Stacy's Dad Has Got It Going On (5 page)

“No, no,” Eric said. “I just turned
the TV on for the company. You can put it on whatever channel you like.”

Savannah flipped over to the two a.m.
sitcoms she watched as a treat during exam cram, and Eric’s face lit up beyond
the blue glow cast by the television screen. “This is perfect! I need to laugh
right about now.”

Savannah could always empathize, but
never express her sympathy. She nodded, even though he wasn’t looking at her.
That didn’t feel like enough, so she said, “You don’t need a TV for company.
You have me. TVs are probably better listeners, but I give really bad advice,
in case you’re looking for any.”

With a deep chuckle, Eric said, “I’ve
had no shortage of bad advice tonight, but I’d be glad to hear some more.”

“And here I thought I was being
unique,” Savannah teased. “Anyway, I’m just kidding. The last thing I want to
do is pry into your life.”

Eric turned to her with an expression
of awe on his face. “Pry? I showed up on your doorstep unannounced and
uninvited. You’ve let me change in your bedroom, sleep on your couch, and eat
your food, and you haven’t once asked me why. I don’t think prying is even in
the picture, here.”

“Well…” Savannah couldn’t bring
herself to look him in the eye as she admitted, “Stacy obviously told me why
you’re staying with us. It’s not like I wasn’t curious.”

Their shared silence was cut only by
the sounds of sipping coffee and the canned laughter on TV. When she thought it
was safe to look, Savannah glanced in Eric’s direction. He was leaning against
the armrest at the opposite end of the couch. With his face in profile, he
looked even younger than he had the last time the thought occurred. How could
anybody cheat on a hot guy like Eric? Sure, she didn’t know him all that well,
but he seemed really sweet and caring. Stacy’s dad seemed like such a good
person. He didn’t deserve to be cheated on.

“Savannah…”

Had she ever heard him say her name?
It sounded so sensual on his lips. She loved the way he drew out the middle “a”
sound for a few beats before moving on to the final “nah.” Eric trailed off as
he turned to face her, and her heart thumped in her chest. She felt like
whatever came next would be a big deal. Maybe he would even confess his obvious
attraction to her. Maybe he’d tell her their accidental drunken kiss had in
fact been a deliberate drunken kiss. Or maybe he’d say…

“I just want to apologize to you.”

She nodded, eyes wide and encouraging,
but he didn’t clarify the reason behind the apology. “Apologize?” she finally
asked. “What for?”

Shaking his head, he inched closer to
her on the couch. “All the drinking I’ve done since I got here. I’ve really
embarrassed myself.”

“Oh, that? Pfft!” She waved her hand
in the air, offering him an encouraging smile. “Don’t worry about it. Totally
understandable.”

Grabbing her hand, he squeezed her
fingers against his palm. His gaze was nothing if not sincere. “No, I’ve been
acting like those mid-life crisis men who, you know, buy the convertibles and
chase the young women, and generally try to be cool when, in reality, they’re
just pathetic.”

With Eric’s hand clutching hers,
Savannah could hardly breathe, let alone process what he was saying. “You’re
not pathetic,” she murmured. “And I think you’re a little too young for a
mid-life crisis. You’re, what…” She didn’t want to presume. If she guessed too
young, she’d seem like a flatterer. If she guessed too old, that would be just
plain insulting. “I mean, not that it matters how old you are. You look very
young.”

Eric gave her hand one final squeeze
before playfully tossing it back into her lap. “Oh, come on,” he laughed. “I
know you’re just trying to make me feel better, but it’s really not necessary.”

“No, I mean it.” When she pulled her
knees up onto the couch, her naked legs peeked out from the slit of her
dressing gown. For a brief moment, she considered modesty’s demand to draw the
robe firmly shut. Throwing modesty to the breeze, she leaned across to the
coffee table, allowing the top to fall open just a touch as she reached for her
mug. She knew it was lecherous of her, but she wanted him to look at her body
and consider the possibilities. “You look almost my age, like you might have
finished college ten years ago, max.”

Throwing his head back against the
couch, Eric released a sharp laugh that peaked too soon and then dwindled
quickly away. As he sat cupping his coffee mug with both hands and staring at
the ceiling, Savannah felt a twinge of discomfort. It was so obvious he was
thinking about all the bullshit his wife had put him through—what else would he
be contemplating, looking so like a lost little boy? Savannah’s legs itched to
stand up and leave, but she fought the unsympathetic urge. She wanted to make
Eric feel better. Somehow. If there was one thing Savannah sucked at, it was
consoling the heartbroken.

“So, what did you take in college?”
Savannah finally asked. If she couldn’t comfort Eric, the least she could do
was change the subject.

He shot her a curious glance.
“Nothing. Why, what did Stacy tell you?”

