Chapter Text
Arthur drank from an ill-advised cup of coffee, eyeing the kitchen clock that had just ticked over to 11:30 pm. He wondered how many times was too many to check the Find Friends app to make sure his baby daughter was still at the high school prom and not in a ditch somewhere.
Or in a hotel room. Or in her date’s car.
Headlights lit the living room curtains briefly, but then drove on. Arthur took another sip of coffee. It was way too late for caffeine, but coffee usually calmed his nerves. He reminded himself that Chloe was a good kid.
But good kids can make bad decisions. Arthur had been a good kid when he knocked up Chloe’s mom in his senior year of college. He’d got drunk off his face at a frat party—he wasn’t even in a frat, but his friend had dragged him along—and had sex with a stranger in someone else’s bedroom. The next day, the girl was gone, he was hung over, and he couldn’t remember whether or not they’d used a condom. After he’d got negative STD results a week later, he’d been relieved and chalked it up as a stupid mistake that he wouldn’t be repeating.
A year later, he answered the door of his apartment to find a woman standing there holding a baby in an infant carrier. A beautiful baby with sparkling blue eyes (like his) and a shock of red hair (like his, except his was shot through with gray now). The woman thrust the carrier at him, and when he took it from her in stunned surprise, she turned and ran.
Arthur guessed it had to have been Chloe’s mother. He hadn’t even recognized her.
He’d called his mother in a panic, and she’d come to help him through those first crazy weeks of learning how to take care of Chloe. And because he wasn’t stupid, he hired a private investigator to find the baby’s mother and paid to have a DNA test done. The results of both were unsurprising; the mother—he refused to think of her as his “ex” when he couldn’t even remember her face—was staying in a halfway house two states away. And the baby was his.
He’d thought of giving her up, giving her to a good home. He thought about that while he was feeding her from a bottle and her beautiful blue eyes were heavy-lidded and milk-drunk. He thought about it while her little fist was clutched around his index finger. He thought about it when he opened his eyes at 3 o’clock in the morning after falling asleep on the couch holding her in his arms.
Eventually, he stopped thinking about it. She was his, and he was hers, and that was that.
He wouldn’t take any of it back, of course. But Arthur knew all about the kinds of trouble a good kid could get into.
Arthur tapped his fingers on the table, staring at his phone. He decided to reload Find Friends, and if they hadn’t left the high school yet, he was going to text her. Just to check in. But then, just as he opened the app, headlights lit the front window. Arthur exhaled in relief and put his phone away.
A single car door slammed, and then the car started backing down the driveway. Arthur frowned. What, her date wasn’t getting out of the car? He’d assumed there would be a certain amount of hanging around on the front porch, or at least that her date would escort her to the door.
The car drove off before Chloe even had the front door unlocked and okay, that was pretty goddamn weird. Arthur got to the door just as Chloe finally got it open.
She’d been crying. Her eyes were red, and tear tracks smeared her makeup.
Arthur thought of himself as a fairly progressive guy. He didn’t subscribe to the whole “touch my daughter and I’ll break your fingers” thing. But he wanted to go find that fucking kid and make him hurt for sending his daughter home like this.
But, he told himself, that wouldn’t help Chloe. So fuck that kid. His daughter was right here, and she needed him. “Hey, baby girl,” he said gently. “What happened?”
“Dad,” she sniffled. “I’m okay.”
He brushed a tear track away from her cheek with his thumb and said, “You’re my brave, strong girl, so of course you’re okay. But something happened tonight, didn’t it?”
She nodded. “Chris dumped me,” she said.
Arthur closed his eyes and counted to five. That fucking kid. Who dumps their girlfriend at the goddamn prom?
“He’s a dick,” Arthur said, and Chloe smiled a little. “You want me to do the dad thing of threatening to go fuck him up? Because I will.”
He would, too. He was fit for a 40-year-old, and he owned a baseball bat. A metal baseball bat.
Chloe laughed a little, which Arthur counted as a win. “No, Dad,” she said. “I kind of just want to forget it ever happened. God, I feel hideous.”
