Tom glanced around at the mess. “You can just pay me back with all these quarters,” he said, crunching a few under his feet.
She ripped a dress from its hanger, tearing the fabric.
“Stop,” he said, approaching her from behind and lightly gripping both her upper arms. She did stop; she stopped packing, stopped crying and, in this moment, he could have sworn she stopped breathing. “You need to talk to me.” He gave her arms a squeeze.
Grace turned around and looked into her father’s eyes. She examined them, searching for an answer to a question he could tell she didn’t want to ask.
“How could you have fucked her?”
Tom’s hunch had come to fruition; Gretchen had talked. He silently cursed himself for thinking a teenage girl could keep a secret. He took in a deep breath, using those precious few seconds to wonder what the hell came next. He’d fucked up many times before, but never quite like this. He’d betrayed his wife and his daughter in one sitting. “Look, I know it’s bad. And if you want me to come clean, I will.”
“I don’t want you to tell mom,” Grace yelled so loud it made him jump. “You can’t. She can never find out; it’d kill her. You don’t get to destroy her and break up this family. I just … I need time to think.” She tossed the duffel on the floor of her closet, then closed the doors and turned back to her father.
“Why her?” She moved a curl of hair from her eyes.
“You’re not going to like my answer.”
She waited for one anyway.
“She wanted it, baby.”
Grace shook her head. “Men.”
“You’re right. When it comes to women, we don’t tend to think things through. The beautiful one’s are impossible to resist.”
Grace shied away. “I thought I was your girl.”
Tom cupped her pretty face in his strong hands and brought her back. “You are, baby. You always will be. No one’s ever going to change that … you don’t need to be jealous.”
“Did you call her baby, too?” she asked.
“Try not to torture yourself, Grace.” Tom moved his hands to her waist and he held her there. I’ve been calling you baby since the day you were born.”
She shivered; the cold was getting to her.
He pulled her in and wrapped her up, her dress soaking his shirt, sending an icy chill over his skin. He felt her body relax against his. “You’re drenched. You need to get out of this dress before you get sick.”
But she didn’t move. Her breath was warm against his chest. Tom kissed her forehead and tightened his hold on her. He ran his hands up and down her back and for the first time since the little terror had come home, she was quiet. The entire house was quiet. He remembered holding her like this, in this same silence, when she was a baby. He had always been able to calm her. Tom held his daughter; it’s what she needed. He held her so long his knees had started to ache, but he wasn’t about to break from her.
“I think your heat could dry my dress, daddy,” she whispered, then raised her head off his chest and looked into his eyes. “… and my skin.”
He kissed her cheek, then her nose.
Grace pulled away and took a step back. She brought her hands to her dress’s dangling straps and hooked them, pulling tight, sucking the dress against her body. In one motion, she pulled the fabric. It slid easily down her chest, her cleavage expanding to the force of the cotton bearing down, then, her bust retracting as both tits popped out. As the dress cleared her upper half, gravity took her young titties and held them, perky and plump, her areoles as pale as the skin around them, her nipples like berries. When her dress lowered beyond her navel, she let it go and her hips held it as if it were a skin-tight skirt.