Daddy's Little Girl

52. Reconnecting

Hiii, I have a new book in the works.
It's a werewolf fantasy book.
It has a twist of forbidden romance and age gap just like this.

If you feel like that's something you might be interested in, kindly check it out!

I would really appreciate your feedbacks and reviews.

Thank you, and have an amazing weekend 🥂

Xoxo
Lucy.❤️

KEIRA'S POV

As I stood in front of Clint's door, the only thing I could think about was my encounter with that woman the last time I came here. She still irked me in some kind of way. I was mad at both of them and even if I had vowed to stay as far away from him as possible, here I was, waiting for him to answer the doorbell.

I could never escape Clint Homer. Something always led me back to him one way or another.

I waited for a few more minutes before pressing the doorbell again. What could make him take so long to answer the door? Did he have another woman in there? I would not even be surprised at this point. I would just be beyond pissed.

The door clicked open after waiting for what felt like hours but was only about five minutes.

He appeared at the doorway, his hair tousled and slightly untidy. The first four buttons of his shirt were opened and black pants hung on his waists.

His appearance contrasted the Clint I knew to be well put together.

"Come on in." He moved out of the way as I slipped into the living room, closing the door behind me. There was no woman in sight like I had expected. That would have been quite humiliating.

Still, I was mad at him about the woman from last time, so I kept my silence and did not speak. Where was she anyway? Clint would not have called me over if she was with him. It would not make any sense at all.

"I heard you dropped by," Clint said again. "You should have told me you were coming."

"Why? So I would not run into your girlfriend?" I huffed. Now I understood why he had said he did not want to be seen in public with me. But I was too stupid to take the hint.

"She is not my..." Clint trailed off with a sigh and held his forehead like he was developing a headache. And that was when I saw the bottle of alcoholic wine on his dining table, half drank, and a single glass beside it.

Why was he drinking? That was very much unlike him.

Clint did not have a slur in his speech or exhibited any behaviour that would indicate he had too much to drink. He only looked like he was in a bad state.

It was the first time seeing him this way and I felt bad about it. About everything.

"That is not why I called you here, Keira," he continued, dropping his hand from his forehead.

"Then why?"

He had suddenly agreed to arrange an appointment after ignoring me for so many days for reasons I could not say. Why did he have a change of heart?

"I know what you are thinking right now. You think I am an ass and a jerk." Clint picked up the wine bottle and put it away in his fridge. "You think I had replaced you with someone else and that is why I did not reach out."

I got tongue-tied. How did he know? "I do not think you are an ass or a jerk."

Well, I had initially thought that before now.

Clint leaned back on his fridge after closing it, keeping eye contact. "Then what do you think?"

I had so many thoughts that I could not pinpoint it to just one. It was hard to do so. For starters, I thought he was going through something that weighed him down from the looks of it. He had lost a bit of weight.

"Are you alright?" I asked out of concern, forgetting I was supposed to be mad at him. "You seem a little out of it."

That was an understatement.

Clint ignored my question and moved to take a seat on a couch, burying his face in his hands. Okay, something was not right. Did it involve the woman from last time? I could not help but feel like it was.

"Is this a bad time?" I asked again. "I can come back some other day when you are..."

"Have a seat too," Clint cut me off.

At least he did not want me to leave, but he was scaring me. This was not what I had in mind when I came here. I wanted to confront him about keeping the fact that he had a girlfriend away from me. But seeing him like this, dispirited and unusual, I no longer cared about what had initially gotten me mad.

The man sitting in front of me was not my therapist, he was not my sexual partner, and he was not a business partner of my dad's. He was just plain Clint Homer with loose pants and an unbuttoned shirt. Surprisingly, I liked seeing him this way with no tags to him.

We stayed in comfortable silence for a while and I did not try to force anything out of him. It was good enough that he felt comfortable in my presence even when we both were not saying a word to each other.

Time moved fast and slow all at once. Fast because of how quickly my heartbeat was and slow, almost torturous because he was not saying anything first. When a glance at the clock told me that almost twenty minutes had passed, impatience clawed up my throat, and I spoke.

"You have not been frequent at the clinic," I pointed out, then realised I must have sounded like I had been keeping an eye out for him. Which I was, but I did not want Clint to know that. "I... I asked the receptionist."

If he figured out the lie, Clint did not show that he did. He only turned to face me. "And how do you like your new therapy sessions?"

"It is not the same without you," I went for honesty this time. I immediately regretted it. Because I should not be speaking that way to a man who had a girlfriend and was involved with another woman. Boundaries had to be established with this new development.

Clint and I had never been perfect at creating boundaries from the onset.

There was a dull amusement in his eyes. "Talk to me about it."

That was so him. Listening to me ramble on while he only sat there. Even today when he seemed like a shell of himself, he was still willing to hear me talk. I guess he was not ready to tell me what was going on with him, or who that woman was.

It must be a bit hard, though. Being completely vulnerable and open to his emotions, that is. Getting others to open up to him was his job, not the other way around. I had to be slow and patient with him.

So I told him of my progress. I hadn't had sex for a long time. One week was not considered 'long' to other people but for me it was.

Even if I did crave sex and gave in to my urges with other guys, I was terrified that what happened last time might repeat itself. The one time I imagined having sex with Clint through my fuck buddy and moaned his name instead. It was a spur-of-the-moment kind of thing that surprised me even more than the guy I had been fucking.

What if I could never fuck someone else without imagining my sexcapades with Clint? I immediately shook the thought off. That was nearly impossible. I had had sex with too many guys for there to be a possibility of getting obsessed over one.

He was just a man with a dick.

Deep down, I knew I was lying to myself. I would not be upset over a woman I saw in his house if he was just that. I would not be worried he was going through shit on his own and no one was there to listen to him.

Clint was not the kind to ask for help just like me. But I learned recently it was detrimental to one's mental health. Bottling everything up inside without any form of an outlet was the fastest road to depression.

And he seemed like he was already going down that road.

When I was done talking to him about my therapy sessions with Dr. Kenswood, Clint slightly smiled.

"Do not be so hard on yourself. It might take a while to get used to a new therapist."

I nodded. "Yes, that is what I thought too." Then I decided to bring up what was bothering me. "You know you can talk to me too, right?"

"What?"

"I know. I know it might sound weird, and off. But I want to be on the listening end too, you know? Just this one time." I waited for a reaction but it never came. This was going to be a lot harder than I thought. "I can tell something is wrong, Clint. You do not have to act like you have got everything figured out."

Another faint smile played on his lips. "Am I rubbing my skills off on you?"

"Maybe."

Everywhere was silent again. Clint will not budge. Good lord. What was so hard to spill?

I was determined to know.