Big Daddy

Chapter 3

chapter three

winnie

Flipping the newspaper open, I bite down on the Sharpie cap and yank it off, spitting it across the room. Spreading the paper across the coffee table, painfully covering up unread issues of Entertainment Weekly and Vogue , I ready my pen for options.

Ten minutes in and I’m pretty sure my red pen will dry the fuck up before I get to circle a damn thing.

I read past a slew of “General Help Wanted” ads for temporary gigs, one for long-term child care (snotty noses and dirty diapers? No thanks), and a few for part-time sales associates (no way). Nothing that will pay my loans and everything else. I mean, those jobs are soul sucking hourly jobs and I’m fine to get my soul sucked. The universe can suck me real good. That’s fine. But I need that sweet, sweet cash in return.

“Well, fuck,” I groan, dragging the end of the pen down the paper, reading on. “There has to be at least one thing I can apply for.” The silence of Brielle’s apartment grates on my frayed nerves, so I flip on the television, letting daytime TV fill in the space around me.

After reading through the entire first page of classified ads, I am utterly depressed and therefore require a treat to help me continue. Standing in front of Brielle’s open refrigerator, I tap my lip, my mouth watering at all the options.

Picking up a white box, I flip the lid and sniff up all the delicious scents of Cantonese food. “You’re a maybe,” I tell the Char Sui and noodles. Another container, another option. “Woof, B hasn’t had Italian in, like, weeks.” I do my bestie a favor and toss the moldy carbonara. The grease-stained brown paper bag at the back of the fridge grabs my focus, and I snatch it up, knowing just what it is.

Chicken tenders. Brielle never finishes them.

After “borrowing” a Diet Coke from her fridge, I grab the BBQ sauce bottle and plop down on the couch, bag of leftovers in my lap. I’m wrist deep in cold chicken when the lock on the front door twists. It’s mid-morning, and I know for a fact Brielle is at her apprenticeship.

That only leaves one other person it could be.

With a cold tender hovering at my lips, The View providing a soundtrack to the moment, the door swings open and Big Daddy steps inside, this time without groceries.

My stomach twists, likely at being caught in such a feral state. Old, cold food, sweats, unwashed hair, spread open wanted ads and daytime TV—it’s not a good look.

His gray eyes come to mine. I give the middle finger to the way my veins flood with fire under his gaze. With my mouth stuffed, I say, “What’s up, Big Daddy?” I point the crumbling chicken toward the TV. “Did you come to watch The View with me?”

He glances at the TV, pure disgust on his face.

“Don’t like this show?” I lean forward, dunking the chicken strip into the flood of BBQ squirted onto the paper bag. “Is it Joy?” I wrinkle my nose in disgust. “Or do you miss Babs? Probably helps to have someone your age on the show, huh?”

With a foul expression dusting his features, he narrows his gaze on me. Judgment radiates off him in palpable waves, I swear.

“Okay, so you’re not a fan of The View . Well, that’s fine.” I pick up the remote while the last bite of chicken dangles from my greasy lips. Flipping the channels, I stop on a rerun of Everybody Loves Raymond . On screen is the elderly father, Frank. A smirk curls my lips. “There, someone your age.” I pat the couch next to me. “Come sit. I’ll help you get back up, don’t worry.”

His glare is so hateful, I swear. Swiping my fingers on my sweats—because these are my bad sweats anyway—I get to my feet and stand in front of him, watching as his eyes trace out each stray, wild curl poking from my bun.

“I said,” I blurt, becoming egregiously and unreasonably loud, like he’s hard of hearing,“come sit down, Big Daddy.”

“I heard you just fine.” He glances at the TV where Frank now argues with his adult son, Raymond, then back at me. “Why are you here?”

I fold my arms over my chest, tapping my bare foot on the linoleum floor. “Why are you here?”

I know what he’s going to say before he says it, so as he says it, I mouth his answer.

“I pay for this place.”

His glare shouts at me.

“So what? You pay for it for Brielle . Not so you can pop in and check on her.” I unfold my arms and drag my ass back to the couch, where I fish out the last chicken strip, collect my red pen, and get back to hunting. He can stand there and watch if he wants, what do I care?

“So what? You come here and eat my daughter’s food, use her TV and… take naps?” he questions, his judgmental gaze resting on my messy bun as he says the last part.

I touch my hair. “Oh, this isn’t nap hair. This is day four unwashed curly hair. There’s a difference. So you can take your underhanded comment and stick it up your butt, Big Daddy.”

“ Why do you keep calling me that?”

I circle an ad for bookkeeping services, because it pays $22 an hour. Bookkeeping is like, what? Adding numbers in Excel? I can do that. “At first it was because Brielle hated it, and I love giving her a bad time.”

“Another stellar quality of friendship,” he deadpans, stuffing his very large hands in his suit pants pockets. He eyes me warily, motionless, a wall of unmoving, intimidating handsome man.

“Anyway,” I continue, rolling my eyes, because even though Brielle has told me every painstaking detail of what a douche her dad is, still, he’s managing to exceed my douchey expectations. Hot or not. “The name stuck.” Stealing my eyes from the black and white pages of despair, I glance up at him. “The Big was in reference to your overbearingness, but now that I’ve met you, I think it’s even more fitting.”

“Oh, do enlighten me,” he breathes, and I’m pretty sure he rolls his eyes too. Asshole.

“You’re a giant.” I wave my hand up and down the length of his body. I’m guessing he’s 6’2” or maybe even taller. That’s not hot at all. Nah. “Did you have to duck to get in here?” I ask, eyeing the doorframe, then him again. His nostrils flare with an irritated exhale, sending a burst of satisfaction through me. I love pissing off Big Daddy.

