The Years Between Us Read online

  “Your dad is really cool,” I remind Danielle when he’s grabbing a refill of water in the kitchen, the pizzas having been ordered, delivered and eaten.

  “He is,” she agrees, letting out a giant yawn and stretching out like a cat on the couch she and I are sitting on. “I’m one lucky girl.”

  When Mr. Prescott returns and sits down on the couch across from us in the giant living room, he asks if we’re up for another round of Monopoly, the first having been played while we were still eating.

  “You always win, Daddy, and I’m officially in need of a deep sleep. I think I’m going to bed if there aren’t any objections.” She can barely keep her eyes open.

  “And here it is all of eight-thirty,” Mr. Prescott teases, cleaning up the fake money and deeds on the game board on the big coffee table between us.

  “Hey, I’ve had two really busy days,” she says, lifting herself off the couch and looking like she could just flop right back down and fall asleep. “And I’m just going to say it now… I’m taking the elevator. So no judging me!”

  I should get up and follow her—that would be the logical thing to do. But when I turn from her to Mr. Prescott who has since changed into a plain white T and some gray sweats that somehow look adorable on him, I don’t want to leave.

  “I think I’ll stay up and challenge your dad to another round,” I tell her, but with a throw wrapped around her, she’s already walking away and lifting her hand in a quick good night wave.

  “Love you, honey, and I won’t judge you,” Mr. Prescott calls after her, then turns his attention back to me. “So, you really want a rematch or you just feeling sorry for the lonely old guy who hardly ever gets to play Monopoly anymore?”

  “You aren’t old.” With Danielle gone, I sit down on the floor, having slipped out of my wedge heels a long time ago and changed into some cotton shorts and a light T-shirt. I lean my arms on the coffee table so I don’t feel so far away from him. “It’s actually still hard to believe you’re old enough to be Danielle’s dad.”

  He continues organizing the cards, money and the tiny houses and hotels on the board and just says, “Well, I am… old enough.”

  Biting my lip, I’m deciding whether I should be that person that just comes out and asks what I really want to know. And, yeah, I decide I do. “How old are you exactly?”

  He looks at me like he’s not going to answer, but then his features settle back to the friendly guy I’d been getting used to. “I’m thirty-six, a little young to have a kid in college, but old enough to be getting gray hairs.”

  “Thirty-six?” I know it comes out surprised the way I say it, but it’s not because I think he looks older. If anything, he looks younger than that, and I don’t see any evidence at all of gray hairs. “So, you were only seventeen when Danielle was born?”

  He nods. “That’s right. Her mother and I got married young. Her mother, Isabelle, is a couple of years older than me—in fact, she was your age when she had Danielle.”

  I have so many questions, but most of them would be rude to ask, so I settle on something I hope won’t offend. “But did you still end up going to college, for your work, to be able to afford all of this?” I look around the huge room we’re in, imagining this house, the land it’s on and all of its contents costing somewhere in the range of one or two million dollars. “I’m sorry… that’s not my business,” I say, deciding what I asked had been rude.

  “No, no, don’t worry.” With his hand, he appears to wave away any sense of impropriety. “I was actually really lucky. My parents had money, which allowed for me to finish high school and go to college and have enough to support Isabelle and Dani. The only really weird thing was me being the only dad I knew in my classes and one of the few that was married, so that could be kind of isolating. But I loved my wife and my daughter, and I knew that going to school was just as much for them as it was for me.”

  “And then what?” I ask, wanting to hear more, trying to imagine being in his shoes, being my age and already being married with a child.

  He chuckles. “Well, I graduated, and then Danielle was starting kindergarten and Isabelle could work part-time. With some seed money from my parents, I was able to build up a good business and provide for them the way my dad had provided for his own family.”

  “That’s so… amazing.” It’s really the only word I can think of at the moment for what he did. All through high school and my freshmen year of college, I’d wanted to meet a guy like that, someone who wasn’t afraid of responsibility, wasn’t afraid to fall in love with someone for real, not just because of sex. But I hadn’t been lucky enough to come across someone who would do the same thing for a girl that Mr. Prescott had done for Isabelle and their daughter. Or maybe I’d just been so used to seeing the worst in men that I’d been blind to giving someone who might have been different a chance.

