Daddy's Girl: A Daddy Issues Novel, Rebel Wild [top 10 most read books in the world .TXT] 📗

“But I want to. I want you.” Her fingers tangle in my hair, pulling me closer and I go willingly. I cannot resist her.

She is irresistible.

One Month Later

“Sydney, Sweetheart, how are you?” Mom says, coming in just as we’re finishing our breakfast. I get up to kiss her cheek in greeting, offering her something, but she declines.

“A little better,” Sydney says, and I can attest to it being true.

Yesterday, she made it through the whole day without crying and she’s starting to venture out past my bedroom. She’s spending time in the library getting lost in her books and talking with Brianna. I even heard her laughing at one of Joe’s stupid jokes once.

“Have you been sleeping well?” Mom asks. “Any more nightmares?”

“No… yes, very well,” Sydney says. “I… uh… I’m sleeping well.” She clears her throat to stop herself from talking and Mom glances my way, amused. I’ve been orgasming her into oblivion ever since the night she asked me to make her feel good. “But I wish the bad memories would go away. I wish I could have just the good ones again.”

One night she woke from a nightmare and she confided in me the details of the last conversation she had with her dad. I hated seeing her so devastated over his words to her.

“I did this for him,” she told me as she sat with her knees drawn up to her chest in my bed. “It was all for nothing. He died because of the procedure I forced him to have and he died hating me for it.”

“Sydney, you talked to him just moments after he woke up from major surgery. He was no doubt out of his mind on painkillers. He wasn’t the one saying those things. It was the medication he was under.”

“You really think that’s what it was?”

“I’m positive. I’ve seen what they do to people. Despite his flaws, your dad loved you. He spoiled you rotten, didn’t he?”

She laughed at my joke as she lay back down. I slipped my arm around her and pulled her close to me, kissing the back of her head before burying my nose in her hair to sleep.

“Tristan says it was because he was on pain meds, the reason he said those things to me when he first woke up,” she tells Mom.

“He’s right. Your dad was under very heavy drugs. They’re known to cause hallucinations, confusion, and breaks in reality that have people saying all sorts of things. Sometimes it’s funny the things they say, but sometimes it’s downright disturbing. I don’t doubt that once the drugs were out of his system, he would have been his old self with you.”

“That’s what my mom says too,” Sydney tells her.

“You should believe it’s true,” I tell her, taking her hand and squeezing it a little before I let it go.

“Well, I just dropped in to see how you were getting along,” Mom tells us with a grin on her face she can’t seem to get rid of. “I need to get to my breakfast meeting.”

“Before you go, I just want to thank you for everything, Beverly. You’ve been so amazing to me.”

“Oh, no need to thank me, my darling.” She hugs Sydney goodbye before speaking to me. “Tristan, see me out?”

“Of course,” I tell her before turning to Sydney. “I’ll be right back.”

“Okay,” she says.

“How’s she doing?” Mom asks once we’re out on the front porch.

“Good on some days. Other days are a little harder for her, but those are getting fewer and farther in between.”

“That’s good to hear. It’s never easy losing someone, but for it to be a parent or child, it’s a different type of hurt.”

“Talking about someone being crazy on drugs made you think of Joe, didn’t it?”

“It did,” she says. “So many nights I cried. So many days I thought would be his last. Every time the phone would ring, I knew it would be someone telling me he was dead from an overdose. Thank God, he’s giving rehab a chance. I pray it works this time.”

“It will,” Joe says, coming up the side steps. “I know this is my last chance, Mom. I just want you to know, because I know I have a messed up way of showing it, but I don’t know what I would do without either of you. You’ve put up with so much of my crap and I do love you for it. I wish I could show it to you more.”

“Oh, sweetheart,” she calls to him, near tears. “We know. Believe me, we’ve always known. You show us in ways you don’t even realize. And we love you too, so much.”

He wipes away her tears and kisses her cheeks goodbye. She breezes down the stairs where her driver is waiting with her door open. She slides in the back seat with a wave of her hand as the car pulls away.

“You made her day telling her that,” I tell Joe. “Make sure you mean it this time.”

“I do. Look, I’m committed to staying straight this time. I want to be a real father to my son. I don’t want to fuck him up the way our dad did to us.”

“Good. He deserves that and so do you.”

“I know.”

“What if Bree drags you back down again?”

“She won’t. She’s done with getting high and all that shit. She wants us to have our own place and our own lives. Look, I know I’ve said it a million times, but this time is different. Once I’m done with this probation, I’m putting all this shit behind me.”

“Speaking of probation, don’t you have a drug test to get to?”

“Yeah, yeah,” he says, going down the steps complaining to himself about being sick of pissing in cups.

“It’s all part of life, little brother.” I laugh at him.

“Let’s see how you feel about life after your girl leaves.”

“She’s not my girl.”

“Yeah, right, keep denying that shit.”

I go back inside where Sydney’s standing looking out the