I shook my head and frowned, wiping tears with the inside of my shirt. What the hell was he getting at?
“Yeah, okay. So. Damn. This makes me sound really desperate, but I’m not. I could get women every day of the week. Look at me. That’s not the problem.”
Blake boasted on his good looks. Don’t flatter yourself stud. You’re not all that.
“Okay, so you know how we agreed on five hundred a week plus room and board, right? What if we added something to it and I sweeten the pot a little? Say another four hundred a week? That’s nine hundred dollars a week. That’s a lot of money, Makayla.”
I finally managed to form a sentence behind the emotional breakdown, “Are you offering to pay me for sex?”
“Well, I don’t know if I’d put it that way. Okay, yes. I am. There. It’s out. I would like to pay you to keep me entertained here at home. I’m tired of dragging chicks here and I’m tired of the whole scene period. But… I am still a man. If you’d be willing to take care of a few needs, maybe we can work out a trade. I just need something easy without all the attachments.”
I don’t know what happened after that. Maybe it was combination of the emotions burning raw from my mom, or maybe it was what I said I’d never do. I would never become someone’s whore. Not even for this. When I really think about it, I wonder if it wasn’t the rejection I felt from Blake. He was offering to pay me to have sex with him. I guess what I thought was between us, wasn’t really there at all. I felt even more hurt all of a sudden. I jumped up and tried to run past him. Why did I feel rejected? I didn’t even like him.
“Whoa, Makayla. What’s going on? What’s wrong?”
Oh God.
No.
Not Blake.
UGH!
It just had to be him. I clung to Blake and cried in his hard chest while his arms tightly comforted me. Four years of pain and suffering boiled out right there in Blake’s embrace. Stupid, stupid, girl. His lips kissed my hair while he hushed me with his hands rubbing up and down my back. Seconds turned into at least ten minutes while I exalted every last tear.
“I’m so sorry,” I finally spoke once the emotions were under control. Oh lord. What did I do now? I tried to get the hell away from him, but he stopped me.
Lifting my chin with a pinch, Blake stared into my swollen, lost eyes, “Who broke you, Makayla?”
“Life,” I said, pulling away from his touch. Blake delicately took my hand and moved his eyes to the work up and down my arm.
“Is this your life?” he asked, running the back of his fingers down the inside of my arm, over the different symbols, memories, and black rain from my tears. I jerked away from him again. Succeeding, I ran to my safe room and to the shower. Fortunately Blake didn’t come after me. Jesus. What the hell was that? Not only had Blake Coast just asked me to have sex with him for money, I just ugly cried all over his shirt. Come on, Mikki. Really?
Once I was finished with my ritual evening shower, I crawled in to bed, shaking my head. How could I be so stupid? How could he be so stupid? Sex? Money? What?
My mind continued the chaos into wee hours of the morning. What was I going to tell him about my outburst? Once I had a nice little lie made up for that breakdown, I thought about the proposition. That one didn’t have an easy answer. I wasn’t even sure he was serious. Yeah. That was it. He was drunk. But what if he wasn’t? What if he was serious?
Blake was up and out of there before I woke Saturday morning. I spent the day alone, reading, doing homework and missing Pea. God I missed her. It wasn’t until she was due home Sunday that I finally had to face Blake. He managed to stay gone the entire weekend, probably with Felicia.
I was jumping with joy when I finally buzzed her up.
“What are you doing?” Blake asked when I opened the door.
“Waiting for Pea. Why?” I asked curious.
“That’s not necessary. I can retrieve her.”
“I don’t care about retrieving her. I want to hug her and kiss her and tell her how much I missed her. Don’t you?”
“I don’t pay you to get attached. You can go,” Blake said, ordering me to my room with a nod. I listened only because I knew it was her, the mother. I assumed he wanted to talk to her. My nosey little self stood right around the corner and listened.