“Well, you’re not,” Arthur said.
“You’re my dad. You have to say that,” Chloe said, but her eyes crinkled up at the corners.
And yeah, he was her dad, so he did have to say that, but it was objectively true. She had striking, expressive features, and she’d inherited thick, auburn hair and pretty blue eyes from Arthur’s side of the family. Plus, she was fit from years of doing swim team and dance, and her dress tonight…
Well, it looked good. Arthur had very carefully avoided thinking about it in any more detail than that. It was sequined, close-fitting, short, and...it looked good. And that was all.
“It’s still true,” Arthur said. “Chris is an idiot.”
She gave him a wan smile. “Yeah,” she said. “It’s okay.” She sighed. “I mean, the timing sucked, and Chris is a dick, but I think I’m glad he wasn’t my first kiss. He’s kind of dumb, Dad.”
Chris was, as a matter of fact, dumb as a fucking post and Arthur had thought so from the first time Chloe had brought him home. He’d never been entirely sure why Chloe was dating him in the first place, although right now he was more hung up on the fact that tonight would have been her first kiss.
It’s not that he wanted his daughter to be making out with boys, but Jesus, she was gorgeous. It was insane that she hadn’t been kissed yet.
It’s because she’s smart, he told himself. Waiting for the right guy. Waiting for someone who’s not an asshole like Chris.
“Yeah, baby, he kind of is,” Arthur said, and Chloe laughed again, a little more brightly this time.
Arthur suddenly had an idea. A great idea.
“Chloe, sweetheart, can you wait down here for about 10 minutes for me?” he asked.
She wrinkled her brow adorably and said, “Sure, Dad. Why?”
He smiled. “It’s a surprise. Just promise you won’t go anywhere.”
“OK, I promise,” she said. “Can I sit down?”
“I don’t know, can you?” he said with a smirk.
“Dad.” She rolled her eyes.
Arthur grinned. “You can sit down. Just stay in the living room. Ten minutes, okay? You can use the time to delete Chris’s information from your phone.”
Chloe snorted. “Way ahead of you, Dad,” she said. “I blocked him before he got out of the driveway.”
“That’s my girl,” Arthur said. “Okay, be right back.”
He jogged up the stairs, taking them two at a time. He could probably do this in less than ten minutes, as long as the garment bag was still where he thought it was.
=====
“Dad, oh my god, you didn’t have to—” Chloe burst into a spate of disbelieving giggles, her hands over her mouth.
“Come on,” Arthur said, “it doesn’t look that bad, does it?” He’d dug through the back of his closet and found what he thought of as his interview suit. Arthur was a software engineer, which meant that most days, wearing the nice blue jeans without the rip in the knees counted as dressing up for work. But his father had taught him that every man should own a suit, so he had one hanging up in the back of his closet for interviews and funerals.
And for dancing with his daughter on prom night after her asshole boyfriend dumped her.
Chloe blushed. “You look really good, Dad,” she said. “But I’m fine, really. You don’t have to.”
Arthur opened up an app on his phone and dimmed the living room lights. “What if I want to?” he asked. “What if I want to dance with my sweet girl on her prom night?”
“Dad,” Chloe protested, but she was grinning.
Take that, Chris, Arthur thought vindictively.
He put a soft jazz playlist on the stereo and set his phone down. “May I?” he asked, and held his hand out to Chloe. She rolled her eyes, but she smiled and took his hand, stepping into his arms.
“Did you at least dance with him?” Arthur asked, clasping his right hand in hers and sliding his left hand around her hip.
Chloe shook her head. “He didn’t want to dance,” she said. “But I danced with some of my girlfriends. It was all right.”
“His loss,” Arthur murmured into Chloe’s hair. He led her in a fairly sloppy box step for a little while. This was nice, he thought. Chloe was relaxed and happy in his arms, and...it had been a really long time since he’d danced with a woman.