  He shrugs. “I did what I had to do, what I wanted to do. And even though my marriage with Isabelle didn’t work out, I got this amazing, beautiful daughter who I hope won’t be stolen away by Carlos all summer.”

  That makes me laugh, in a great way. “I’m sure she’ll get bored of him after a week, and then she’ll be all yours.”

  “I hope you’re right. So, did you want that rematch or were you just teasing me?”

  “No, I’m taking you down this time, buddy!”

  The second game is fun, and I do take him down when I manage to get Boardwalk and Park Place and build hotels on both of them. He feigns devastation, but I think he actually let me win when he made the decision to pass up buying Park Place before I could. We’re cleaning up the board, stacking the money and the deeds and putting everything away, and then I just end up sitting on the same couch that he is.

  “I’m not really tired,” I tell him.

  “Me either.”

  For the next hour or two or three—I’m really not sure—he tells me about his past business travels to interesting places like New York and London, Shanghai and Mexico City. He asks me about my family, growing up in Seattle and finally what made me want to pursue a career in education.

  “It was sixth grade,” I tell him.

  By now, I’m completely on the couch, my back up against the arm, my knees up to my chest and my arms wrapped around my legs while he’s sitting up against the back, one bent leg up on the cushion, the other still on the floor, his neck turned to look at me. “

  “And what happened in sixth grade?”

  “There was this boy, Marcus Lingstrom.”

  “Ah, it always starts with a boy.”

  “It’s not like that,” I say, barely blushing. “This was when I was still going to public school, before my parents forced me to switch back to private, and so I guess my class was kind of crowded, actually overcrowded.”

  He eyes me attentively.

  “Anyway, Marcus was kind of slow, like he probably should have been in special education maybe, but really he just needed a little more attention. But our teacher was always frazzled—she was a good teacher, nice, knew her stuff, but she couldn’t handle having a class full of thirty-two kids.”

  “That’s a lot of kids.”

  I nod. “So, Marcus sat next to me, and I could tell after a couple of months he was falling behind, and our teacher didn’t have the time to help him, so I just moved my desk next to his one day before he could leave for recess and asked him if he wanted any help. I kind of thought maybe he’d tell me to fuck off—he was one of those kids that kind of cussed a lot—but he didn’t. He let me help him.”

  “That was pretty nice of you,” Mr. Prescott says, dropping his leg to the floor, folding his hands and turning his body toward mine. “You know what ended up happening to him?”

  I shake my head. “All I know is that he was at the same reading and math levels as the rest of us by the end of sixth grade, but I’m not sure after that since I had to go back into private school.”

  Mr. Prescott smiles at me, then gets this serious look on his face,
and then he’s moving closer, and my breath is hitching. When he slides his fingers behind my ear, my heart starts to beat a mile a minute, and I’m immediately aware of the warm, heated pressure below my abdomen.

  When his lips are on mine, I feel like it’s a dream, and if it’s a dream, then I can do whatever I want. I ease my bent knees down, then bring my hands around his neck and then push my fingers up into his thick hair.

  And then he groans, and I’m kissing him so hard, and then I bring my hands down and lift up his shirt. He pulls away, and I’m scared this is about to end, but then he just takes over and pulls his T up and over his head, and his chest and his stomach and everything is just too much, but I can’t keep away from him. I press one of my palms against his chest, then slide the fingers of my other hand down over rock hard muscles and down, down until I’m nearly to the waist of his sweats. I see his hardness… his bulge.

  When my eyes jump back up, he’s looking at me with lust. It’s unmistakable. And then he’s grabbing my hips and pulling me down so that I’m laying on the couch, and then his body is on top of mine, his cock pressing into my thigh, his hands caressing my hair, then behind my ear, along my cheek as he kisses me.

