LUKE
I kiss her with so much force that I'm actually terrified of breaking her. I'm scared that once I pull away, she'll slip away, right between my fingertips. I'm afraid of waking up, shaking in an empty bed, a mattress void of the one little girl I'd give anything to keep mine forever.
Sophie kisses me back and I can tell she's hesitant. Her lips don't move quite in sync with mine but that's okay, that's perfectly okay, because her sharing a moment like this with me is enough.
I hold her, arms wrapped around her waist as she settles on my lap, fingers together behind my neck. It's wrong, I know that, but I disregard the guilt as soon as it comes up. If something that feels as good as this adds imaginary points to the balance that judges where I go when I die, then you might as well just drag me to hell already.
I don't know what to feel. I'm estatic, I'm conflicted, there's a bulge about to form in my trousers and my heart is beating at a very rapid pace in my chest. There are so many things I want to feel and so many things I want to think but they've all been surpressed, glossed over by the feeling of her lips against mine.
Kissing Sophie doesn't feel as wrong as I tried to convince her it would be. It feels right, it feels so right, and that absolutely terrifies me.
It feels like a weight has been lifted off of my chest and I can float upwards to wherever the fuck Cloud 9 is supposed to be, because right here, with my little girl in my arms and not a care in the world, seems to be Cloud 9 already.
Sophie shifts. She pulls back. My heart falls to the pit of my stomach as she frowns, reaches a thumb over, and wipes at my cheek.
"Daddy," she says, very softly. It's only now that I realize I'm not alone when it comes to being too scared to make the wrong move. "Why are you sad?"
I'm not sad. I'm just crying, tears spilling out of my eyes because I can't bear to think of a world where she isn't my little girl. I'm crying because all these years trying to convince myself that my feelings for Sophie have been completely platonic have now been washed away, wood into ashes the moment our lips met.
I'm crying because I want to hold her here and kiss her forever, have her mine, clasp her delicate hands in my own because she is my lifeline and I don't need anything else. I want a world where I am not her Daddy and she is not my little girl. I want to live in a fantasy where our relationship is new, a place where we can build from nothing because nothing is better than something corrupt.
I am crying and Sophie's eyebrows are furrowing together in concern. I don't want her to worry, but worry is all I seem to do myself so I can't be a hypocrite.
We move our positions without a single word. She climbs off of my lap, snuggles into the arm of the couch. It's weird not having her so close to me but I think we both need a second, maybe a minute, to adjust. To think things through without making anything too complicated.
Again, we don't talk. Not even when she yawns and beckons me over to the side of the couch. Not even when I lie down next to her, pressing our bodies close together.
And not even when she leans in for another kiss; a gesture I comply to by meeting her plump lips with my own.
11am is when I wake up and I feel refreshed, like all of my worries have gone straight down the drain. Sophie is no longer next to me but instead in the shower of the tourbus; I can tell by the sound of running water.
"Baby?" I call out hoarsely, making my way to the small compartment of the vehicle.
I knock on the door, being careful not to scare her, and there's a pause as her quiet humming comes to a halt.
From where I am- which is standing right outside of the door- I hear Sophie dull the intensity of the shower head, before pulling back the curtain.
"Daddy?" she calls back, quiet voice muffled by the sound of water. "Is that you?"
"Yes," I reply, stifling a yawn. "May I come in?"
"W-Why?"
I smile lightly to myself. "I need to wash my face, baby."
"O-Oh." I'd like to think that the events of last night are causing her to act this way, but nothing's changed. We've always shared a bathroom- whether it be her brushing her teeth with me in the shower or vice versa- so it's a little amusing to me how she's acting so shy all of a sudden.
I twist the doorknob to the side and swiftly step in, being careful to close it behind me. I lock it, because despite nobody else sharing the bus with us at this very moment in time, I'm still not taking any chances of Ashton walking in and screaming at me to "give the little woman some privacy".
Despite this part of the vehicle being slightly smaller than the rest of it, it's still pretty big. It's big enough so that I can take four long strides between the shower and the sink and still have a way to lean, that's for sure.
I turn the cold water on, knowing that Sophie would get a sudden flush of it if I chose to opt for the hot. She has resumed her quiet singing and the very sound of it makes me grin, the silouhette of her holding a shampoo bottle to mimick in glowing through the shower curtain.
"Princess?"
"Hmm?"
"What are you doing?" I can't keep the smile off of my face as she stops, the shadow of her head bending down to look at the floor. I can tell she's probably flustered but she's giggling, too, so she can't be that bothered.
"Singing,"
"Singing?"
"Yeah. Like you do," she answers simply, and I chuckle, leaning back against the sink.
"I don't think I sing into shampoo bottles, baby."
"You could if you wanted to," she pokes her head out from the curtain and I laugh at the sight of the mound of bubbles on her head.
My eyes can't help themselves and they look even further down, at the glistening lathered trail of soap running down her neck, past the gentle skin stretched over her collarbones and-
"Daddy," she frowns, using one hand to hold the curtain in place and the other to snap her fingers in front of my face. I'm way too dazed to even notice.
"Daddy!"
"W-What?"
"You're zoning out on me again," she pouts, resembling a puppy whose just had a bathtub. I shake my head like a dog in desperate need of a cold shower.
"Sorry, angel."
"S'okay," she shrugs, and I really wish she hadn't. She accidentally presses up against the white of the shower curtain and I get a blurry, yet full, view of her wet chest; skin defined and all.
Oh, fuck me.
Thankfully, Sophie goes back to playing with the bubbles in her hair and I'm left trying to reason with my sanity. I can't come up with a compromise- the devil's saying one thing and the angel's hinting another- so in the end I just stand there, absolutely dumbfounded.
I want to talk to her about last night but I don't know how that'll go. I want to bring it up, maybe casually slip it into conversation, but even that doesn't seem like the brightest thing to do because I don't want to be speechless when she asks me what we do now.
Truthfully, I'm as stuck as she is. I genuinely have no idea what we do. We can't just ignore it like it never happened. We kissed, for god's sake. Daddies don't just go around kissing their little girls, expecting them to go about their days as normal. It doesn't happen and I'm pretty sure that in most countries, it's illegal.
You're not her father, though. The devil on my shoulder chuckles. You're her Daddy.
And you should look after her, The angel contradicts him. Not corrupt her.
Despite wanting to listen to them both, I can't quite find it in me to do so, especially when the shower stops and Sophie reaches a hand out.
"Daddy?" she mumbles. My head snaps up, yanking me away from my thoughts as I stand up straighter, responding to the term as if it's my own name.
"Yes, little girl?"
"Can you get me a towel, please?" she asks sweetly, from behind the shower curtain. Even her silouhette screams sheepish. "I-I forgot to bring one in with me."
"Of course," I nod, pushing myself off of the marble. I walk over to the door, wrenching it open. "Just wait a bit, okay? I'll go search my suitcase."
"Okay. Thank you, Daddy."
"It's no problem, baby."
I make my way out of the room, letting the door swing shut behind me as I start my hunt for a spare towel.
It doesn't take me too long to find it and just as I begin to enter the bathroom again, I hear Sophie gasp. I'm too stupidly busy trying to fold the damn thing up neatly for her that I don't notice what I've walked into- not until she squeals and my stomach does a flip.
"Here you g- oh, shit!" I drop the towel completely, hearing it fall to the floor with the most soundless thud I've ever heard in my entire life.
I shield my eyes, feeling my cheeks burn up as Sophie stands right in the middle of the bathroom; wide-eyed, horrified, a hand over her mouth and fully naked.
❥
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