Arthur hadn’t dated for years. He told Chloe it was because he was too busy with his job, but that wasn’t entirely true. Arthur had tried dating a couple of women when Chloe was little. The first was when she was three years old. Chloe had burst into tears and clung to him miserably when the girl showed up, and Arthur spent the entire date worrying about her. Arthur’s mom chided about it later and told him that his daughter would need to learn to separate from him someday. But Arthur decided that he could wait until Chloe was older. She was too young to bring someone new into her life, he thought.
The second attempt was when Chloe was seven. Arthur went on a couple of dates with a girl named Laura that he’d met at work. Chloe seemed okay with it, until he had Laura over to the apartment for dinner one night. Chloe told Arthur that Laura seemed mean. After that, Arthur had watched Laura with a critical, hawkish eye, and soon enough he decided it would be easier to simply not see her at all. He told Chloe she wouldn’t be coming around anymore and Chloe said, “good,” and threw her arms around him.
There was no third attempt. He enjoyed the quiet life he led with Chloe, just the two of them. There were only a few things he could get from a girlfriend that he couldn’t get otherwise, and, well...not to be crude, but that’s what his right hand was for.
Chloe giggled into his ear, disrupting his thoughts.
“What?” he asked, smiling.
“Nobody dances like this at prom, Dad. Remind me when you graduated? Because I don’t think anyone danced like this in the ‘90s, either.”
Arthur mock gasped. “Are you calling me old?”
“Maybe,” Chloe said, her eyes sparkling.
“Fine,” Arthur said. “How do the kids these days dance at prom?”
Chloe blushed, and Arthur abruptly realized that maybe she’d just been poking fun. Maybe she hadn’t actually wanted to slow dance with her dad. But taking it back would make things awkward.
Besides, he was having fun, and he thought Chloe was too.
“Here, Dad,” Chloe said. She let go of his hand and clasped her arms around his neck. “Like this,” she said. “And then you put your hands—”
Arthur rested his hands on her hips. “Here?” he asked.
“Yeah,” Chloe said, the blush deepening.
“Oh, does the old man actually know a few things?” he asked with a smirk.
He tugged her close to him, and she laid her head down on his shoulder. “No comment,” she said.
Arthur laughed and kissed the top of her head.
They danced together, slow and easy. The lights were low, and the street outside was silent and deserted, making it seem like they were the only two people in the entire universe. Chloe felt so good against him. Arthur sometimes couldn’t believe she was really his. She was so smart and pretty and capable.
“I love you, sweetheart,” he said.
“Love you too, Dad,” she said into his neck, showing no signs of wanting to stop dancing.
Arthur’s fingers brushed against bare skin, and his eyes widened. Her dress was absurdly short, and as they’d danced, his hands had drifted so that the little fingers of both hands were below her hemline. She had to have felt it, but she didn’t say anything. And Arthur certainly didn’t want to draw attention to it, so...he left his hands where they were. Touching his daughter’s bare thighs.
This was probably crossing a line of some sort, but it had been an accident, and Chloe seemed not to notice or care.
“Can’t believe he didn’t dance with you,” Arthur said. “I could do this all night.”
“You’re good at it,” Chloe murmured. She relaxed against him, letting him lead and guide her.
They danced through the next two songs, swaying together. Her breath was hot on his neck and his hands drifted maybe half an inch lower. She still made no mention of it. And she was the one who’d told him to put his hands on her hips in the first place.
It was bordering on inappropriate, but only bordering. They were still on the right side of that line. He was comforting her; that was all.
She lifted up on her toes for a moment to readjust her arms around his neck. The movement shifted her dress, and now Arthur’s hands were almost entirely below the level of her hem, stroking and sliding against her warm, smooth skin.
If he wanted to, he could easily push her skirt up. He wouldn’t, of course; why would he? But he could. It would be easy. He’d just gently slide the material upwards, inch by inch. And then maybe he’d slip his hands between those thighs…
Arthur abruptly realized with horror that he was half-hard. He took a sharp breath. Focus, he told himself. That had been a wildly inappropriate thing to think, yes, but it was understandable. He was holding a beautiful woman in his arms, and his body was confused. He should wrap this up and send Chloe to bed.
