The Fling

47

The door alarm followed by the familiar voice of my stepdaughter sent me into a panic. "Oh my god! It's Lizzie!" I squeaked as I ran into my room, grabbed my bathrobe from the closet, and threw it on. "Get dressed while I greet her."

Shawn started scrambling, pulling things from his overnight bag while I took a deep breath and proceeded to the staircase. Lizzie was standing at the bottom staring with wide eyes at our pile of discarded clothes. This included my panties and Shawn's boxer-briefs, which landed landed side by side on the bottom step. "Shit," I muttered to myself, feeling very much like I had when my mom caught me and my boyfriend dry-humping on the couch twenty-two years earlier.

She looked up at me with an expression of horror. "Oh god...you were...I should have called, but Mom and I had a fight and I...this is too weird. I'm gonna leave."

I ran down the stairs and stopped her before she opened the front door. "No! It's fine!" I gathered up all our clothes. "Give me a minute to get dressed and then we can sit down and talk."

"Are you sure?" she asked, her voice choking on tears.

"Yes! You know you are welcome any time. This is still your home! I'll be right back."

I hurried up to my room where I found Shawn sitting on the bed. He looked at the clothing in my arms and groaned. "Did she see those?"

"They were pretty hard to miss." I went in my bathroom and peed since that was necessary after sex. Then I hastily put on what I'd been wearing before, though I grabbed some fresh panties from my dresser since the pair I had on before were damp.

"Do you think she knows?"

I snorted. "She's not stupid, Shawn. Of course she knows and she's mortified. Be thankful she didn't arrive a few minutes earlier!"

"I'll just stay up here."

"That's fine for now since she wants to talk to me about something, but you can't avoid her forever."

"I know, but I can avoid her today," he countered.

"Not if she ends up staying here. And besides, it's not like she didn't already know we have sex. It's embarrassing, but it isn't the end of the world."

I went down to the main level and couldn't find Lizzie at first. My heart sunk as it crossed my mind that she'd left, but then I heard a loud "woof" and saw through the window that she was on the patio with Cosmo.

"I'm sorry," she said meekly when I sat down on the lounge chair next to hers. "I'll text first next time. I really don't want to ruin your weekend alone with Shawn."

"You aren't ruining anything. Tell me what's going on."

She went into a lengthy explanation about how her mom's boyfriend wanted to borrow her car because his had a flat. She told him no since technically it belonged to Bert, and her dad would get mad if she let anyone else drive it. The boyfriend stormed off, and then her mother called her a spoiled entitled brat, so Lizzie left.

"I know I'm privileged, but I try not to live my life thinking I deserve more than others. I can't help that my dad is rich!" the teen sobbed.

"She had no right to call you names," I said as I moved over to her chair so I could comfort her. "I'm really sorry that she hurt you."

"I feel like no one ever puts me first. My mom took off when I was little and still treats me like crap, Dad broke up our family, and now you have your life with Hannah and Bertie...and obviously Shawn. Reagan tolerates me, but mostly she just uses me as a cute accessory for her social media posts. That's why she wanted my birthday party to be so insane. Dad is in his own world these days and barely acknowledges me, which is why I came here today. Why can't I be anyone's priority?"