Page 20 of Callow
“Can I suggest something?” I said as I poured the coffee.
“What?” Daphne asked as I brought the coffee to her, then went to grab the cream and sugar.
“Start thinking of the ways you’re going to make this up to your mother,” I said. “You’ve been a real pain in her ass, in case no one has been straight enough to tell you that.”
“You don’t understand—“
“No, you’re right. I don’t. Got a mom busting her ass to try to give you a good life. And all you’re giving her is grief? I don’t get that shit.”
“She doesn’t let me do anything.”
“Pretty sure not letting you sneak into bars and hang out at biker clubhouses makes her a good mom, not a bad one.”
“She just doesn’t want me to have fun because she doesn’t have any either.”
Christ. I hoped to fuck I wasn’t so dramatic at her age.
“Maybe she’s just too tired from working all day and tracking your ass down to have any energy to have fun,” I suggested. “Ever think that if you went easier on her, she might go easier on you?”
“All she wants is for me to hang out with Allie.”
“What’s wrong with Allie?”
“She’s just… lame. All she wants to do is hang out at home and study. She’s boring.”
Sounded like the kind of kid I’d want my kid to hang with too. Though, yeah, I could see why Daphne was looking to branch out. I’d been looking for interesting new experiences at her age too. And, from the sounds of it, so had Sabrina. Until a pregnancy forced her to grow up quick.
“You know, the way I remember it, your mom was trying to give you a longer leash, let you earn back some trust. Only to have you ditch your friends and show up here.”
To that, Daphne had no comeback, knowing she’d been in the wrong.
“Cal,” Sully called. “Gird your loins. Pretty mama is on her way in.”
Here we go.
CHAPTER FIVE
Sabrina
It was a shitty work day after a shitty work week after a shitty work month.
I honestly didn’t know if my boss was riding my ass more than usual, or if I was just more sensitive to it because I was already so stressed out with Daphne.
She was stuck in the house again for the time being. But she still managed to give me a lot of grief and some new sorts of headaches.
I mean, two nights ago, I walked in to find her watching some… mildly adult of content on her laptop. Only to learn it was adult content being made by that new friend of hers. Who was, apparently, killing it with her porn subscription service.
Which left me in a fun new parental position where I had to try to remain sex (and sex-worker) positive, but also impress upon myimpressionabledaughter that A, she was too young to look at that stuff and B, that she herself was absolutely under no circumstances going to film any sort of content of herself.
The conversation devolved into her calling me a prude and shaming Tammy for ‘getting her bag.’
Honestly, when I heard what Tammy was making, I was almost convinced that I, myself, was in the wrong field.
I figured it wasn’t exactly the right time to tell my kid that I expected her to go to college and get a job where she, you know, kept her clothes on.
I hadn’t been scrimping and saving and shopping sales and wearing clothes from sixteen years ago to get a decent college savings going for her only for her to not go.
But the college talk was going to wait for when she wasn’t so actively volatile.