“You’re more fun than Chris,” Chloe sighed against him.
Something feral and territorial uncoiled inside Arthur. Perhaps it wasn’t time to end this quite yet.
“Yeah?” he asked. “He wasn’t your type?” He was fishing, he knew. But Chloe felt so good in his arms, and having her stroke his ego too...well, he was only a man. He wasn’t made of stone.
“Hm-mm,” she said. “He’s a football player, Dad. And he’s, like, a stereotypical football player. I asked him what he reads for fun, and he said he doesn’t.”
Arthur chuckled, flexing his fingers against Chloe’s thighs. He was a scant inch or two from groping his daughter’s ass. She definitely knew where his hands were, but she hadn’t said anything about it, so the obvious conclusion was that she liked it. Arthur decided he wasn’t going to think about that.
But he didn’t move his hands away.
“Doesn’t read for fun, or doesn’t read?” he asked.
“Either,” she said.
Arthur made a low, sympathetic sound. “So this asshole kid doesn’t read and doesn’t dance. No great loss, baby, trust me.”
Chloe pulled herself a little tighter to Arthur, burying her face in his neck. “He didn’t kiss me, either. Don’t forget about that.”
Arthur had not, in fact, forgotten about that. “Well, that’s not right. A girl should be kissed on prom night,” Arthur said.
Okay, that was definitely crossing a line. That was not something a teenaged girl’s father should be saying to her. Certainly not while he was stroking her thighs and half-hard pressed up against her. Arthur, feeling half-drunk, wondered if Chloe could feel that he was hard right now. Wondered if she liked it.
God. Yeah, they’d left the line about five miles back.
But Chloe hadn’t called him a creep or told him to fuck off yet, so maybe he hadn’t transgressed too flagrantly.
She was quiet for a while, and he thought, that’s that, then, with a mixture of disappointment and relief. He was just about to shut the music off and suggest that they call it a night when Chloe said, softly and tremulously, “I don’t know how.”
Arthur’s breath caught in his throat. Time slowed, as though he were watching cars sliding into a crash.
“I can show you,” he heard himself say. “I’ll teach you. If you want.”
He’d taught her how to ride a bike, how to drive a car, how to swim. Was this so different? He had experience that she didn’t. He could make it good for her. He could make it so good.
Arthur was aware on some level that his higher brain functioning had gone AWOL, but he couldn’t quite bring himself to care.
Chloe made a little questioning noise against his throat. “It won’t be weird?” she asked.
He thought about saying we passed weird about half an hour ago, baby, but instead he stroked her hair and said, “It won’t be weird, because we won’t make it weird. I won’t do anything unless you want me to.”
She considered that for a little bit, while Arthur held and petted her and thought frantically that he might have just permanently fucked up his relationship with the one person in the world he loved unconditionally.
“OK,” Chloe said finally. “I want you to, Dad.”
Arthur went lightheaded for a second and took a deep breath to steady himself. “You sure?” he asked.
“Are you sure?” she asked, looking up at him with big eyes.
He wet his lips. “Yeah,” he said. “I am.” He wasn’t sure it was a good idea. But was very sure he wanted to.
“Me too,” she said. “Teach me.”
Arthur studied her face, looking for any signs of fear or hesitation. But all he found was soft, open eagerness.
She said she wants it. She said she’s sure. “Okay,” he said under his breath. He slid his glasses off, folded them up, and set them down on the end table.
“You can kiss with glasses on,” he said, “but it’s easier if you don’t have to worry about where the frames are going.”
“Okay,” Chloe said with wide eyes. The only time she ever saw Arthur with his glasses off was when he was swimming or had just come out of the shower, and he could tell from her face that suddenly this had become very real.
“Still sure?” he asked, touching her jaw lightly. “We can stop.”
She shook her head. “I’m sure,” she said. “Don’t stop.”
