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“Assaulted?” his voice was now going up an octave.
“Well, the guy was all over her.”
“Well,” he trailed off, and I knew he was as concerned as I was. “I can talk to her about it if you think…do you think it has something to do with why she’s taking your self-defense classes?”
“It could.” I moved my knight in, nestled next to his king. He wouldn’t like how close I was to him, even if my knight couldn’t do anything.
He stared at the pieces, lost in thought, then continued, “She’s in school, Robert. She needs money. And what were you doing there anyway?”
He looked down at the board to seem nonchalant, but I knew that I had bothered him. He didn’t want Delia to be in an unsafe situation. And he couldn’t hide all the feelings she still brought up for him.
“I couldn’t sleep.” I shrugged off the question.
Jeremy considered his moves. He had a couple, and I drank my coffee while watching his brain turn.
“And so you decided to drink? That isn’t a good sign, my friend. You’ve done a lot of work to not self-soothe with alcohol.”
“It wasn’t like that. I wasn’t planning on getting black-out drunk. You know I’m past that. I just…thought I should get out of the house, and do something different. Anyway, I left without having anything.”
I didn’t tell him that I left because I was too upset about Delia and the way she’d painted our kiss.
I didn’t tell him that she’d admitted she liked it, the way it felt to kiss me.
I didn’t tell him how good she looked in those little black shorts or how bad I wanted to bend her over in them. How I wanted to slip a finger into what I knew was a juicy pussy, feel how wet she was for me and…
Ok. That’s enough, Rob!
“But you know, in the past—”
I interrupted him, “Trust me, I know. I’m not going back to that person. I am a changed man. I haven’t gotten like that in a long time. I’m all about Corinne’s safety now. She needs a good role model. That’s what I care about.”
Jeremy seemed to set aside the game for a moment, engaged with me now. He sipped at his drink and settled back in his chair, leaving my knight there by his king.
He was doing a good job today pretending that he didn’t care about a lot of things, as was I. I wondered if he knew I was pretending the way I knew he was pretending.
“How’s Corinne these days?”
“She’s good,” I replied, shrugging. “Too good. There’s aboy.”
“How does that feel?” Jeremy smiled at me. It’s just a boy, no big deal. Nothing’s as big a deal as my PTSD makes it feel.
I responded honestly. I wanted to be honest with my friend. I would give him honesty where I could. “Fucking terrifying. I don’t even know the kid, and I want to nail her windows shut.”
Giving a small chuckle, he said, “Jesus, Robert, she’s in fifth grade. I don’t think he’ll come by to throw rocks at her windows just yet.”
“Right. I know.”
He eyed me suspiciously. “Could that be why it bothered you where Delia worked? Does she remind you too much of your daughter?”
“She definitely does not remind me of my daughter,” I scoffed quickly, then drank from my cup, trying not to show him how much his comment bothered me. I knew if he could see my face, he would see it on me.
Delia might be much younger than me, but she was nowhere near the age of my daughter, for Christ’s sake.
“Are you going to move or not? Quit bogarting the game.”
Jeremy smirked that he’d gotten under my skin by not making his move.
“Your wife then?” he asked, deciding to ignore my harmless knight by his king. He moved his queen forward to take my pawn and planted himself next to my king as well.