  This is what I’ve been waiting for, have always been waiting for, and I lift my rear and pull my shorts and panties down and then tug at the hem of his sweats, get them down far enough that I feel the nakedness of his hardness against my skin, and everything is popping, every nerve, every appendage, my mind caught in a foggy bliss that makes it easy to part my legs, makes it easy for me to beg him, to say, “I want it, Mr. Prescott… please…”

  I’m waiting to feel it, to feel the pain so many girls talk about for their first time, but that once you get used to it, it feels amazing, that you’ll be begging for it again and again, and I know I will because it will be from Mr. Prescott… it will be from Luke.

  But I don’t feel any pressure, only hear a sigh coming out of his mouth, a heavy breath of resignation. He drags his hand over my cheek before he pulls my panties and shorts back up and then stuffs himself back into his sweats, picks up his shirt and pulls it up and over his head.

  “I’m so incredibly sorry for that,” he says, now sitting up on the couch, his face turned away from me. “I shouldn’t have.”

  I’m mortified now, afraid that what I’d said had been too much, too slutty or too whatever. I have no idea what you’re supposed to say when you’re about to have sex.

  “I didn’t say the right thing,” I tell him, daring to put my hand on his shoulder. “I’m so embarrassed.”

  “You?” He lifts his eyes toward mine, turns to me so that my hand slips away from his shoulder, but he quickly picks it up and holds it in his own. “You have nothing to be embarrassed about, Claudia. You’re an exceptionally beautiful girl, and you have the personality and intelligence to match. And what I did was get carried away, did something that wasn’t fair to you. For that I’m sorry.”

  “But I wanted to,” I tell him, looking up into his hazel eyes and wanting him to know how much.

  “You’re still young, impressionable in some ways. I won’t take advantage of that, Claudia, not while I’m meant to be watching out for you.”

  I understand, even if I disagree. And I also realize that while Luke is probably physically attracted to me, what he really wants is a woman closer to his own age, a woman with accomplishments and experience, maybe even a woman like Emily Wells, no matter how much he might protest.

  “I should probably go up,” I tell him meekly, my body still humming from being so close to losing my virginity to a man I felt worthy of it.

  “I think that would be for the best.” He releases my hand. “And I’ll understand if you’d feel more comfortable somewhere else or if you’d like me to keep my distance. I can keep to my side of the house as much as possible if that would be better.”

  “No, don’t do that,” I say, standing up. “It would just be weird for Danielle, and I don’t really want to go anywhere else. I’ll stay as long as you let me.”

  “Okay then,” he says with a sigh, standing up now too. “Good night, Claudia.”

  “Good night, Luke,” I say, turning and walking toward the stairs.

  Though I’m dejected and a little confused, I somehow know that, after tonight, he’ll always be Luke to me.

  Chapter Eleven

  LUKE

  It’s three weeks since the night I’d nearly had sex with my daughter’s best friend. I hadn’t even made it to the end of her first full day of staying with us before I’d lost my mind and made my move on her.

  Three weeks now of trying to play it cool, of keeping my distance, of considering what I’d do to a guy my age who’d try with Dani what I’d tried with Claudia. I’d want to beat the shit out of him, maybe even if he thought he cared about her, like the way I think I care about Claudia.

  Rhonda has her working four or five days a week, and I’ve given her the Tesla to use so she doesn’t have to depend on me, but she usually just prefers to grab a ride from Dani. The last two times she’s come back, David had been the one to drop her off. I don’t especially like that kid—he’s got a reputation as far as I can tell for dating lots of girls, but I figure she might be safer with him than she is with me, which is tremendously sad.

  “She’s showing signs of progress,” Isabelle’s doctor tells me after I’ve met with my ex-wife at the hospital in Seattle. “A setback here and there, but she’s participating more in group art projects and saying more in the counseling sessions. She brought up the accident on her own, seems willing to admit it really happened.”

  I’d told the girls I had a meeting in the city, that I’d be gone most of the day. I still haven’t wanted to burden my daughter with any of this, but I’m trying to keep from lying. The thing about a meeting is true enough, even if it’s not about business and is instead about Isabelle.

