had been so long since anyone had given two flying fucks about what I wanted or needed, I drew a blank. “Not… Not that I can think of, no. Just getting to be a sadist again and having my dick sucked sometimes is more than I’ve had in a long time.” And being touched at all, but for some reason I couldn’t say that part out loud.
Will nodded slowly. “All right. If you do think of something, speak up.” He brought his glass almost to his lips before he paused and added, “This isn’t just about me and Aaron.”
I swallowed. It shouldn’t have been a novelty. It really shouldn’t have. But after constantly feeling like everyone around me wanted to take, take, take and weren’t at all interested in giving me a damn thing or even cutting me some slack, it was dizzying to have someone thinking about me. I could still barely get my head around him being as gentle and affectionate as he’d been in the shower.
Idly running my finger around the rim of my glass, I said, “I’ll let you know. Right now, it’s just… I mean, this is great for me. The distraction from everything I need to do in that house…” I trailed off, not sure how to finish.
He studied me. “What do you need to do in it?”
“I, um…” I took a deep breath. “Okay, so, like I told you, my dad died suddenly a few months ago. In his will, he left the house to me.” Just saying the words wrung the last little bit of energy out of me. God, this was exhausting. “That whole thing is a long story in and of itself, but the pertinent part is that I’m still going through his stuff, trying to make the house mine, and just sort of…” I shifted uncomfortably, avoiding Will’s eyes. “Trying to figure out how to grieve someone I didn’t have a relationship with.”
I regretted the words as soon as they were out. I hadn’t meant to show quite this much of my hand quite this early, but there was no taking it back. I really didn’t want him and Aaron thinking I was an emotional basket case.
“He left you as a kid?”
“No, no.” I shook my head. “He raised me and my siblings. But things went sour between us a few years ago.” My voice was thicker than I expected as I said, “We didn’t get a chance to fix them before he was gone.”
“Wow,” he whispered. “I’m sorry to hear that.”
I shrugged tightly. “I mean, it is what it is. I’m just trying to figure out how to navigate it, you know?”
He tilted his head. “What about your mom?”
“She’s still alive, but I haven’t talked to her in…” I thought about it. “Since I was fourteen, so…eighteen years? My sister still keeps in touch with her, but I wrote her off and never looked back.” I laughed bitterly. “I can say a lot about my dad, but he wasn’t the deadbeat in that equation.”
Will watched me, and I could see the questions written all over his face. Or maybe I was projecting because so many other people asked the same questions when we got on the train of “why Kelly’s mom is out of the picture.”
I pushed out a long breath. “The thing is, my dad was a manipulative asshole to everyone. She was miserable being married to him. According to my dad, she didn’t want to be a mother, but…” I shook my head. “I don’t know. That came from him, so I take it with a grain of salt. What I do know is that Dad drove her up a wall, and when I was eleven, she packed up and left. Just…left. No warning, nothing. While we were at school, she called my dad and told him she was leaving. My siblings and I came home to an empty house with notes on each of our beds saying she loved us.”
“But she still left?”
I nodded. “She’d email us, and she called us once in a while, but we had no idea where she was for like a year. Once the divorce was final, she had custody of us over the summers. The summer after eighth grade, I went to stay with her, and I just… I mean, I hadn’t seen her and had barely talked to her in three years. I was so excited to finally see her, but once I was there, the resentment hit,