“Pretty sure burglars don’t knock.”
She was wearing flannel pajama pants and a tank top. Getting ready for bed, or already asleep, I didn’t know. When I glanced at her, I could see her nipples were hard underneath the cotton material.
I looked away.
“Look, about tonight, I just didn’t think it was a good idea for you to be hanging out. The guys were drinking and getting high.” I shook my head. “They get ideas, Ash. Especially when a vulnerable girl is in the room.”
“Vulnerable? I don’t even know what that means.”
“It means you would be easy to take advantage of,” I told her.
“I’m not an idiot, Marc. I can handle myself with a guy.”
“No, but you’re a virgin and that kind of thing…some guys like corrupting innocence.”
She folded her arms over her chest, and I could see the blush creeping up her neck. “You don’t know I’m a virgin.”
Yes, I did. I knew absolutely she was a virgin.
“We don’t have to talk about it. I just didn’t want you to think I was being an asshole for no reason. However, I ever catch you smoking anything, I am serious, Ash, I’ll go to your father with that and he’ll pull you out of school so fast you won’t know what hit you.”
She laughed. “You haven’t been around, Marc. Daddy isn’t exactly available for chitchats these days. You don’t scare me.”
“These trips to New York common?”
She nodded. “He’s got an apartment in the city. Sometimes it’s easier for him to stay up there. It doesn’t bother me. More freedom. You know, to invite guys over and have sex with them.”
I snorted. Even the way she said that. A little hesitant, sex instead of fucking. She was totally a virgin.
“You know, I wasn’t sure if I was going to come here for break.”
Her back got a little straighter.
“You’ll keep coming back,” she insisted. “This is your home.”
No, I wouldn’t. And no, it wasn’t. Not really. There would come a time when I would leave, and I wouldn’t look back. She wasn’t ready to hear that tonight, so I didn’t bother. Instead, I moved to leave.
“Marc, just so you know, you’re never an asshole to me for no reason. There’s always a motive. I just wish you realized what it was.”
I didn’t have anything to say to that, so I left.
The next morning
Marc
George walked through the front door of the carriage house with an overloaded bag of groceries. I could see the rump of a turkey sticking out of the bag.
“Oh good,” he said, seeing me at the counter in the kitchen. “You’re up. Go outside and get the rest of the stuff out of the SUV, will you?”
“Why are you bringing all that stuff here? Don’t you need to put it in the kitchen up at the big house?”
That was our Thanksgiving tradition. George cooked for everyone. Mr. Landen ate at the fancy dining room table with Ash. And George and I ate in the kitchen until Ash could excuse herself and finish the night with us having pie and hot chocolate.
“Not this year. I thought it would be nice if we could have our own private holiday. Just you and me. Here.”
I took the bag of food he was holding, which looked heavy, and set it on the counter. Then I jogged to where he’d parked the SUV, and hauled four more bags of groceries down to the carriage house.
Once I set those bags on the counter, I sat on the stool near our kitchen counter and watched as he unloaded what appeared to be a mountain of food for two people.
“Spill it, George. What’s going on?”
With his back to me, he shook his head. I’d noticed in the months I’d been gone his bald spot was growing. I thought about how long he could keep up the work of maintaining the estate, and decided I would be set up to take care of him long before he would retire.
And I would take care of him. George had been there for me when I needed family, and I would never forget that. But he was a fool if he didn’t think I saw more than he wanted me to see around this place.
“Landen doesn’t want us around, does he? Or I should say he doesn’t want me around?”
George faced me and sighed. “He’s taking Ashleigh into the city with him for dinner at some fancy restaurant.”
She would hate that. Hate being away from us. Hate not having George’s cooking. His sweet potato casserole was her favorite. Why does a father who is supposed to love his daughter do stuff that will purposefully make her sad?
“Okay. Whatever. She said he’s not around much, the old man. If you’re driving him, then she’s here on the estate alone.”
“I know,” he said, his expression grim. “I don’t like it. I’ve told Mr. Landen maybe it would be better to hire a driver for those occasions. He feels the estate is safe enough.”
I snorted. “It’s just a long fucking driveway and a bunch of unfenced property. She doesn’t even have a dog that could protect her. She’s a freaking sitting duck out here.”
I thought of Chris last night. Talking shit about her after she left. How hot she was. How perky her tits were. How he was going to try, at some point this year, to get into her pussy.
I knew he’d said all of it to get a rise out of me, but I hadn’t fallen for his bait. Chris was full of shit. He talked a big game, but I was pretty sure it was mostly because he was afraid of girls. Afraid of getting to know them, instead of just panting after them because he thought they were hot.
Ashleigh wouldn’t let him within ten feet of her. Or her pussy.
Her virgin pussy.
Stop thinking about her virgin pussy.
George folded his arms over his chest and a smile played on his lips. “You worried about Peanut?”
“No,” I said, instantly rejecting the idea. “It just seems to me as rich as the fucker is, he could at least have a better security setup in place to protect his little princess. Hell, I got into the house and up to her bedroom last night in seconds.”
“You what?” George snapped.
I held my hand up to calm him down. “Relax, I just had to talk to her about something. At what point is everyone going to figure out I don’t want anything to do with Ash? Not that way. But sure. She’s someone I know. It would suck if something bad happened to her.”
“Well, I don’t know what to tell you. I’ll put a bug in his ear about a security system. In the meantime, why does my home smell like pot?”
I coughed a few times. “There may or may not have been people over last night.”
“You know the rules. No friends, no drugs and…”
“Stay away from Ashleigh,” I finished.
I knew the rules. I just didn’t give a shit about them anymore. My time here was limited until I could fully support myself. If I made sure there was a security system in place that would protect Ashleigh from the world, then that wasn’t a bad parting gift.
7
Princeton
7 months later
Marc
I was studying for my last final and it was kicking my ass. Statistical Analysis of Financial Data. The money part never bothered me, but this was weighed heavily on the math, and it felt like I had to push my brain forward to make the numbers work.