Dirty Daddies(38)

In short, I think Carrie Wells needs discipline as well as support. Probably even more so.

I think she needs a heavy hand to keep her in line, and I think she’d flourish for it.

I think she’d even like it.

I know Michael’s hands were mostly tied at work. He had boxes to tick and guidelines to adhere to. He had allocated time slots to make a difference and the clock was always ticking.

But not anymore. Not here.

Not for any of us.

I strongly doubt Carrie’s ever been given boundaries by someone who isn’t intimidated by her craziness. I doubt she’s ever been made to understand the concept of tough love.

Maybe not even any love.

I see it in her eyes when they meet mine over our late night beer. I hear it in her voice when she tells me she doesn’t need anyone and doesn’t give a fuck what I think of her approach to loading up the dishwasher so insanely high it’s almost impossible to close.

She’s a bag of backchat and bluster, pushing and poking me for a reaction whenever I’m in her company, but I see enough to get a sense of the troublesome girl with the raven hair.

It’s not that Michael isn’t around enough to draw his own conclusions about what Carrie needs. He heads over every evening when his workday is done to check in on her. He makes calls to various associations about her living arrangements and talks her through the paperwork, even though she’s thoroughly disinterested in everything he’s doing for her.

Carrie gives him nothing because she’s a snotty bitch who’s punishing him for sticking to his morals. I see it even if he can’t.

That’s why I decide to broach it with her after the first swig of beer goes down a treat this evening.

“Straight up answer,” I begin. “Why are you being such a fucking bitch to him?”

She raises her eyebrows like she doesn’t know what I’m talking about, but I laugh in her face.

“Cut the crap, Carrie, we both know you’re freezing him out. You want to humiliate him for giving a shit about you. Why?”

“You’re fucking mad.” She taps the side of her head. “You’re seeing shit that isn’t there.”

“You’re fucking mad if you think I can’t see right through you,” I tell her. “I just want to know why.”

She shrugs. “Because he’s a fucking dick.”

I shake my head. “Nice try, sugarplum. We both know the guy’s not a fucking dick. Just a couple of days ago you were desperate to confess your undying devotion to him in my living room. Now you act like he’s the biggest loser piece of shit you’ve ever met.”

“He treated me like the biggest loser piece of shit he’s ever met.”

I take another swig of beer. “What do you mean?”

She folds her arms.

“Carrie, what do you mean?”

She groans. “Why can’t you mind your own fucking business?”

I’m not going to let this go. No fucking way.

“It’s hard to mind my own fucking business in my own fucking house, Carrie.”

“Yeah, well, it’s hard to be nice to a guy who says he doesn’t want you.”

I raise an eyebrow. “He said that?”

She nods. “Friends, that’s what he said we can be. Such fucking bullshit.”

“Friends isn’t the same thing as saying he doesn’t want you.”

She kicks my stool with her boot. “’Tis as far as I’m concerned. He can go fuck himself.” She tips back her drink. “I don’t want him anymore anyway. I don’t give a fuck that he blew me out.”

I know she must be lying, but my hands feel clammy all the same.

“You don’t want him anymore?”

Her eyes aren’t just piercing tonight, they’re dangerous. Her guarded stare gives me the fucking shivers.

“So, what do you want?” I prompt.

“I want you to shut the fuck up,” she snaps.

But I won’t, because she’s sucking her bottom lip as she spins her bottle in her fingers. I won’t, because the sight of her sitting there makes my cock twitch in my pants.

Because I don’t want her to want Michael, not anymore.

I want her to want me.

I want her to look me in the eye and ask me to stay the night, even though it would be crazy.

And I think she knows it.

“He cares about you,” I tell her.

“He can fuck off,” she says, and this time she looks like she really means it.

I can’t fucking keep up with the girl.



Carrie



I know Jack and Michael both think I’m being a lazy bitch who doesn’t give a shit, not for all the advice they’re trying to give me, and not for the way they sigh and shake their heads and try to work me out. I tell them nothing about the work I’m doing on the fences while they’re busy in their day jobs. I tell them nothing about the way I leave Jack’s place every morning and dig around the outbuildings for supplies as soon as his big fancy car pulls off the driveway.