“Open your mouth to me, baby,” Arthur said, sounding hoarse. “For now, you don’t have to do anything. Just feel me. Feel what I do, okay?”
She nodded and parted her lips. Arthur held her chin, tilting her head to get a good angle, and he touched his lips to hers. She was breathing fast, and he steadied her with his other hand on her back.
“Still OK?” he murmured.
“Yeah,” she breathed against his mouth.
He slid his tongue between her lips. She made a little mmph sound, her eyes wide open. Arthur licked and traced along her lips, her tongue, the roof of her mouth, taking his time with it, tasting her.
When he withdrew, she formed the word wow without any sound.
“Yeah?” he said, one hand on the back of her neck. She nodded, and he said, “okay, now you do it to me.”
She was eager, pushing her tongue deep into his mouth. He moved his head away, stroking her hair. “Gently,” he said. “Take your time.”
This time, she copied what he’d done earlier almost perfectly. She licked at him, touching her tongue to his, exploring him. Her hands were on his shoulders, gripping onto him tightly.
Arthur was hard. Fully, catastrophically hard. There was no way Chloe couldn’t feel it. He should probably stop this right here before it went any further.
“Was that good, Dad?” Chloe asked, looking up at him with those big, blue eyes. Her cheeks were flushed with color and she was moving her hips against him in tiny, slow circles. She didn’t seem to be aware she was doing it. She was apparently just that turned on by kissing her father.
Christ.
“Yes, baby,” Arthur said, trying valiantly to keep his voice under control. “That was perfect.”
She bit her lip and gave him the imploring look that she gave him when she was about to ask for something big. Arthur was pretty sure there was literally nothing she could ask him for right now that he wouldn’t give her, which should have been terrifying but instead just made his cock jerk with excitement.
He kissed her, butterfly soft, on the lips. “What is it, baby?” he asked.
“I liked that, Dad,” she said, “but can we, um.” She blushed a deep red. “Can we do it harder?”
He stared at her for a couple of seconds. And then, without saying anything, he pulled her tight to him, thrusting his tongue deep into her mouth. She made a kittenish little noise in the back of her throat, and that was pretty much when Arthur’s brain went completely offline. He kissed her deep and fast and hard, one hand on the back of her neck and the other one on her ass, while he ground his hips into hers. This wasn’t teaching; he was taking her mouth hard, and she was letting him. Fuck, she was letting him.
After a minute or two, Arthur realized that if he didn’t stop now, he was liable to come in his pants like a teenager. He pulled back. “OK,” he panted. “Gotta stop. We have to stop.”
Chloe’s lips were red and swollen. “Holy shit,” she whispered. Arthur leaned his forehead against hers and huffed out a laugh.
“Yeah,” he said. “Holy fucking shit.”
Chloe laughed too then, and they stayed there, leaning on each other and giggling helplessly, until it finally died off. Arthur felt oddly giddy.
“Dad,” Chloe said, “can I ask you something?”
Arthur lifted an eyebrow. “I think we’re a little bit past worrying about crossing any lines,” he said. “You can ask me anything.”
She chewed the corner of her lip. “Did we have to stop because you were going to c-come?” she asked, stumbling a little over the last word.
Arthur thought about lying, but they were a little bit past that as well. He’d been grinding his cock into her hips. No point in being coy.
“Yes,” he said.
“I was going to make you come,” she said, her eyes dark.
Arthur realized, with a thrill that shot right down his spine, that he now knew exactly what his daughter looked like when she was turned on.
“Yes,” he said. “You were.”
She gave him a quick little smile. “Cool,” she said. “Um...do you still want to?”
It was an offer. His mouth opened, but he was completely unable to form speech. He was still hard as a brick; his erection hadn’t diminished at all, and it thought that rubbing off against Chloe was a fucking fantastic idea. But Christ, she was his daughter.
But Chloe seemed okay. She seemed pleased. She wanted to do it. It was her idea, in fact. He wasn’t coercing her into anything. He wasn’t making her. And God, he wanted her so badly right now that he could cry.
