Daddy Dearest

Chapter Five

Melody POV

I want to die. My head is killing me, I have no dignity left, and I just almost killed myself with my own irrepressible stupidity. Now my best friend is looking at me like he's about to cry because I just told him I'm dying of an inoperable brain tumor or something.

"What the hell was that?" he demands, his blue eyes wide with disbelief. "Mel, you conked yourself out!"

"Ack, stop yelling." I cover my left ear with the butt of my palm. "I'm right in front of you, Florence Nightingale, you need to turn down your volume." I push away his hand when he tries to put back the ice pack on my forehead. "Cut it out. I'm fine."

"You're not fine. You've got a big red bump on your forehead." He nudges the back of my arm, which I'm using as a shield, away from my head. "Seriously, Mel, what the f**k. Were you drunk?"

Everyone at school, even some of the teachers, have been telling me since sophomore year that Charlie would make the most perfect boyfriend ever. He's gorgeous, smart, kind, and rich. For most of the girls at school (and some boys), he is the ultimate dreamboat. My friend Violet says he looks like a Disney prince. I've known for a while that Charlie has developed boyfriend-girlfriend feelings for me, but I've gotten pretty good at ignoring it. Thankfully, he's never been upfront about it, so it doesn't get too awkward. But sometimes, he does slip up and look at me with googly eyes and I've never been sure how to process it.

Still, it would be easier if I could just have feelings for him, too. Everyone always says we make a cute couple and it gets super annoying sometimes. There are two girls in particular who are both cool and really like him, so a lot of the time, I wish he would like them, instead. I especially don't want his dad to think that he and I have a thing.

It's not like I have a chance with the guy or anything, but how awful would it be if I were dating Charlie and had the hots for his dad, too? That is just some messed up soap opera stuff. Gross. I don't even want to think about a situation where I might have to say out loud, "Sorry, bud, but I prefer your dad."

Behind him, I see Lottie walk up, rubbing her eyes with the sides of her fists. She had asked me to get her some tea, which was why I went to the kitchen in the first place, but she must have fallen asleep, while I was there. "What the hell is going on?" she asks through a big yawn.

"Melody fell ass-first on her face," Charlie says teasingly, though he's still looking at me with concern. "Maybe we should drive you to the ER, anyway."

I struggle to sit up, though my left eye is throbbing and threatening to pop out of the socket, a harbinger of a migraine. "Chuckie, stop it." I bat his hand away when he tries to reapply the ice-pack on me. "I swear to God, you're almost as bad as Nancy with the hovering. If you want to help, go find me some Tylenol."

His lips tighten with irritation. "We only have paracetamol. I don't even know where mum finds the stuff. I thought it's only an English thing."

Lottie rolls her eyes behind her brother's back. "It's leftover from our holiday break with gran, dingus. Besides, Tylenol is just another brand of acetaminophen, which is what paracetamol is."

Charlie mimics his twin with a blah-blah-blah and his hand raised up to pantomime his twin by opening and closing his clasped fingers like a mouth. "Yeah, yeah, smart-ass. Why don't you go fetch it yourself then, since you know about it so much?"

Sometimes, I wish I hadn't been born an only child because it would have been nice to have a sibling I could count on to understand me no matter what, but usually a couple of hours with the Davenport kids cure me of that longing. They can be so unbelievably mean to each other. All they do, from Charlie to Maddie, is bicker. It's astounding to me how their parents have kept themselves over the years from taking them to the mountains and leaving them there to fend for themselves.

Lottie scoffs, but she walks out of the room, presumably to find the paracetamol, with one fist held up and her middle finger standing all by itself.

"We should probably keep you up for a little bit, just in case you have a concussion," Charlie says, helping me up and propping me up on some pillows.

Getting slightly annoyed, I roll my eyes, though the very act of it makes me more dizzy. "Your dad checked me out. He knows what he's talking about and he said I'm okay, so just let it be, okay?"

His dad checked me out. L-O-L. I think of the gentle, careful way he treated me as he assessed me for injuries and tremble. He had me cradled in his arms, so that I could press my cheek to his chest. He smelled so good. I can still feel the heat of his kiss, the pressure of his soft lips on my skin. He had looked so worried, not in the way a man might care for his daughter, but as a lover.

I shiver in remembrance of him calling me “pet.” It sounded so sexy, coming from him. With that deep, dark voice and elegant accent, everything sounded sexy when he said it. Girls in school who have him for a teacher pay attention to him in class, like he has them all hypnotized. He could be reading from a phone book and they would all sit there just as riveted. Even female teachers just passing by his classroom sometimes would just stop and stand in the doorway to listen to him talk.

