Indulge: Second Chance Romance

20 - Waking Dream

DJ



I had booked the ninety-minute treatment long before I knew just how much she would need it.

I had even toyed with the idea of having another man give her the massage—just to see how she’d react, if it was only me she was that responsive with. But I chose Leah because she was the best. Truth was, I wasn’t willing to admit I’d probably break several digits if my dove so much as sighed under another man’s touch.

It proved just how far over the line of casual I had already crossed.

Not that I would admit it aloud, knowing this was my mother’s master plan all along—something Ellie had nothing to do with and wasn’t her fault. I just couldn’t justify it. Couldn’t stomach everything I’d done to break free of that manipulative hold, only to fall right back in again.

Then again, Ellie had always been the exception, never the rule. Maybe that was what first loves did to you. Or maybe it was how a man acted when he finally had a chance with the one who got away.

I wouldn’t know.

After Ellie, I’d never had a girl pretend she wasn’t interested. Then again, I had only been thirteen, and our relationship had been a friendship before anything else. One she had been determined to have, despite everything.

Since I could remember, Ellie had been the easiest person to be around.

The type of light that drew me like a moth to flame. She had been so bright. Optimistic. Understanding. It hadn’t mattered what Vic or I complained about—how many first-world problems we laid at her feet when our parents took off to party.

Ellie had listened. Indulged. Offered her bubbly, can-do perspective. She had never once chastised us for being entitled brats. She’d always had that innate ability to look at everyone the same way—to offer equal respect to a hobo and a billionaire alike without letting dollar signs or intimidation get in the way.

People were just people to her. And unlike me, she hadn’t judged her parents.

At the time, it had been inconceivable that my father would let his wife—my mother—be with other men. Bringing Ellie around had been the first time I didn’t hate someone on principle.

Oh, believe me, I tried. I just couldn’t.

Then again, she had been the only girl—s***h daughter—I’d ever met from my parents’ trysts. Her being a couple of years older, but decades more mature and responsible, was what had Ma roping her into being mine and Vic’s sitter.

You’d really think the fourteen-year-old was actually forty, from the way she talked. The way she considered things. Ellie had always been smart, diligent, courteous.

She had also been the only girl who ever stepped foot in our household who indulged my mother, no matter how dramatic.

And as an eleven-year-old, she had been the most beautiful girl in the world to me.

By twelve, when the realizations started about what my parents were doing, I had become a complete jerk.

No, they hadn’t been obnoxious or even open about it. But kids aren’t stupid. I had always had an issue sleeping. Don’t ask me why. According to my mother, I’d hated sleep since I was a baby.

Too action-oriented, or afraid I’d miss something, I guessed.

Either way, I hadn’t needed to see her with another man to know that’s what was happening. We all got s*x ed in sixth grade, and I was far from stupid. So I knew she was seeing another guy while my father was at work.

I had been terrified of telling him. But regardless of being a boy, no one was spared the cartoon classics of true love. What I had always assumed my parents had.

As a kid, I thought it best my dad had boys.

I had never seen him lift a brow, let alone his voice, at a woman. I had been happy I didn’t have to compete with spoiled brat types I went to school with and figured it was my parents being perfect for one another that kept them from fighting.

So long and short, when I found out they dated other people with the other’s permission, the pedestal I’d placed them—and their relationship—on fell flat.

Knowing that the girl I had my first crush on was the daughter of the man screwing my mother…

I tried for about a week to be a d**k to Ellie. It didn’t take.

I found myself talking to her. Pouring my heart out to her instead. Crying while listening to The Eminem Show with her just sitting there, supporting me.

Looking back, I thought that was when she found out the truth about her parents too.

Only Ellie, being Ellie, just accepted it—that it was their choice, and that type of relationship was what made them happy. Later, I found out her mom and dad fought all the time, and the lifestyle was what stopped them from divorcing.

Regardless of the age difference, we had been friends. Real friends who looked forward to hanging out. Even if I was just a “kid,” she still answered my calls or texts whenever I sent them throughout the year.

I think Ellie was the only one oblivious to the fact I was in love with her.

When she turned sixteen, her parents were having major issues again. She hadn’t even come to the club until the last week of summer. Sure, we had all snuck a drink here or there, and her friend Lynn had never failed to supply weed or cigarettes.

Her parents being stationed nearby had allowed Ellie and Lynn to go to school together, hang out with Lynn’s then-boyfriend—who I had always thought was bad news. I just hadn’t known how bad.

Again, I hadn’t gotten all the facts until well after everything happened, but Mike had also been into the “sharing” lifestyle, which was how he and Lynn met. That had turned pretty dark, because Lynn hadn’t been into it. Rather than accept that and move on, the guy had either gotten her drunk or hit her until she agreed.

Ellie getting involved, trying to stop him, had ended the same way.

Obviously, Mike’s parents had been barred from the club, but no charges were pressed. Leaving both girls to deal with the consequences, without the help they needed, thanks to the payout and NDA.

The following year, Ellie didn’t come and didn’t answer my messages.

It wasn’t until she was nineteen and got a job there that our paths crossed again. By that time, our parents had called it quits, and I was old enough to look after myself and Vic.

I figured it would be—could be—should be a turning point. Until I did the math on the relationship I wanted being illegal.

There had also been the fact she was with a sleazeball, and that was when my own path plummeted to the deep end.

It had never been the right place. Never the right time.

My feelings aside, the stars never aligned for the two of us.

Even now, when I had lived the fantasies I’d carried for over a decade…

I refused to be my mother’s pawn.

This was just a getaway until we both went back to our very real, very demanding lives and families. I knew it was cruel. She didn’t even know who I was, and every ounce of my brain power was bent on figuring out how we could keep doing this without my mother finding out.

It was my pent-up emotions. The lifelong desire. The fantasy realized.

I knew that.

I knew it was mine and Ellie’s history that let me read her like a book. That made it feel as if she were made for me. That made the sensation feel utterly perfect—meant to be.

It was all those things.

Everything I’d waited for. Everything I’d wanted.

But it couldn’t last.

For a thousand reasons, a week was all I’d get with my dream girl.

So I would make every minute count.