hear Jean-Luc come home, or when I smell dinner wafting up from the kitchen, and he doesn’t call me down, either. For two weeks now, we’ve been politely ignoring each other, never acknowledging that I walked in on him in the shower, or that we made out. Never discussing anything at all. It’s heartbreaking and sad and I don’t know how to fix what’s gone wrong. I just keep telling myself that it’s a better abandonment than being left in Melanie’s apartment, that at least there’s food and electricity here—but is this better? Are these my choices? The lesser of two abandonments?
Around ten o’clock I hear him climb the stairs; his steps familiar as he walks down the hall. He closes his bedroom door and I lie in bed on my back, staring at the ceiling. I usually don’t go to sleep this early but I’m too bored to stay awake.
I slow my breath and listen intently for some sign of Jean-Luc—the shower running, or the creak of floorboards as he paces in his room, but this whole damn house is so soundproof.
I wish I knew what he was doing. Does he read? Does he…touch himself?
The memory of him in the shower floods me with heat, as it has so many times over the past two weeks. Jean-Luc is a fit man. I always knew he was, but I can’t remember the last time I saw him without a shirt on, let alone naked.
And that cock. Oh my God, the length and girth of it. The slight spasm I could see in his hand as he came. I squirm at the memory, the roll of my hips causing a pleasant warmth, not tempered in the slightest by the guilt I also feel. If I didn’t keep fantasizing about him, then none of this would have happened. Things never would have gotten weird.
But right now, feeling lonely and dejected, it’s the old relationship I had with Jean-Luc I want. I want the Jean-Luc who loved me. The Jean-Luc who is my father.
I toss and turn for a while longer, contemplating a scary idea. He’s right next door. Unlike Melanie, who left me to go to New Mexico, Jean-Luc is only a few feet away. He’s right there. And maybe, instead of letting this Cold War between us go on, I need to bite the bullet and face him. Since I have no other option left, why shouldn’t I beg for his love? Certainly it’s better to try when there’s nothing left to lose anyway.
Taking Bunners with me for emotional support, I flip the covers back off my bed and pad out into the hallway to the giant wood door of Jean-Luc’s room. The sound of my bare feet is muted by the wooden floors. ‘It’s the tension of the wood,’ Jean-Luc had explained once. As if that would make sense to anyone who’s not an architect.
“Dad?” I whisper, as I tiptoe into his room, involuntarily invoking memories of the last time I called out his name in this room, seconds before opening the bathroom door…
The room is pitch-black, and I pick my way towards the bed by memory, blinded as my eyes adjust to the dark. “Dad?”
“Dani?” he mumbles, and I sense, more than see his movement from the bed. “Is everything okay?”
With a click, the bedside lamp turns on, and I see Jean-Luc squint against the light he’s not acclimated to.
He’s sitting up, the covers around his waist but his chest and torso bare, and I’m struck, for a moment, at the sight of his body. His thick, defined muscles, tanned skin, and the dark hair over his chest and forearms. He’s so masculine, so strong, and noticing this gives me a kind of pride. He’s my daddy. And he’s the best daddy.
It’s a childish thought, and I’m suddenly self-conscious about the fact that I’m standing in his room in my sleep shorts, holding a stuffed bunny by its ears, waking him up in the night because I need something. Because I’m scared. It’s a position I’ve been in many times before, but usually my mother was lying in the bed beside him, trying to sleep through my intrusion.
This time, her side of the bed is empty.
“Can I sleep with you?” I ask impulsively. I want to be near him. More than anything, I want us to move past everything that’s happened and just be close again. I want my dad.
“What’s wrong?” he asks, but I persist.
“Please, Dad? Can I sleep with you?”
“Of course.” He frowns, confused and concerned, as I walk around to my mother’s side of the bed and slide under the covers. “What’s going on, sweetheart?”
He turns on his side to face me, worried eyebrows pinched together.
“I just…feel sad,” I whisper, afraid to speak the words out loud. “I know some fucked up things happened, but can we please just go back to the way we used to be? Can we just forget it and go back to the way things were before?”
“Oh, honey.” His face collapses into sympathy, and he reaches a hand out to tuck a lock of hair behind my ear. “Oh, sweetheart. Of course. Please don’t feel sad.”
His words are a relief. His soft gaze, his finger as it grazes my cheek and runs behind my ear, his attention—it’s everything I want.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper.
He lifts himself up on his elbow, eyebrows raised. “Baby, you have nothing to feel sorry for. I’m the one who’s sorry. I’m sorry if I’ve made you feel alone. I’m just trying to give you space is all. I don’t want you to feel anything less than safe around me, do you understand? You’ll always be safe with me, I promise.”
Not safe? That’s the last thing I could ever feel around Jean-Luc. My eyes trail down the arm at his side—his thick bicep and powerful forearm. It’s unusual to see him without his watch on. The skin is lighter around his wrist, where he’s developed a tan line. “Why wouldn’t I feel safe around you?” I ask in surprise.
“Because of…the kiss.” He hesitates. “And what happened after. Because of what you saw in the shower. It’s not appropriate, the way I’ve acted with you.” He lifts a hand to his eyebrows and pinches the skin above his nose, like he has a headache. “I’m so sorry, sweetheart.”