I didn’t get to listen to anything, but I did get a good look. Yeah she was hot, but she was also a snobby high class bitch. If her nose got any higher she would be looking at the sky while her fancy ass walked.
I squealed when Pea came right to me. She was looking for me. I picked her up and hugged her tight, “I missed you,” I squealed, not caring if Blake or Farrah heard me. I did miss her.
“This is our new nanny,” Blake said when I stepped out, holding their child.
“You’re kidding?” She distastefully said, eyeing my holy, baggy jeans. The ones I came there in.
“Don’t even start, Farrah. You’re the one who doesn’t ever see her. You can’t have a say in who I hire for her when you won’t do anything to help with her. Shared parenting means we share her. You don’t get to just show up once every few months and spoil her with stuff,” Blake argued.
“You could at least hire someone that can teach her something.”
“You mean like foreigners who only speak Spanish? Or ones that don’t read to her, potty train her, teach her to talk?” I spat out.
“You’re the one that taught her to talk like that? She was fighting dinosaurs with the maid’s broom. What is that teaching her?” The snotty bitch asked.
“Just take her upstairs, Makayla,” Blake ordered with a stern, straight finger, warning me to shut up.
I closed my big mouth just in time and walked right past both of them. She didn’t even stop me to say goodbye to Pea. Neither one of them deserved her. As much as I told myself not to get attached, the way she was treated by her own parents made me attached even more. I couldn’t imagine my own mother treating me this way. She would have done anything in the world for me. Blake and Farrah didn’t even want her. Why would they bring an unwanted child into this messed up world?
I sat with Pea while she played in a tub of water, talking in broken sentences about fish under the bubbles. I tossed the stupid frilly dress into the laundry for the maid and dressed her in pink cotton pants and a comfortable normal shirt.
Ten
Blake was nowhere to be found when we returned to the kitchen. I made Pea some macaroni and cheese and sat with her at the island while she ate it. We read Sally’s Cousin Sue, and snuggled on the couch and then went to bed. In my bed. Pea wasn’t about to go upstairs; she was staying with me. I guess she missed me too.
My thoughts still roamed, and I had a hard time sleeping, but Pea did help. Having her in bed with me kept me from thinking anything too dark. I didn’t see the grim like skeleton of my mother. I saw a small little miracle that I had fallen madly in love with.
I wasn’t sure I’d slept at all until Pea let me know that I had. My eyes opened first, right after I felt the warm liquid flow up my shirt, covering my ribs. Oh, man. Piss? Really?
“Pea, wake up,” I called, shaking her, “Pea! Come on, wake up,” I grumbled and then dragged my wet self out of bed and showered—again, before going to find clean clothes for Pea and sheets for the bed.
I stepped up the first step and then spun around¸ remembering the new pajamas folded on the dryer. I screamed when my body turned right into Blake. Blake in black tight, boxer briefs. Did I say tight? Whoa…
“Pea peed,” I said, jerking my head from the bulge.
My mind screamed for me to move my flat hands from his bare chest, but they never listened. Neither did my eyes. They wouldn’t move from my hands touching him. At least that was better than his crotch. The silent seconds we stood chest to chest abruptly ended when I realized something.
Blake’s hands were on me too. The realization hit me when I realized they were up the back of my shirt. His thumb swayed on my skin and I jumped back, tr
ipping on the bottom step. Landing on my ass, Blake went with me, pretending to save me. I swallowed hard, staring up to this mostly naked man with an open mouth. What the hell was this? My hands were suddenly clammy, my saliva dried up, one of my hands refused to leave his chest, and my eyes stayed entranced with his.
I think my eyes actually closed when he leaned into me and pulled me up. I licked my lips, swallowed the dry lump, and stepped around him.
“You shouldn’t walk around like that,” I lectured.
Blake snorted a little, “You’re in a shirt and panties.”
“Oh yeah, but I wasn’t expecting you to be out here.”
“It doesn’t matter. I’ve seen you walking around my house like this many times. Security cameras.”
