Page 13 of Hotwife
My father’s face went slightly blanch with either embarrassment or confusion, and I had to bite my lip to keep from laughing. “Yes,” he cleared his throat. “Well, we don’t want to keep you all night. Speaking of work, I speak on behalf of the church. We are very thankful for your assistance.”
“The pleasure’s all mine, Theodore. I should really get going,” Cedric replied, shooting me a glance. “It was nice to meet you, Dorthea.”
“Go on and get changed, Dolly,” my mother ushered me towards the stairs. “We’ll get your jacket dry cleaned and to you-”
Mom’s voice trailed off as I padded up the stairs. Somehow spared from the scolding and embarrassment of being caught in booty shorts and a crop top, however, blushing all the same. Dr. Winslow was…
“Dolly!” Odie wrapped her arms around me. “How much trouble are you in? I wanted to listen on the stairs, but you know they creak and I heard the other man’s voice-”
Placing my hands on her shoulders, I interrupted her anxious moment. “Odie, chill. I’m fine. The guy, Doctor- Cedric. He kind of saved my ass…” His jacket came down to my knees, and I nuzzled my nose into the collar. He smelled like leather and pine.
“Is that his coat? Oh, my gosh… you’re into him!” My sister shrieked. “Is he actually under eighty years old? It would be the one time dad lets us skip out on dinner where he actually brings a hot guy our age.”
“Keep your voice down!” I whispered, though I was grinning so hard my cheeks hurt. “I don’t know how young. He doesn’t look that old. Like, mid-twenties, maybe? But yeah, he’s got this really smart sexiness about him.” Shrugging off his jacket, I carefully laid it on my bed as if it were made of silk, before stripping off my wet clothes and pulling on a baggy night dress.
My sister perched on a stool by the open window. “Do you think Mom and Dad went to bed?”
“Yeah, seemed like they were wrapping things up when I came up here. Why?”
“Because there’s still a very fancy car parked out front.”
“What!?” I squealed, stumbling over shoes and blankets while my sister giggled at the window. Pulling the curtains open, I gasped. It wasn’t only a fancy car.
“Oh, did I forget to mention the fancy man standing next to it? Must have slipped my mind…”
Red filled my cheeks as Cedric met my eyes with a half smile. Ducking out of sight, I promptly punched my sister in the arm.
“Ow!” she yelped between giggles. “Go talk to him. The parents are asleep, but I’ll stand watch anyway.” She crossed her arms and raised a strawberry blonde eyebrow. She knew she owed me from all the times I’d covered for her and Steven making out. Though I wouldn’t be making out with this guy, I was curious to talk to him more.
“Fine, but don’t watch. It’s weird,” I said, not bothering to slip on shoes before tiptoeing out of our room.
“No promises!” she called after me sarcastically, and I rolled my eyes. Carefully avoiding every mapped out screech of the stairs and the kitchen floor, I lifted the back door and slid outside.
“Why hello again,” Cedric said, leaning against his car like some eighties heart-throb. He didn’t have a southern accent like most people from around here. In fact, he didn’t have an accent at all.
“Thought I’d check on you, Dr. Winslow,” I said, stepping through the wet grass to his car. “Few quote scriptures at my Dad and live to tell the tale.”
“Cedric,” he replied, chuckling low in his throat. “I knew that theology class I took in college would pay off someday.” He pulled out a box from his pants and put a cigarette to his lips before extending the box to me. “Besides, I’m opening a free pop-up medical clinic to your Dad’s church and the community. So I think he’ll be able to look past my bad attitude.” He winked as I pulled a cigarette from the box.
“You smoke? Aren’t doctors supposed to be all, I don’t know, holier than thou?” I sucked in as he cupped the cigarette and brought the flicker of a lighter-flame forward. His finger lightly brushed my cheek, making me tingle in excitement just as the first inhale of nicotine hit my throat.
“Aren’t reverend’s daughters supposed to be good girls?” he responded, and I swallowed in surprise. After lighting his own and blowing off a long puff of smoke, he stared at the sky for a moment. It was a gloriously clear night, each star so pronounced. The cicadas sang a chorus in the night while a few stray fireflies lingered, glowing every few moments. It was as if a few stars had fallen down and were floating among us.
Good girl.
Brushing off my sexual attraction, which was making every word and movement this man made some sort of innuendo, I blew my own puff of smoke into the heavens. “Clearly you’ve never seen Footloose,” I raised an eyebrow, and he chuckled. “I guess we’re both not what we’re supposed to be.”
“I don’t know you very well yet, Dorthea, but I kind of like you the way you are,” he said, casually putting out his cigarette and looking down at me. “Anyone who does so many things their parents disapprove of must be working damn hard to retain some sort of individuality. I think that’s commendable. Not many people have that kind of strength. It’s easier to just conform to what people expect of you. Not so easy to break outside the box, try something new, different.” He shrugged, leaning back on his car and looking up at the sky again.
My heart swelled. This man had known me for all of an hour and saw me in a brighter light than my own family, who’d known me for nineteen years, had.
“You can just call me a brat. That’s fine,” I said darkly, and he chuckled again. I grinned, realizing I was beginning to love the sound of his laughter. I loved the feeling of making him laugh.
“What’s that over there?” he asked, nodding toward the shed. Half of Ariel sat in the open shed… and the other half sat strewn along the lawn.
I cringed. “That’s Ariel. I bought her from a junkyard and I’m trying to fix her up so I can get out-” I stopped myself, realizing my filter had slipped. “So I can go on a road trip,” I finished softly, looking down at the ground.
Cedric eyed me before nodding. “Looks like an Oldsmobile, is that right? You know, I know a bit about cars. I could come by tomorrow and have a look, if you’d like that?”