“He goes by Uncle Andrew, but his real name is Sergeant Andrew Epstein.”
“Uncle Andrew? What a sick fu—…”, he doesn’t finish the word, refusing to curse in front of me, a lady, and I actually notice it and appreciate it. But he doesn’t have to complete his sentence to let me know Andrew Epstein’s fate is completely sealed, and it’s not good for him.
“So you’re on the run, nowhere to go, and worried this creep might be following you?”
“Exactly except I’m not worried that he’s following me. He is following me.”
“How do you know?”
“This isn’t the first town I’ve fled too. I left my original town as soon as I could, driving over an hour away and in the first week I caught him across the street at a coffee shop staring at me twice. Then he finally came into the restaurant and asked where I’d been. Told me that I was already nineteen and I needed to come back and graduate. That I was already a year behind because of everything that had happened during my childhood, or lack thereof, but that he could ‘help me’. Said he was tight with the teachers and he could make sure I graduated in the current semester, which I was going to do anyway. My grades were perfect, but what wasn’t perfect was the learning environment.”
“Did you report him to anyone?”
“I scheduled a sit down with the principal, and he actually agreed to see me, but when I started off with Sergeant Andrew Epstein’s name, he quickly said, ‘You mean Uncle Andrew? Great guy.’ That lead me to believe…or think. I don’t know. I’m a girl with a wild imagination. I thought maybe they were somehow in it together and I just froze up and the principal started talking about how great he was and I just sat there like I was having an out of body experience. Finally he stopped talking and asked me what I wanted to say about him, and I just asked if there was any information about how students could become cops, and luckily he referred me to the guidance counselor, not picking up on what I’d really come to him to say.”
“So it’s two of them?”
“I’m not sure, but he was so quick to stick up for him. You know when a kid is guilty of something, like eating cookies before dinner, and then when you ask about it they simply say ‘no’ with chocolate smeared all over their face, or they volunteer way too much information which lets you know they’re just as guilty as the kid with the evidence visible right on their face?”
“That’s exactly right. You understand people very well.”
“You have to to survive when you have no parents, no family, no one to turn to and everyone sees you as a target they can easily use and abuse and then dump you like yesterday’s trash, knowing no one’s going to believe a ‘troubled teen’, especially when it’s her word against a well-loved and well-respected off-duty cop.”
Daniel leans in closer. “The days of no one to turn to are gone. I’m here now, and forever. You’ve got me, your Daddy when you need to have little time, and Daniel when you need to discuss real life situations like these. You understand me?”
I nod.
“Good. Now let’s get outta here,” he says, his eyes drawing a circle around the entire movie theater. “So we can plan how we’re going to get outta here, this city, this life, for good.”
“What will we do then?”
“We’ll create a new life, together as one.”
12
Daniel
I hold the door open to our hotel room, Diana still a bit surprised they bought my story about not having any ID on me and paying with cash. Technically both were true, but what most don’t know about a 5-star hotel is that they assume, by the price of admission, you’re a well-to-do person and don’t ask many questions. When it comes to life I gravitate toward the high and low in everything, always avoiding the middle.
But tonight, the middle, her middle, is exactly what I’m focused on claiming and making mine.
“Oh my God, and actual bed,” she says, throwing herself onto it, back first as if she’s falling into a swimming pool on a hot summer day.
“Looks like it’s big enough for the two of us, but I have to know you want this.”
She swallows hard. “I do, but I have to know you want me.”
“What do you mean?” I move closer taking her face in my hands as she sits up on the edge of the bed.
“I…I’m not experienced in…these kinds of things.”
“Mine,” I groan. “And only mine.”
She looks at me curiously.
“Just another reason why I want you. Your body is untouched and I’ll be the only man to ever know what it feels like to run my skin along the small of your back, bury my nose in-between your shoulder blades and inhale your scent so deeply it becomes a part of me. And bury my cock so far inside you it’s impossible to tell where one of us begins
and the other ends. Connected as one, always.”