  This is hardly the first time I’ve been here to visit since April, but it is the first time the accident has come up, and it catches me off guard.

  “Mr. Prescott?” Dr. Franklin, Isabelle’s doctor, says my name like I’d not been paying attention.

  “Yes… sorry. I hadn’t been really prepared to discuss the accident.”

  “I know it must be difficult,” he says, “for you and your daughter as much as it is for Isabelle. I hope your ex-wife’s grasping of what happened isn’t like you having to relive the trauma all over again.”

  “It’s not something I’ll ever forget, not something I’ll get completely over,” I tell him. “But I’ve managed, keeping up a full workload all these years, and doing hikes every day, getting out into nature… it does help ease the pain.”

  “You’ve done well with your self-care, Mr. Prescott—it’s important. And I know that I’m not your doctor, but I think it’s worth saying that you deserve a full and loving relationship from someone, a significant other. Caring as you do for your ex-wife can be very trying without that.”

  I don’t answer him directly, just nod at his advice. It does seem unfair that I should be the one who looks after my ex-wife while her current husband selfishly stays away, a man who takes no responsibility for the turmoil he brought into her life, who has claimed to love her with desperation but who is the first to abandon her when she needs him the most. And yes, it pisses me off that my attention to Isabelle has kept me from forming a new long-term relationship. I’ve done it as much for her as our daughter because I will do anything in my power to make sure Dani will always have a mother, preferably one that is healthy and not six feet under.

  But when a doctor tells you that you might not be your best by neglecting your own wants and needs, the idea that it would be okay to pursue a significant relationship with someone—well, it’s enticing. Then again, I might just be looking for an excuse, one that would allow me to get closer to Claudia and to break down the many reasons I shouldn’t be thinking of her in that capacity. And that’s likely very wrong of me.

  I leave the h
ospital, thanking him for his time and continued care of my wife. There are people I could see in Seattle, old friends and work colleagues that would be glad to grab a coffee or a bite to eat. But all I really want to do is head home and be close to my daughter, even if it’s always a bit of a crapshoot to figure out whether or not she’ll be free.

  I’d known about the break she and Carlos had taken while they both went off to college for their first year, but they seem to be reconnecting, and that’s a good thing. It won’t hurt for Dani to have another strong male figure in her life, someone she’ll be able to depend on and trust. She certainly hasn’t gotten much of that from my side of the family, and her mother’s side has been lackluster as well when it comes to spending time with their only grandchild.

  Thinking of family, I wonder more about Claudia’s on my drive back, whether or not she looks up to her own father, trusts him, feels like she can be the person she wants to be around him. She’d told me he didn’t approve of her career goal of becoming a teacher but had allowed her to make the choice nonetheless, though that seemed to be an exception to her parents’ rules.

  I’ve talked to her father on the phone a few times since Claudia has come to stay with us, and he sounded decent enough, had a genuine concern for his daughter. I’d kept the conversations short, still ashamed about what I’d tried on Claudia, half hoping she would have just told him so I didn’t have to pretend I was this great guy who’d never lay a finger on her. But that would have meant her removal from my house. I tell myself I wouldn’t want that to happen for her sake, considering the job she’s gotten in town and how she seems to be settling in, but in truth, it’s for my sake too.

  Though the Tesla is still in the garage when I get home, there isn’t anyone around, and I’m pretty sure Claudia got a ride to her job with Dani. Regardless of what I might tell others, there is a sense of loneliness in coming into an empty house, especially one as big as this one. I used to love coming home to Isabelle and Dani when we were still a young family. While the guys at school would be heading out on a Friday night for parties, drinking and hooking up, I’d return to our apartment, to my growing little girl and to the wife that I adored. We’d head to the park on weekends, pushing Dani in a stroller, then to a farmer’s market and maybe head out for a movie if we could get a babysitter. I guess I was supposed to feel like I was missing out on something big, but I’d been right where I’d wanted all along.