I brushed my teeth, spit into the cracked porcelain sink, looked at myself again with a frown. My hair was always temperamental, and today, it definitely had no hope of looking alright without heat tools. Frizz galore. Luckily, my old curling iron was heating up on the side of the sink now—it wasn’t a fire hazard yet, but I knew it was likely a few more workdays away from sparking up my little two-bedroom apartment. I was dragging my feet on replacing it, hesitant to spend the money, though the cost of getting a new one would even out, I figured; I got better tips at the diner when my face and hair were appropriately done up, so I primped my little bob every day for work. A lot of our elderly regulars complimented me on mynatural red color, but it wasn’t until my little girl was born that I’d learned to love it. Daphne had more of a strawberry blonde tone on her little head, but it didn’t keep her from looking like my little twin.
“Mommy, I can’t find my sparkle shoes!” That little voice carried down the hall from her small bedroom. Even as exhaustion hit me in the chest, I couldn’t help but smile. For all the responsibilities that came with being a mom, all the panic I’d felt the day I learned I was pregnant five years back, I sure loved that munchkin.
“Coming, baby!” I called out to Daphne. I double-checked that my hazardous hair tool was secure on the edge of the sink before I went to help her look for the glitter Mary Janes her grandma had gotten her for Christmas.
It didn’t take long to track down the shoes, and though my little girl was getting more independent all the time, she was sweet and snuggly enough in the mornings that she let me help her buckle them on her feet. I was still remembering the day that had changed my life forever when I went back to start curling my hair.
I’d been living in the sorority house on campus, the semester nearing its end, when I bought a pregnancy test at the furthest drugstore from campus. Trying to be sneaky, though I was feeling sick enough at that point that I wouldn’t have been able to fool anyone if they’d paid any attention. I took the test in one of the least popular bathrooms of our campus’ oldest, least-populated academic buildings. I’d told myself at the time that I’d ditch it in the trash once I read the result, but when the verdict dropped, I found it hard to leave the plastic stick behind. Shellshocked, already half delusional with love for the baby I hadn’t planned to have, I carried it around in my pocket all day.
It was partly out of shame, I knew now. Twenty-one-year-old Allie Tate, the girl I’d been that day and on the wild Vegasnight that caused it, wasn’t a great candidate for motherhood on paper. Hell, I had never slowed down on partying enough to even think about whether or not I wanted kids in the future. That far-offsomedaya lot of little girls grew up dreaming about had never formed in my head at all.
But the second I knew I was pregnant, I felt it. That mythical “bond” feeling I’d heard mothers talk about before and never quite bought before it happened to me. There was no doubt in my mind that the child I was carrying was meant to be mine, that I loved them, that I was meant to be their mother.
And now…well, I’d fully quit my partying ways. I was mom-ing full-time, and working, and trying to keep it all together. Not for myself, necessarily, but for Daphne.
And okay, maybe there was a little bit of spite in there too. A petty need to prove to everyone who thought I was too reckless and irresponsible to raise my own child that I could be as good a mother as anyone. At least, that was part of my initial foolish justification for keeping the baby back when I was twenty-one. Maybe I wasn’t as good as my own parents, who didn’t take a second to judge me or question how I got myself into this situation when I told them I was pregnant, but Daphne would never doubt how much I loved her.
“Ready to go, little miss?” I called as I rounded the corner into Daphne’s small bedroom, my hair finally curled and sprayed into place for optimal tipping. My mini-me, a small girl of four with a familiar ginger tinge to her lighter golden curls and blue eyes identical to my own, turned over her shoulder and smiled at me.
“I’m ready, Mommy! Do you think Miss Lauren will like my shoes?”
Her little face fell into a familiar, shy, uncertain expression. I swept down to kiss her forehead.
“She’ll love ’em, hon. Now let’s get going or Mommy will be late to work.”
“And Marv will yell at you,” Daphne said somberly, taking my hand.
“He sure will.”
I was making good time, luckily, despite some usual traffic backup in the drop-off line at Daphne’s daycare. She only went on days when my parents needed a break from being Gram-Gram and Poppy, but my little angel loved meeting the other kids, even if she was too shy to really talk to them. Her eyes saw everything, her intelligence apparent even at such a young age. Nothing like her mom in that way specifically, but I was thankful for it. We might not have much money, but I had no doubt Daphne’s brains and my diligent motherly love would help her grow up to be much more put-together than I was.
Nostalgia over my pregnancy cleared away as the morning went on, but my brain was still five years in the past during the last leg of my quiet commute. The problem was that things had gotten significantly less PG. Thoughts of three men, one of whom was Daphne’s father, though she looked too much like me to tell which one it could be, and the exciting night we’d shared.
I could still feel their strong, sure hands on me, posing me like a doll in a way that felt naughty and so right. The thought of the long-haired one’s teasing kisses on my thighs before he licked me to climax had me squirming in my seat, heat rushing throughout my body. The bearded one had licked me there too, and the rough texture on my oversensitized flesh had been the most incredible torture. And then there were the sure, smooth strokes of the dark-haired ringleader’s thick length inside me, the self-satisfied smirk he wore as he fucked me first, but made sure to take turns with his friends. I’d never been so utterly claimed before or since.
It had been so long. I hadn’t dated, hadn’t even slept around, since my life became that of a full-time mom. It was a sacrifice that I was willing to make. But God, what I wouldn’t give to at least have the full, raw mental footage of that night in my head, untouched by alcohol and time. The parts I did remember felt vivid as the night it all happened, but there were gaps, fuzzy seconds I wished were clearer. I couldn’t have a complete replay, and I certainly had never seen those men whose names I didn’t remember after that night, but at least the feeling of their bodies was something I’d never forget. Not just because that night had granted me my most extreme consequence to casual sex, and the greatest thing in my life.
At least sleeping with three hot men at once was a suitable last hurrah.
Lust clouded my head as I made it to Marv’s Diner just in time. I knew I shouldn’t be thinking about this in public, much less while I was working, but I couldn’t exactly fantasize with my four-year-old around either, and in my years of celibacy I’d gotten used to functioning as normal even when my body was bowstring taught with unfulfilled need. So I gritted my teeth and tried to turn my thoughts less erotic.
“Hey, queen,” Kara greeted me as I headed straight to the back room of the diner where we both served. She was tying her apron around her waist, her dark curls already pulled back into her signature high ponytail. “Your hair’s cute today. Notice anything different about me?”
Never one for subtlety, Kara held out her forearm, which sported a Saran-Wrapped new tattoo, this time of a little frog sitting under a mushroom.
“Cute! What number is that now?”
“Lucky thirteen,” she grinned. “As soon as you’ve got the savings for your own piece, hit me up. You know I’d love to come with you, just to see you go under the needle.”
“Pass,” I laughed.
“Daphne would think you’resocool with a tat though,” Kara argued, pouting as we headed out to the dining room. She and her roommate Brandon were my best friends in the entire world besides my daughter, so they treated Daphne like their niece. Daphne did think Aunt Kara’s tattoos were fascinating, especially when Kara let her use her markers to color in the ones that weren’t full color already.
“Daphne is four,” I rolled my eyes. “She thinks going through an automatic car wash is cool.”
“And she’s right,” Kara sniffed, making me laugh.
“I’m sixty-nine and Istilllove a good car wash,” Lisa piped up as we passed the hostess stand. She adjusted her cat-eye glasses so she could look at the two of us over the tops of them. “You learn to appreciate the little things when you get to be my age.”
