Daddy Dearest

Chapter Thirty-Two

Alex

There’s something particularly predatory about Davenport today. Oh, sure, I’ve never liked the way he looked at Melody. He doesn’t check her out the way a geezer looks at a pretty girl and thinks “I wouldn’t mind a piece of that.” He looks at her like, “The things I would do to that girl would shame me, my wife, and my priest.” That is to say, with desire, not just lust.

Lust is different from desire. You can get rid of it with a wank and a shower or a wank in the shower. Desire is bone-deep, like yearning. That’s why the devil always asks “what is your deepest desire” when he’s offering you a bargain in stories because your desire for something could lead you to a change of heart or mind that may result in catastrophic consequences in your future. Your desire for money, your desire to be thin, your desire to be powerful, your desire to be famous...

My desire for Melody.

It’s a good job Davenport’s going to be leaving the school. Melody told me he got hired to start the Creative Writing program at the liberal arts college about an hour from here, Mount Holyoke, so at least I wouldn’t have to see his face around anymore. It would get Melody away from him, too. She doesn’t need to be hanging around a guy who is old enough to be her dad looking at her like I do.

At least I know I’m in love with Melody. I don’t know what the hell Davenport has for her besides middle-aged lechery. There’s gotta be something wrong with a bloke who lusts after the girl he raised alongside his own daughter, the sick bastard. Maybe he was the one sending her the creepy notes.

No. I would hope he’d be cleverer than that. Besides, one note referred to him to him as a diddling pervert, while the next one to me and Davenport the younger.

Melody is sitting next to me right now, her warm body leaning into mine and her hand on my kneecap as she engages the others. She is a lot more comfortable with touching me now. Before, I was always the one who had to initiate the affection, but now she willingly sits on my lap, holds my hand, kisses me, cuddles with me… other things with me.

“I’ll go with Miss Scarlett in the library with a candlestick,” says Davenport the younger.

Melody is Miss Scarlett. “Hey, what’s the big idea, Mister? It ain’t me wot did it.”

Her cockney accent is terrible, but I love her for it. I kiss the side of her head. Charlie catches me doing this and glares daggers at me. I smirk, lower my head, and kiss Melody behind the ear, one of her spots.

She swats me immediately. “Stop it, Alex. You’re distracting me.”

“No means no, dick,” says Charlie with a sneer.

“Language!” his sweet little sister chastised him. “There are ladies present.”

Charlie takes her hand and kisses it. “There is only you here, my lady, but I apologize.”

“Eww, boy germs.” Maddie rubbed the back of her hand against her dress.

“I just can’t catch a break today,” he grumbles.

“That’s because you’ve been acting like a douchecanoe. Are you really going to the dance with Audrey Rose?”

Charlie shrugs. “Why wouldn’t I? She’s hot.” He looks at me. “You don’t mind, do you?”

I frown. “What do you mean?”

Charlotte rolls her eyes. “Because you used to date her, Chambers. He wants to know if you’d deck him if he gets all up in her grill.”