“We’re leaving our clothes on,” he said, and she nodded rapidly. “Okay. Go stand up against the wall.”
She lit up like Christmas and did what he asked, standing with her back to the living room wall.
“Hold on tight, baby, okay?” he said.
“Okay,” she said. Her eyes were dilated nearly black. Arthur advanced on her like some kind of apex predator and pressed her against the wall, leaning his weight against her. He straddled one of her legs and ground his hips against her thigh, rucking her dress up so high in the process that her panties were visible.
It felt so fucking good; he’d been ready to blow for ages now, and she was so soft and pliant and warm. He lowered his mouth to her neck, sucking gentle kisses into it, rhythmically grinding and listening to her gasp and whimper.
“You look so good,” he groaned into her neck between kisses. “So sexy in that dress, baby.” He couldn’t remember ever feeling this good before. He was barely even aware of what he was saying.
“Dad,” Chloe cried, clutching on to his back while he ground harder and harder against her.
“You want it?” he panted. “You want to make me come?”
“Oh my god,” Chloe was saying. “Yes, Dad, do it. I want you to. Oh my god.”
Arthur pinned her tightly against the wall and ground hard against her. “Fuck, Chloe,” he groaned, and he shot for what felt like a year, pulse after pulse after pulse jetting into his underwear.
When it finally stopped, he rested his head against Chloe’s shoulder while his heart rate came down from the stratosphere and he regained some semblance of rational thought.
“I love you, Dad,” she was whispering into his ear. “I love you so much.”
“Love you too, baby,” he said. “This gonna be weird?”
“No,” she said. “Promise.”
He decided to believe her. He’d just had the best orgasm of his entire life, and he didn’t have the capacity for panic or self-loathing right now. He felt, actually, really great.
He could get around to self-loathing tomorrow.
=====
The next morning, Arthur woke up and spent three entire seconds feeling well-rested and in a good mood before the memory of the previous night fell on him like a ceiling caving in. His eyes shot open.
Oh my God. What did I do?
Well, he thought bleakly, the answer to that was easy. He’d frotted against his daughter until he came in his pants and, presumably, left her completely unsatisfied. Not that addressing that issue would have been any less fucked up.
Jesus fucking Christ, what had he been thinking? He’d kissed Chloe. He’d practically come on her.
Arthur considered just staying in bed for the rest of his life. But he’d have to get up and face reality—and Chloe—sometime. Fuck, fuck, fuck.
He got out of bed and got dressed like a man on his way to the executioner’s chamber.
=====
He came into the kitchen to find Chloe, wearing her fuzzy pajama pants and Rainbow Brite hoodie (“it’s retro, Dad”), eating a bowl of cereal.
“Morning, Dad,” she said from around a mouthful of Cap’n Crunch.
“Don’t talk with your mouth full,” he said automatically, and just like that, things felt normal again.
Chloe rolled her eyes at him good-naturedly and said, “fine” with her mouth still full of cereal, just like she always did. He tousled her hair, just like he always did, and then he started rummaging through the fridge to find something to throw together for breakfast.
“Make bacon,” Chloe said.
“You’re literally eating right now,” Arthur pointed out.
“Yeah, but bacon,” Chloe said, giving him her best sad puppy-dog eyes.
It was going to be okay. They were going to be okay.
Thank God, Arthur thought, nearly trembling with relief. They just wouldn’t talk about it again. It would be like it had never happened. Easy.
=====
The next weekend, Arthur was scrolling through news sites on his phone while having his morning coffee when Chloe announced that she was going to the pool.
“Okay, baby,” he said absently. “Emma going?”
“No, just me,” Chloe said. There was a pause, long enough for Arthur to look up from his phone, and then Chloe asked brightly, “Want to come?”
Arthur froze with his coffee cup halfway to his mouth. He hadn’t gone with Chloe to the pool since middle school, when she graduated from swim lessons. He’d dropped her off and picked her up for a while, but ever since she got her driver’s license, he didn’t even do that.
