Mimi's Daddy Ch. 07: The Experiment

Adam asked, "How old are you?" She turned toward him.

"Twenty-five. How old are you, Adam?"

"I'm thirty-one, but that isn't where I am going with this. You've only ever kissed one person in your life?" He placed his hands on her shoulders and she didn't back away.

"Well, I kiss my brothers on the cheek all the time."

"That is not the same."

"It's some different. I mean, it's a different kind of kissing."

"This is not acceptable." A tremble moved through her body as he touched the back of her neck with his fingertips. Bending down, he gave her plenty of time to move or turn her face away. When his lips brushed hers, she gasped. With her body frozen in place, he explored her yielding mouth until she kissed him back. Adam's body caught fire.

Deepening the kiss, he tasted her lips, and she gripped the front of his shirt with both of her hands. He didn't know if she wanted to keep him in place or keep herself steady. Kissing her left him dizzy, with warmth spreading through his body, as if he'd been drinking excellent wine. He wanted to lay her down in the grass. Slowly, he drew back. Adam didn't want a girlfriend or a wife. Only pain came from those directions. Her eyes remained closed, lips parted as if she was stunned. The jaded women he took as his lovers were unflappable and unsurpriseable. Their skills were immaculate, but they didn't have the erotic punch of this woman's sweetness. Tempting cupcake. As he brushed his thumb across her cheek, her eyes blinked open. A pink so dark he could see it in the moonlight bloomed in her cheeks.

"Different?" He asked.

With a rough swallow, she stepped back from him. "Yes." Her fingertips rose to her mouth, and she dipped her head. Flitting an uncertain look back toward her parent's house, she turned toward her trailer. "An interesting experiment. Thank you."

He followed her, watching the roundness of her bottom and her curvy thighs as she walked ahead of him. What would she look like naked, pink, and giggling? "I should thank you. You are lovely to kiss."

She glanced back at him. "You liked it?"

"Very much."

She nodded as if she were answering herself in her head.

"Perhaps you shouldn't give up on kisses?"

She touched the back of her neck where he had held her during their kiss. "Maybe not." Shaking her head as if she were trying to clear her mind, she said, "Thank you for bringing me home."

"It was my pleasure. Do you need a ride to work tomorrow?"

"No. One of my brothers will take me."

One kiss had flustered her. When they reached her trailer and his truck, he reached out and touched her arm. "My apologies if the kiss was unwanted, Mimi."

She took a breath and squared her shoulders. "It is never a bad thing to do an experiment." Smiling up at him, she touched her lips, a brief graze with her fingertips. "I hope you have a safe drive home. She stepped back and fled into the house, leaving Adam to watch her flight, half tempted to chase her and give her another kiss. Foolishness. He made himself get in his truck and go home.

***

Mimi rested back against her closed door. Was she high? Did he slip her something at dinner? Her heart was racing. Her skin tingled, and it was hard to breathe evenly. Was this a panic attack? She bent forward, hands on her knees and tried to take deep calming breaths. No one had warned her a kiss could feel like that. Her skin tingled every place he had touched her, and quite a few places he had not. Between her legs felt strangely warm, a bit like how she sometimes felt when she read a particularly racy story.

***

Adam's Home...

Mimi's smile was hard to shake. Rubbing the back of his neck, Adam decided he needed to invite a woman over to burn the heat out of his system. With a roll of his shoulders, he headed for a cold shower. Why the hell did Mimi have to be so pretty? Their social media campaign was working on his psyche. If he told her about his family, she would run. Or worse, dollar signs would bloom in her eyes.

Even with the name change, he was still his father's son. Trading out wives, as regularly as he ordered suits, wasn't a family pattern Adam planned to follow. They were always the same age. He couldn't remember any step monsters older than thirty-five. Adam's mom had lasted six years. Just as he flipped on his bedroom light, his phone played a bubble gum pop song. Baby sis. Anyone else he would have ignored for the inviting distraction of the shower.

Adam answered his phone. "Hey, Buttercup."

"Hey, Adam." Because her voice was subdued, Adam knew the conversation wouldn't be about a new movie or a current favorite book. Sixteen was a hard age.

He emptied his pockets onto the dresser and sat down on the end of his bed. "What made you pause in your busy day and call your crusty old brother?" He tugged a sock off.

"I found something." Her voice hitched, and a wave of fear rolled into his throat.

Adam froze. "Is Mom home?"

"No. She is out. I didn't mean to be looking through her things."

"Did she go to a meeting?" Their mother had been going to Gamblers Anonymous since Sarah was 2 and he was sixteen and a half. She'd chosen sobriety over losing their home.

"I don't think so. She might not be going anymore." The line went quiet.

"You still there, Sarah?" He rolled back onto his bed and stared up at the ceiling, pressing one hand to his forehead.

"Yeah."

He could barely hear her. With a start, he realized she was trying to hide her tears. "Do I need to come over?"

"I can send you pictures."

"Did she have some creep over?"

"No. The bank sent a letter." He could hear the crinkle of paper. "She forgot to put it away, I guess."

"Has she fallen behind?" Not again. Please, not again.

"She hasn't been paying them and I don't know what a second mortgage is." She took an unsteady breath. "Can I come live with you when we have to move out? They say that we have thirty days to vacate the house."

"If I am breathing, you will have a home. Send me the pictures. Did you find anymore letters from the bank? Maybe I can fix this."

"You can't fix 87 thousand dollars."