When he carried me to the couch, I felt like my body was floating. I was fully aware of every part of him touching my bare skin. Though I was still discombobulated from my fall, all I could think about was him. My nose was filled with his scent and his voice, gruff with concern, was all I could hear, even though he sounded like he was speaking through the other end of a very long pipe.

As he laid me down on the cushions, I had to force myself to release his neck since I was clinging to him like he was a life-raft. Or like I was Rose in the Titanic and he was that door she wouldn't share with Leo. I didn't want to let him go. I wanted to affix my legs as well as my arms around him like a deranged koala.

"Thank you, sir! I'm sorry to be such a bother," I managed to say even though I thought my tongue was tangled up in hopeless knots inside my head.

And then he kissed me! When his soft lips touched my forehead, I almost went up in flames. He lingered there for a microsecond, I think. It was a quick smack, but there was definite lingering.

When he said, "Good night, Miss Plum. Stay safe," it felt like a feather caressing the side of my neck.

I died. Died! Dead. RIP, me. How am I going to live the rest of my life now that I know what it feels like to have his lips touch my skin? I was on Cloud Nine. Oh, Cruel Fates! Why should I have been born twenty four years after this man when it is crystal-clear to me, if not everyone else, that he and I are meant to be together? It's not fair!

"Melody!" Charlie yells my name as he shakes me. "That's it, I'm taking you to Urgent Care."

Literally forced out of my reverie, I am now way past annoyed. If dirty looks could kill, my best friend would be a corpse where he is sitting right now. "Stop it. You're giving me Shaken Baby Syndrome. What the hell is the matter with you? Get away from me, you psycho!"

Though his moss-green eyes flash an expression that reminds me of a kicked puppy, he quickly recovers and glares back stubbornly. "You are so stupid. Do you know what happened to you just now? You basically got this dazed look on your face and your tongue slipped out of your mouth and you were drooling on yourself. Are you going to tell me you don't have brain damage?"

"I was not drooling on myself!" My cheeks burning in mortification, I do a quick, subtle swipe around my mouth just to be sure.

"What are you two dweebs yelling about now?" Lottie demands with a giant bottle of paracetamol in her hand and a glass of water in the other. "I swear, you two fight like an ancient Jewish couple. This Ross-and-Rachel thing is getting stale. Why don't you just have s*x already?"

"Eww!" Outraged, I throw a pillow at my friend's face, which she dodges laughingly. "I've known Chuckie since kindergarten. It would be almost like incest."

Lottie rolls her eyes. "Well, it wouldn't be, you bimbo. You're not actually blood related." She hands me the glass of water and acetaminophen, but Charlie takes them from her. "Ease up, Nurse Ratchet."

"Say aah," orders my boy best friend and immediately pops the pills into my mouth when I do as he asks. He gives me the glass of water. "Like I'm dying to have s*x with you, anyway. Why would I? You're short and you have stubby legs. Plus you have really rank breath in the morning."

I ball up my fist and punch him really hard on the upper arm. "Asshole. Like you're such a prize. Your farts are as lethal as Chernobyl."

Lottie explodes in laughter and has to hold her stomach to contain herself. "Oh my God," she says after a deep gasp. "That was so perfect."

"Ugh, I don't know why I tolerate hanging out with you two. You both have the maturity of twelve-year-olds." Charlie bolts up from the couch and strides toward the stairs. He jabs his index finger at his twin, then at me. "I was going to watch her all night for signs of a concussion, but now, I don't care. I'm going to bed. Later, losers." He flips up his middle finger and keeps it up as he goes up the stairs.

Lottie and I look at each other and laugh our butts off.

***

It occurred to me as I was falling asleep in my little setup next to Lottie in the den that I might have been a little harsh on Charlie. It's just that I've been feeling uncomfortable when he's super nice to me and there's been a certain possessiveness in the way he's been treating me lately.

He's been that way at school for the last few weeks. Around our friends, I've noticed that he's been putting his arm around my shoulders more or if people assume we're dating, he doesn't correct them. When boys flirt with me, his usually affable, congenial personality disappears, and he becomes standoffish, sarcastic, and frankly, kind of a d**k.

Ugh, what am I going to do? I just don't feel that way about him. I wish I did. I really do. He's kind, handsome, smart, we have a million things in common, and I love his family. The problem is, I loooooove his dad. So yeah, that's a thing.

I get up and punch my pillow a few times to get it into shape. Next to me, Lottie has already fallen asleep and is making strange noises. I envy her. The girl can sleep through anything. True story. We were once in line for three hours to get tickets for a Vampire Weekend concert and at one point, she put her head on my shoulder. Because she was moving along with me in line, I had no idea she was asleep the whole time! I stood there, blabbing like an i***t for hours, because my companion was passed out. By the time we got to the ticket booth, she was as bouncy and refreshed as a spring morning.