“Why are you here?” he asks, eyeing the newspaper, narrowing his eyes on the text in the red circle. He even twists his head a little, attempting to decipher which listing I circled and what it’s for. I close the newspaper and fold my arms over my chest.

“Why are you here?”

“I pay for this apartment.”

I sigh. “That is so played out. You’ve already said that, and you say it to Brielle all the time. We know, Big Daddy, you foot the bill.” I get to my feet, step up to him and pat his chest, condescendingly comforting.. “We’re all very impressed.”

His full lips split apart, and his nostrils flare again. I think I’m about to feel the wrath of Quincey Parker, something I’ve only heard about second-hand. But he only stares at me while removing one of his hands from his pocket, retrieving a rectangular card. Extending his hand, palm up, I look down to see his business card.

I look up. “I don’t need an attorney at law,” I tell him, reading his title off the cream-colored card. I tap the corner. “Didn’t peg you for a rounded edges guy. Nice touch.” I pluck it from his palm and bring it to my nose, inhaling. There’s no way a man like this prints scented business cards, I know this. But the annoyance filling in his face is totally worth it. “Ah, the last attorney I was with had cedar scented.” With a frown, I shake my head. “He was a lot younger though.”

“Turn it over,” he says through clenched teeth, the nerves and tendons in his jaw flexing, rage simmering in his stormy eyes.

“What for?” I glare back at him to prove he does not intimidate me. Though standing this close, I’m starting to realize, he does smell good. I can’t quite put my finger on what it is, but beneath my sweats, I’m clenching, my little clit gently thrumming. I will never tell Brielle that I got minorly turned on by Big Daddy, but I indulge in the moment a bit longer and take the card, flipping it over.

The writing is disastrous. “Are you sure you aren’t a doctor?”

He huffs. “It’s upside down.”

“Oh shit, yeah, I guess it is.” I look up at him, finding his eyes already resting easily on my face. “That’s why you’re the lawyer. Big brain.”

He rolls his eyes for the second time, and why does that make my insides staticky and jumpy a little? Oh yeah, because I’m attracted to jerks. Also why I’m single. Fucking a jerk can be fun, but loving one? Being in a relationship with one? Not so much.

Turning the card around, my mouth falls open as I read the words. I look up at him, feeling my brows furrow, leaving my forehead sunburn tight. “Who is Dr. Wilder?” I look at it again, seeing there’s a time and date scrawled beneath the name. “And why are you giving me this?”

For the first time maybe ever in this man’s life, he’s speechless. And maybe even slightly uncomfortable.

Clutching the knotted tie at his throat, he adjusts it and replies, chin slightly elevated. “That is an appointment for the best psychiatrist around. He’s booked out for a year, but I got that appointment.” He crooks his neck, inching nearer to me, the overwhelming scent of successful dickhead washing over, leaving me wet and achy. And kinda pissed off, too.

“Tomorrow. I got an appointment for tomorrow.” He leans back, taking that frustratingly arousing scent with him. I fix my narrowed eyes right on him.

“Am I supposed to give this to Brielle?” I ask, somehow knowing the answer but still so fucking confused.

“It’s for you.”

I say nothing, because he’s the one that needs to explain.

He doesn’t glance nervously around the space the way I expect him to. He doesn’t even falter with his words. “You were distraught yesterday. Very. And because you are my daughter’s closest ally and confidant, it’s best if you’re stable.”

“I am stable, asshole.”

He adjusts his already perfect tie again. “Stable people don’t cry while watching daytime TV in unwashed clothing, eating someone else’s old leftovers.”

Quick on my feet, I open my mouth for a snarky retort but one shake of his head stops me. I hate that it does but I can’t help it. His disapproval renders me silent for another moment, allowing him more ground to speak.

“Here,” he says, reaching into his pocket again, this time passing me a credit card that says PREPAID on it. “Fare to the office, as I am making an assumption you likely can’t afford to get there.”

“I don’t need your weird charity,” I tell him, wanting so deeply to just be offended. I mean, I am offended. But I’m also… god. I don’t even want to say it. But…

I’m also secretly, very, very, very deep down inside me in a suitcase double-zipped, touched .

Whether it’s because I’m his daughter’s ride or die, or not, he thought of me. And that’s just not something that happens to me all that often.

“You will pay me back for it once you’re on your feet. Does that suit you? Either way,” he says, tapping the card with his thick, long finger. For a moment, I wonder if he’s curled that finger inside of a woman and made her moan.

“I’m not going and I think you should leave.” I let the card drop to the floor as I fold my arms over my chest, glaring up at him.

His eyes drift back to the classified ads. “Are you out of work?”

“No,” I smile. “I write classified ads and I was just admiring my work.”

“Brat,” he mutters beneath his breath as he turns, heading toward the door, finally.

“If you’re so concerned with your daughter’s best friend being stable, maybe don’t call her a brat.”

With his large hand swallowing up the tiny gold door knob, Big Daddy looks over his shoulder at me, eyes smoldering. “I’ll call you a brat as long as you behave like one.” He looks at his fancy leather shoes then back at me one last time. “Goodbye, Winnie.”

He closes the door, and I give him the bird, because screw him and his attitude and assumptions.

Having someone to talk to would be nice, though.

From the coffee table, my laptop pings, the noise distinct. I pull it into my lap and sink into the couch. It’s my FeetFans account. Clicking the new message, I see it’s one of my former clients, looking for a set of photos. He’s offering $450 for six photos of my feet in mashed potatoes.

Letting out a sigh, I reply that I’ll post the photos later today. My eyes slide to the address on the business card. I don’t have plans tomorrow other than plucking my eyebrows and waxing my upper lip. Big day, I know.

Maybe I will go.

Then maybe I’ll pop in on Big Daddy the same way he pops in on me. Let’s see how much he likes it.