“But you said you can only see the foyer, the front door,” I questioned, holding down on my tee-shirt.
“No, I said the front rooms, this entire area,” Blake motioned with his hand, showing me everywhere I’d walked around where he could see. Great. Now he was going to think I did it on purpose.
“Okay, we’ll both wear more clothes. Goodnight.”
“Can we talk?”
“No, it’s the middle of the night. Your daughter just pissed the bed. You could go take care of that if you want,” I offered. I wasn’t having that conversation. My mind was already fuzzy enough. It didn’t need anything else to wrap it around.
“Me? What am I supposed to do?” He asked with a perplexed stare while poking himself in the chest with his thumb. The same chest I’d just had my hands on. The same defined, naked chest. Sigh.
“Forget it. I got it,” I said, getting the hell out of there before some other unidentified emotion hit me. Holy cheese and crackers…
It wasn’t until I was back in my room with the door shut that I remembered what I’d gone out there for to begin with. After waiting a few minutes, I ran out, grabbed sheets from the linen closet, picked up the clean pajamas, and ran back.
Once I had Pea all cleaned up with fresh sheets, I laid beside her and blew out a puff of air.
What the hell just happened here?
Blake was nowhere to be found the following day. Pea and I went to Ms. Bartley’s and got a new book and a pack of ink pens, ate lunch downstairs in the dining room and walked around the gardens by the pool. Pea was back to being a toddler in no time. I swear she was the funniest kid in the universe.
I hysterically laughed at her when I asked her if she wanted to walk out to the fountain out front and make a wish. Nobody did that but us, but we didn’t care. Pea continued to walk around the garden, not missing a step.
“No, I already did that in nineteen fifty four.”
“What?” I laughed so hard I almost peed my pants. Where she got this stuff was beyond me, but I sure was glad she was home.
Pea and I were in pajamas getting ready to snuggle on the couch when Blake got home earlier than I expected. Pea stood with the book in her hand and stared up at him. I smiled at the way she looked. Her new pajamas with ice cream cones splattered about were too big. The sleeves covered her fingers and she dragged the legs behind her. I raised the blanket and she crawled to my lap snuggled in. She looked over to Blake with big eyes and sighed when he sat. What went through her mind, I will never know. It was almost like she was wishing he hadn’t come home.
I wasn’t happy he was home either, I was pissed, we had plans and he was ruining them. We were going to read a book and then Pea was going to fall asleep in my arms while we watched whatever she wanted to watch. I loved it when she fell asleep in my arms. I loved the way her little arms and legs wrapped around me when she fell asleep.
Pea and I both stared over at him, “What’s going on?”
“Mikki read a book.”
“She really is talking a lot,” Blake noticed.
“She,” I said using finger quotations in the air, “Is right here. Who are you talking to? Talk to her.”
Pea watched him too with raised eyebrows. Even at three she knew he was like a fish out of water. He didn’t belong there and he was messing up our date.
“What are you doing for her birthday? Should I plan a party for her?”
“Why? Who would come? She’s not even going to know what’s going on. That’s not what we need to discuss. You’re avoiding my proposition.”
“You’re an idiot, and no, I have it right here in the front of my brain. Don’t worry, it’s in bright neon colors. I didn’t forget, but that is not more important than a birthday party for Pea. She’s going to be three. She should have balloons and presents and clowns.”
“I no like a cwon,” Pea reminded me. She wasn’t joking. The fear of clowns was a true phobia. I avoided crossing 3rd and Lincoln for that particular reason. The clown selling balloons sent Pea climbing my leg.
“No clowns, Pea,” I promised, linking her pinking finger with mine. She giggled when I jerked it in a shake. God I loved her.
“I told you to stop calling her Pea. Her name is London,” Blake reminded me for the millionth time.
“Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why is her name London? Where did she get her name?”
“What do you mean? She got it from her mother.”