“You want me to?” he asked mildly.
“Might be nice,” she shrugged, looking somewhere past his face. “If you’re not busy.”
He wanted to ask her why; he had it on the tip of his tongue. But something told him it might be better not to. Better to leave this unexamined.
The best thing might be to tell her that yes, he was busy, so she should go ahead on her own.
“I’ll go find my swim trunks,” he said.
=====
At the pool, he settled into a lounge chair near to the diving pool, with a novel he pretended to read from behind his sunglasses.
Chloe was showing off for him. There was no other way to describe it. She’d worn a tight little striped bikini that he’d never seen before, and dove into the pool again and again, each time knifing perfectly into the water—four years of swim team paying off—and swimming over to the edge. Then she’d climb up, dripping wet, and glance in his direction before parading back over to the board again.
Arthur liked it.
Every time she eyed him sidelong while sauntering past, it gave him a possessive thrill of satisfaction. Most of the men at this pool were staring at her body, but she only had eyes for him.
Chloe climbed out of the pool again, glistening with water droplets, looking like a Greek goddess with the sun glinting off her hair.
He wanted her so much. There was really no point in pretending anymore. If he didn’t want her, he wouldn’t be here watching her. He wouldn’t be enjoying her obvious, blatant flirtation. And if he were going to be honest with himself, he wouldn’t have kissed her on prom night. He might not have realized before that point, but it was there.
He’d loved her to the exclusion of any other woman for a very long time. And now that he’d seen her as a woman, he couldn’t put that genie back in the bottle.
I could have her, he thought, knowing it was true. It was wrong, but God, did it really matter? She was flaunting her body at him. She wanted him. Nobody could say that he was taking advantage of the situation.
Chloe dove off the board again, and his eyes traveled along the long, lean lines of her body as she swam up to the surface.
=====
On the way home, he said, “That new bikini looks good on you.”
Chloe preened. “I didn’t think you noticed,” she said.
“I noticed,” Arthur said, and Chloe smiled and ducked her head.
=====
“Baby, graduation is in two weeks, right?” Arthur had his laptop out at the kitchen table while Chloe flopped on the living room couch scrolling through Instagram.
“Yeah,” she said. “Why?”
Arthur scrolled past some photos of beaches, pretending his hands weren’t shaking. “You have anything going on in the two weeks after that?”
“Give me a sec,” she said, tapping at her phone. “No, the open house for the art program isn’t until the last week of June. Um, I think Emma wanted to hang out some, maybe?”
The art and design school downtown was one of the best ones in the country. Arthur had been secretly pleased when Chloe had accepted their offer; it had been the only local school she’d applied to. He’d felt a little guilty about it, but he hated the thought of her being half a continent away.
“Think Emma would mind if I took you to the beach instead?”
Chloe’s head popped up over the side of the couch. “The beach? You mean like the lake?”
“I mean like Cabo,” Arthur said, trying to keep his voice steady. He carefully stared at his laptop screen. They’d gone on vacations to the beach before, but never out of the country, and always in a large group with extended family. Not two weeks alone together in a resort villa.
“Just us?” she asked.
He looked up and met her eyes. “Just us.”
Chloe swallowed so hard he could hear her throat click. “Yeah, Dad,” she said. “Let’s go to Cabo.”
Arthur bought the tickets within the hour.
=====
He took Chloe shopping for new clothes that she probably didn’t need. She modeled for him at the store—sarongs, sundresses, swimsuits—while he watched, and watched, and watched.
“This is a lot,” she said with wide eyes when she saw the total at the register.
Arthur handed over his credit card. “You deserve nice things,” he said.
The girl ringing them up gave Chloe a knowing smile. “Aw,” she said. “That one’s a keeper.”
It wasn’t the first time they’d been mistaken for romantic partners instead of father and daughter—the age gap was relatively small and Arthur still had all of his hair—but this time Chloe didn’t correct it. “Yeah,” she said with a little laugh. “Think he’s stuck with me.”