I sigh deeply and put my head back on the pillow. The acetaminophen is starting to work at least, so my headache is fading. Maybe I should just start avoiding the Davenports entirely. Maybe I could convince Nancy to move us across the country; we can afford it. We can afford it many times over. Oh right, do I really want to start over in a new school three months into my senior year of high school?

Ever since the sixth grade, the twins and I have been dreaming about going to Stanford University. Well, it's really Charlie's dream and I've never found it objectionable. But maybe I should apply somewhere else. I've lived in California all my life. Maybe Nancy would want to live somewhere else, like around Oxford or Cambridge. In England.

I close my eyes and take a deep breath, exhaling slowly in an effort to quiet my thoughts. I start counting backwards from five hundred in multiples of five...

I wake up, staring into little Maddie's blue-green eyes, framed with long, curly eyelashes. She is peering down at me like I was a bug she found under a log and breathing on me with her little-kid morning breath.

"You have to get up now, Melly. Mum made her special eggs and butter scones," she whispers excitedly in that loud way that little kids do. "And Daddy made bacon."

At the mention of her daddy, my stomach jumps within me. Ugh, I'm the worst! I look next to me where Lottie should be, but she isn't there. Hmm. I usually wake up several minutes before she does on weekends. "Where's your jiê-jie?"

"I wish you'd teach me more Chinese, so old Lottie would never know what I'm talking about." She pooches her lower lip. "She's in the bathroom, taking a huuuuge dump." She pinches her button-nose with her fingers.

I laugh and kiss the top of her head. "Well, I'll change out of jammies and join you afterwards in the kitchen."

"You better hurry or the boys will eat it all. Daddy may be skinny, but he eats like a bear!" She kisses me on the cheek before running off.

I go to Lottie's room and wash my face in the bathroom she shares with Charlie, which is thankfully free. She must be using the facilities in the den. I change into a pair of jeans, a pink top with ruffles around the shoulders, and a purple jumper. I brush my long hair until the tangles are gone and pull it into a ponytail. I put on some colored lip gloss, so I don't look so pale, and smack my lips together in the mirror.

Though I've got two angry raptors fighting inside my rib cage, I practically sail down the stairs and bunny-hop to the kitchen. The smell of breakfast is heavenly, but I'm just aching to see Mr. Davenport. It seems every day, my crush for him just gets more and more intense and it's starting to get to the point that I won't know how to handle it anymore.

I get to the archway that opens up to the kitchen and stop as I experience a sudden burst of shyness. I watch the family for a moment and marvel at how perfect they all look.

Charlie and Noah are at the kitchen table, talking about some sci-fi show, while eating their breakfast with gusto. Mrs. Davenport is at the stove dressed in a crisp white shirt and navy blue linen pants, with her blonde hair wrapped up in a red kerchief. Mr. Davenport is standing next to her in a green collared shirt with the sleeves rolled up and khaki trousers. They're both wearing aprons and Mr. Davenport is waving around a spatula while he animatedly tells his wife, who is looking at him adoringly, a story that sounds very funny. Meanwhile, Maddie is standing on a chair, wearing a yellow dress and little apron of her own, along with a chef's hat, trying to get her parents' attention.

I want to cry. Even if Mr. Davenport feels even a tiny bit the same for me--hah, fat chance--why would I want to break up this beautiful family? They're so happy and perfect for each other. I'm a stupid, stupid, delusional slag.

They haven't noticed me, yet, so I can just go home and they won't even know I was ever here. I can just text Lottie later to let her know I wasn't feeling well and didn't want to bother anyone, so I just left.

Before I can execute my plan, a pair of hands seizes me by the waist and I shriek. Behind me, Lottie claps her hands and laughs like a loon. I slap her upper arm.

"Hit her harder!" Noah cries from his section of the kitchen.

"Charlotte, that wasn't well done by you at all," Mrs. Davenport says in a reprimanding tone. She looks at me in concern. "Are you all right, my sweet? I understand you took a spill last night. Would you like some orange juice or tea?" She turns to her husband. "Benjamin, won't you prepare the poor girl something?"

My face burns up. Somewhere behind me, Lottie mutters an apology, but I barely acknowledge her. Mr. Davenport is approaching me and my brain has turned into congee.

"How are you feeling this morning, Miss Plum?" he asks, pulling out a chair for me at the kitchen table. "Do you have a headache or dizziness or anything like that?"