“But there’s always a reason. Everyone’s name means something, like mine, Makayla is after a strong piano player from England. She came to the states in 1921 alone at the age of eighteen to play at the Orchestra Hall in Chicago. Makayla Ferguson. Do you know her? My mom started playing because of her. She was amazing. Anyway, ‘The Princess and the Pea’. That means something.”
“You were named after Makayla Ferguson?”
Although I probably shouldn’t have been, I was impressed. I mean the guy did have an August Förster piano, sitting there.
“Yes, who were you named after?”
“My father. Are you saying P like as in the letter, or are you saying pea like in the story?”
“Figure it out. Do you want to read it to her?”
“No, go ahead. And you need to stop avoiding the needed conversation. I approached you with a deal. Do you want it or not?”
“My mom is the one that started calling me Mikki. It matched with hers. We were Mikki and Vikki.”
“Makayla—,” Blake chastised.
“What if I say no?”
“That’s your call, but I am going to find someone that is willing to fill those shoes. It’s best for me right now with everything going on at work. It’s a mad house right now. You just never know who to trust.”
My eyes widened a little, wondering if he was talking about me. Did he already know who I was? Was he the one playing me?
“So you’re just going to hire some w.h.o.r.e to take care of your child?” I asked, spelling out the word Pea wouldn’t forget.
“No, I’m going to hire a nanny to take care of London and me at the same time. I don’t have it in me to deal with women right now.” I would have liked to have called his bluff, but I was afraid it wasn’t a bluff. I was almost certain he could find someone to do just that, someone who would treat Pea like the last one did, or the way these horrid parents treated her.
“That’s what I was afraid of,” I admitted with a heavy sigh. Pea giggled when the penguin’s feet went into the air and he slid across the ice on his butt. At least she was paying attention to the silly penguins she’d seen a million times and not us. I smiled down at her not understanding why her dad’s heart wasn’t melting at the sound of her laughter. You couldn’t help but smile at her. Blake could. He never even looked at her. His stone cold eyes stayed on me, waiting for a response.
“I have some conditions,” I finally spoke.
Blake sat up a little straighter, looking shocked. Damn. I gave in too soon. “Really? I mean, yeah. Sure. Okay. I have some of those too,” he blabbered. That was the first time I’d seen Blake knocked off his game.
“We’ll talk about it when Pea’s asleep.”
“Will you stop calling her that?”
/> “Probably not. It means something. You have no idea how special this little girl is. London is nothing more than fancy name for rich people. It means nothing to you but a name.”
“You have no idea where I came from.”
“And I don’t care. I care about where you’re going. You have a child here who doesn’t even know who you are.”
“Stop, Makayla. We’re not having this conversation. She knows exactly who I am. Ask her.”
“I didn’t say she doesn’t know you use the title dad without knowing how to use it.”
“Then where is your dad, smarty pants? I don’t see him here saving you. Where’s your hero, Makayla?”
“I wasn’t special either,” I said, taking Pea’s hand.
“You women really are insane. I’m going to shower. We’ll continue this conversation once she’s asleep,” Blake said, standing. I watched his long legs take the steps two at a time. No goodnight Pea or anything. I guess I wasn’t surprised by this point in time. I expected it. I just didn’t understand it.
Pea watched too and then opened the book, “Let’s read a book.”
“Once upon a time there was a prince who wanted to find a princess, but she would have to be a real princess,” I began.
“That’s me.”
“It’s always you,” I said kissing her head. She always said that. Every time.
“Yes, it’s always you.”
***
The sound of a car door pulled me back to the now, that and my heart going crazy again. I jumped up and peaked out the window. It was Quinn, walking back inside from his truck. I knew he was in his truck because the dome light was still on. I crawled back in bed with Pea and relaxed.
“I love you sweet girl,” I whispered, pulling her close to my chest. I did love her. I loved her so much and I wasn’t about to let her go back to those people. I’d die trying to save her from that if I had to. We had come too far to let Quinn Ford stop us now. I had to think of something. I needed a pen, or three.