He winced. Not easily. Not in thirty days. "I can call the bank and get her more time. When will she be home?"

"I don't know. She's been staying out late, sometimes overnight."

Adam bristled. "Why didn't you tell me?" Adam rubbed his forehead as a headache built.

She sniffled. "Because I liked it at first. My boyfriend came over."

Inwardly, he groaned. Any kid her age would see that as an exciting amount of freedom. "How long?"

"Six months, I think. Since school started."

"Is she going to work?"

"I think so. She leaves after me. But I'm not sure."

"Listen, our mom has a problem. This isn't the first time. I can speak to the bank tomorrow."

"Can I still go to college?"

Adam pressed his hand to his forehead. "I don't want you to worry about that. We have two years until then. Do you still want to study science?"

"Yeah."

Every chemistry set he found, Sarah used up. Each Christmas, he hunted down something new. "Still planning on curing cancer?"

Voice lifting, she said, "I'd like to. If I'm not homeless." His phone beeped as the images of the pages started coming through.

"Well, we can't let anything stand in the way of that. And kiddo, I will not let you be homeless. Never."

"And Mom? I don't want her homeless either."

He growled under his breath. "I won't let our mother live on the street, no matter how much she might deserve it." He started scrolling through the paperwork and his heart sank. How much was she under? Where the hell was she gambling? In her sobriety, she had put herself on every no play list of the casinos within driving distance of her house.

"Sarah, is Mom's sponsor posted on the fridge? I want her number."

"Mom's going to be mad."

"You had to tell me. You did the right thing. If she is angry, that is her problem. You did good."

Cursing inaudibly, he added the number to his contacts. "Sarah, do you want me to come and get you?"

"No. I'm okay. Should I put the letter back where I found it?"

"That's a good idea. Call me if you change your mind, or just drive over. Is your clunker still drivable?"

"It's not a clunker. Mom took it into the shop a few weeks ago to get it fixed up."

Adam grimaced. The car was probably gone. "Take a Ride-share if she isn't home by ten. You can come sleep on my couch."

"I'm fine. You know I'm not a baby. I can stay by myself."

"All right, Ms. Grown up. I'm coming over tomorrow after work."

"Can you bring tacos?"

"I can. We are going to work this out together." After disconnecting his sister, he dialed his mom's sponsor.

The phone rang a while before a sleepy voice answered. "Who's this?"

"Hey, this is June's son, Adam."

"Oh... June, hell, I haven't heard from her in months."

"I thought you were her sponsor?"

"Yeah, about that. I haven't seen her at a meeting for almost a year. Not since she started dating that mechanic. She used to say that love cured everything."

The mechanic had come and gone, like most of his mother's boyfriends.

The woman continued, "Is she okay? Sometimes people change groups, or stop for a while. I left messages and swung by the house, but she never called back."

"We don't know. But I think she is gambling again."

"I'm sorry. Every day clean is a miracle. Have her call me if she wants to go to meetings again."

Setting his phone down on the end table, he suppressed a wave of nausea. After fourteen years sober, he'd made the mistake of believing that maybe she was past her addiction. When he was sixteen, the last time she'd almost lost the house, he'd tried to get his dad to give him an advance on his inheritance. His father had flatly refused unless Adam uprooted his life and agreed to abandon Sarah, and live with his father until he left for college. The contract the lawyers had drawn up was very specific about the short list of universities that his father would agree to.

As a kid, he'd felt so small sitting in his dad's office at that stupid gigantic desk. Smug, his father had been certain he would sign on the dotted line and sell his soul. The man had wanted him under his thumb, spending every waking hour working for him at the Box Company in exchange for help. Money and finance were all his dad cared about. Leaving his friends for two years of prep school, and a list of restrictions which filled seven pages, hadn't appealed to his sixteen-year-old self. The contract had felt like a bear trap in his hands, ready to slam down on him. His Mother was the man's ex-wife and his dad didn't care a bit if she ended up on the street.

Becoming his dad's pawn for the rest of his life had not been something he could choose and live with himself. For the next two years, he'd busted his ass. Adam quit school and started taking classes at night online after work. He'd lied about his age to get a job with a plumbing company. Messy, dirty, but honest work with no strings attached. Every penny had gone to the bank to keep the roof over their head. As a family, they'd clawed their way out of the hole she'd made. Because he was good with his hands and took pride in his work, they gave him an apprenticeship after the first year. Independence mattered to him. He'd worked hard to be his own man.

Plenty of people would have gulped down the silver spoon, not realizing it was heaped with poison. Nothing ever came free from his father. Watching the ceiling fan turn, he made a plan. He'd been pouring his profits into growing his business. Focused on the future, he'd hardly taken a salary. Her bank would be his first call, then his. Only as a last desperate resort would he talk to his father. When he turned thirty, he'd thought he would hear from his lawyers about the trust his grandfather had left him. The trust his father was in charge of until Adam was married. There had to be a way. Adam was never getting married. If his parents were any sign, happy marriages did not run in his blood.

***

The next day...

Adam jumped when Marge poked his shoulder. "Are you gonna hide in here all day?"

"I might." Usually, Adam visited their job sights once a day to insure everything was on track. After talking to the banks, he'd rather hide under his desk. There was no other option. He was going to have to talk to his dad. The loan he needed would be nothing to his father. A tiny drop in the bucket. He'd need a few months to get things together to pay him back.

Marge poked his shoulder again. "Go eat lunch. You're scowling and scaring everyone who comes in."

"Who has come in?"

"Someone might. Go."