Arthur didn’t trust himself to speak.
=====
Two days before they were scheduled to leave, Arthur was up late on his laptop at the kitchen table, doing some last-minute updates on a work project. It was mindless work for the most part, so he was thinking about the trip, and about Chloe, and about exactly what the hell he thought he was doing.
Jesus, what if he’d misread this entire situation? Maybe he’d pressured her into doing things she didn’t want to do. He was her father. Just because his morals had crumbled like a breached dam didn’t mean he should drag Chloe down with him. He was supposed to protect her, for God’s sake.
He looked at his phone. It was late, but he was about thirty seconds away from a panic attack and anyway, Chloe was a night owl. He picked the phone up, texted her.
11:36 pm: you awake, baby?
11:37 pm: yep what’s up
11:37 pm: can you come downstairs for a minute?
Arthur heard movement from Chloe’s room. She came into the dining room a couple of minutes later, wearing her PJs but not looking particularly sleepy.
“What’s up, Dad?” she asked.
She was beautiful, even in her pajamas with her hair mussed. Arthur stared at her, unable to articulate all the things he wanted to say. The silence stretched out so long that Chloe tilted her head curiously.
“Dad?” she asked.
Finally, he blurted out, “Are you sure?”
“Am I—oh,” she said, getting what he was asking. Frown lines appeared on her forehead. In the low light, it made her look older than she was. Like she might look twenty years from now.
Arthur knew, with heartstopping certainty, that he would still want her then. That he would want her always, forever. This monster, once woken, could not be put back to sleep. But if Chloe said no, or that she wasn’t sure, or that she was scared, then he would end it. He’d find some way to cope. For Chloe, he would burn down the world.
“I know we don’t talk about this, Dad,” Chloe said.
It pierced him through the chest. No, they didn’t talk about it, because talking about it, naming it, would make it real.
“But you’re looking pretty rough,” she went on, “like maybe you’re thinking that you’re forcing me or something gross like that?”
She studied his face.
“Not...that,” Arthur managed. “But...coercing, maybe, yeah.”
She rolled her eyes, and it was such a familiar expression on her face that Arthur’s nerves settled a little.
“No,” she said flatly. “That’s not what this is.” Her frown lines deepened. “Look,” she said, “am I coercing you by, like, wearing bikinis? Or saying yes to going on vacation?”
Arthur sighed. “Obviously not,” he said. “But that’s different.”
She folded her arms. “No, it’s not,” she said. “If that’s not coercion, then neither is asking me on vacation or strutting around the house shirtless all the time or whatever.”
Arthur’s eyebrows shot up. “Strutting?” he asked.
Chloe’s eyes slid away from him, and she shrugged sheepishly. “You look good,” she said. “Emma’s been calling you a DILF since we were like 13 years old.”
“She what?” Arthur said, temporarily derailed by this information. “You never said.”
Chloe snorted. “One, in what possible context would I have told you that information? And two, no way in hell was I going to tell you Emma thought you were hot, because then…” She drew herself up straighter, lifting her chin. “What if you started looking at Emma instead of at me?”
She was so brave, Arthur thought helplessly. How could he not love her in every way?
“You’re the only one I ever look at,” he said, more honestly than he’d intended.
Chloe’s features softened. “Dad,” she said.”I want this. The vacation, all of it. Okay? I want it.”
Arthur gave her a tight nod. “Okay, baby,” he said. And then, quietly, he said, “I want it too.”
He closed his laptop and stood up, wrapping Chloe into a hug. “I don't deserve you,” he said into her hair.
“That’s true,” she agreed. “You really don’t.” She let go, grinning at him, and then she kissed him once, lightly, on the lips. “Night, Dad,” she said, and she headed back up to her room.
It hadn’t felt real before. Arthur had vaguely assumed that something would intervene or stop them, that one or both of them would get cold feet and call it off. But the tickets were bought, and he wanted it, and Chloe wanted it, and the flight left in two days.
We’re really doing this, Arthur thought, and he shivered.