CHAPTER44
Smooth move, Carrero.
The motion makes me laugh again, and I like how it sounds. I never giggle like this. It feels very unlike me in every way. I’ve turned into a giggler with zero control over it.
“You stay like that while I make you a drink. Tea? Water?” he asks.
“Brandy!” I never liked the stuff at all, it burns going down, but it did start to taste good after the third one, and the side effects are positively awesome.
“No, Emma. No more alcohol.” He sounds stern, bossy, and paternal, like a father should. It brings sperm donor back to the forefront of my swirling thoughts.
“Why didn’t he want me, Jake?” I query sadly. I talk to the ceiling; it feels a bit like I’m lying on a shrink’s couch, like in the movies when sad people talk to psychiatrists in stark offices on green couches and stare at boring ceilings. I note the ceiling no longer looks smooth and creamy; it looks shitty.
Maybe Jake could be my shrink.
“Because he’s an idiot. Not all men are cut out to be fathers.”
I catch the sound of the clink of glasses or mugs.
That’s true. See, he’s a good shrink … he seems to understand.
“What’s wrong with me?”
That’s a good question to ask a shrink, as I want to know.
His face appears above me and I jump a little in fright; I wasn’t expecting him so suddenly, maybe it wasn’t sudden. I have been taking long pauses to daydream between replies. This is a weird angle, but even down here he looks gorgeous.
Why can’t you look ugly from at least one angle, Carrero? Even the odds up a little. Maybe have a double chin or something.
“Nothing. You deserve so much more than someone like him.” He seems serious, and just hot. Too hot.
“I’m part of him. I have his blood … but he didn’t want to know me,” I sigh dejectedly as he moves from above me and onto the couch beside me; he slides a glass which clinks with ice onto the low table to my left for me. He sits near my head so he can look down at my face, and he’s no longer smiling. He seems blank.
“Does he want to know you now? Is that why he called?” He frowns once more, watching me pensively.
“He wants money,” I point out as a matter of fact.
Yes, as much as he can lay his grubby little hands on. Filthy, scum bag, gold digger.
“Money?” he says with a tone of surprise, pausing and watching me.
“He thinks I’m loaded because I’m always in the papers … with you. Probably thinks we’re in love.” I laugh at this little fact, but Jake doesn’t laugh; he just goes on watching me and sipping from his own mug, before looking lost in thought. I can smell coffee and guess he’s not drunk at all.
“Why are you chewing your lip like that?” I ask him, reaching up and prodding him gently in the dimple again. Jake has a touchable face. I’ve never noticed before how much his face cries out to be touched; there’s a beauty about his features, even with his designer stubble, that makes my fingers itch to trace the lines and curves. He has a dimple on each side that should be investigated.
“I’m thinking, Emma. Stop poking me in the face, woman,” he chides with a frown; I push at it a little harder with my finger, irritated at him calling me ‘woman’."
