King's queen

chapter 7

~King~

I watched Addy close when she took the seat I had kicked. She tried to shrink into herself, to make her already tiny body so small she'd be invisible, so I'd stop pushing. "We are gonna make a trade, you and me. Yeah?" those huge brown eyes, the color of bitter dark chocolate, were watching me wearily. "I'm gonna tell you a story, about what a man and a father is supposed to do for his kids. Then you are gonna tell me about yours. Deal?" she didn't agree, just shrugged her shoulders in the universal teenage way.

"This stays between you and me." I told her. "What I'm about to tell you is not public knowledge. You take care of my little secret and I'll take care of yours. Agreed?" I cocked an eyebrow at her and she nodded. "Celeste isn't my kid." Addy gasped and her eyes met mine in surprise. I didn't give her a chance to ask questions, just went on opening up a little bit of my heart to try and pry hers open just a crack too. "The girl's mom and me hadn't been good for a long time. We were already in the process of getting divorced when she called me crying.

"The guy she'd been screwing around on me with for the last few years was leaving her. I didn't know why she thought her soon to be ex-husband would give a flying fuck about her heart break when shed stomped all over mine til she told me he was leaving because she was gonna have his baby and he wanted nothing to do with it. At least he offered to pay for the abortion, but Sammy liked to pretend to be a religious woman when the mood struck her, and she was against those things.

"So, she begged me not to go through with the divorce. To take her back and help her raise another man's baby. She didn't want the girls to know about her fuck up, didn't want to be a single mother. Said she realized what a good man I really was and wanted me back.

"I'm not a good man, Adelaide. I still divorced her. I didn't go out at three am to buy her weird ass food when she had a craving. I didn't sit at her bedside and hold her hand while she pushed that kid out, and I didn't cut the cord. It took nine months and two days for me to decide what I was going to do. In the end I showed up and signed the fucking birth certificate. Celeste has been mine ever since.

"I might not be a good man, but I'm a damn fine father. I'll be at every school concert, award ceremony, and dance thing. I'll kiss every boo-boo and I'll scare away the boyfriends who aren't good enough for her. I'll do it, because every little girl deserves that from her daddy." I finished my sorry tale and looked at Adelaide.

She was looking down at her hands and wringing them together. I was expecting her to start telling me her story in return. But she sniffled and looked up at me with tears shining in her eyes. Those huge pools of hot chocolate hit me harder than a punch to the gut. "You're not a good man," she sniffled. "I think you are a great one."

I gave a dark chuckle. This little girl had no idea the things I had done in my life. My streak of unholy terror started before she was born, and I didn't have any plans on ending it any fucking time soon. But I didn't tell her that. I just patted her knee with my big hand and said, "it's your turn little girl. What did you run from? What was it that put the look of a startled cat in your eyes every time you hear my Harley rev?"

"My dad is a biker." she admitted. "Mom died when I was 14, not that she was ever much of a mom to begin with. She might have been called dad's old lady, but it was more like she was his toy. One that he liked to share." she shuddered.

"If the ambulance hadn't gotten there in time, I probably would have been born in the strip club my father owns. I grew up there. The only thing, I think, either of them ever did right was put me in actual dance classes. I knew how to ride the pole by the time I could walk. So, when mom died it wasn't a big surprise when dad told me to jump up on the stage and take her place at the club.