Confused, Savannah gripped her coffee.
Why did Eric look so defensive? Had he not gone to college? Savannah felt
flustered by his strange response. She searched his fearful gaze for some
answer, but found none. His eyes were so blue. Even looking so apprehensive as
they did, those eyes took her breath away.

As she ogled him like a schoolgirl
with a crush, a wave of understanding seemed to come over him, followed by a
wave of relief. “Oh,” he said, chuckling before sipping his coffee and setting
it down on the table. “What courses did I take?”

“Well…yeah.” Savannah gripped her mug.
“What did you think I meant?”

“Oh, it’s stupid.” He stuck a hand in
his blonder-than-blond hair and ruffled it like the coat on a golden retriever.
“I thought you meant what
drugs
did I take in college.”

“Drugs?” Now it was Savannah’s turn to
toss her head back and laugh.
Drugs?
“God, no! Are you kidding me? Drugs
and I inhabit two separate worlds. I’ve never even smoked a cigarette.”

Eric smirked and that wonderfully
juvenile dimple made its first appearance of the night. “Haven’t you?”

“Nope,” she said with a shrug that
nearly spilled her coffee. To be safe, she set her mug down beside his. “I try
to stay away from things that are bad for me.”

Savannah’s mind reeled with all the
possible follow-ups to that statement: “What about me, Savannah? I’m bad for you,
and you just keep inching your way closer.” Of course, Eric didn’t say anything
like that. In fact, he didn’t say anything at all. He only nodded and reached
for his coffee.

“I do enjoy caffeine,” Savannah went
on. “And I guess that’s bad for me. But we all need our vices, don’t we?”

She imagined him putting an arm around
her shoulder and asking, “Is that your only vice?” before kissing her neck and
then tearing open her dressing gown and licking her breasts. God, what she
wouldn’t give to feel his hot mouth encompassing her nipple. The sucking would
turn her own so bad she’d grab his hand and thrust it between her legs. He’d
find her wet already.

It didn’t take much. Savannah’s mind
could make her wetter than any coarse man’s body. Could Eric be coarse? If she
poised herself just right at his side, would he wrap his arm around her middle
and kiss her hard? Would he lay her back and open up her robe? Would he pull
out his hard cock and, without even bothering to strip off his clothes, shove
it into the wetness between her legs? Hold her shoulders down and fuck her
bareback, with Stacy in the next room? 

No, Eric would never do anything like
that. Of course he wouldn’t. He was sensitive and dignified, and that’s why
Savannah felt so safe around him. If she thought for a second this man might be
a threat to her personal safety, she wouldn’t be sitting beside him on the
couch in the middle of the night, sipping coffee in nothing but a robe.

“To answer your question,” Eric said,
“I was an English major with a minor in poli-sci.” 

Savannah issued a generous smile. “And
they say an English degree won’t get you anywhere.”

“Well, it was more the political
portion of my degree that helped me along in my career.” Eric returned her
smile ten-fold.

For a moment, Savannah simply gazed at
him: perfectly straight teeth, perfectly pink lips…Eric was quite a man. She’d
encountered many successful people over the years, in a financial sense, but so
few whose careers she actually respected. “How did wrangle a job with the IHAO?”

He shrugged. “Same way anybody without
connections does it: took an unpaid internship, got hired on as a minion with a
pretty crappy wage, and just kept applying for those promotions until they
started coming through. I’ve heard it said executives are promoted to the level
of incompetence, and that’s pretty much where I’m at now.”

Savannah rolled her eyes. “I’m sure
that isn’t true. Everything you told me about the IHAO yesterday proves you’re
good at what you do. Oh, and that reminds me, I want to make a larger donation
to the organization—and that proves you’re good at your job too, because you’re
the reason I want to donate.” Did that sound too fawning? “I mean, all that
stuff you told me about, about the bombs in Laos and all that…”

Eric could obviously see that she was
treading water, trying desperately not to sink down to the depths of obvious
infatuation. “You’re in the same program as Stacy, aren’t you?” he asked.

“Pretty much,” she said with a nod.
“Yeah, I’m bio-chem, she’s more on the bio-engineering side of things.”
Savannah felt stupid for saying that last bit. Eric was Stacy’s father. Of
course he knew what program she was in.

Savannah turned to look at the clock
on the microwave, since they’d never managed to set the one on their old VCR.
Boy, was it late!

“Don’t go,” Eric pleaded, like he
could read her mind. He looked down into his coffee. “I mean, if you’re tired
or whatever, yes, go, but…” With a persuasive smile, he said, “I could use the
company.”

She couldn’t name the force that guided
her to sit upright on the couch. Was it the same one that insisted she grab a
cushion and place it in her lap? Taking the coffee mug from Eric’s hand, she
set it down on the table. His movements were every bit as fluid as hers when
she set her palm against his head and pulled it down into her lap. He offered
no resistance. She didn’t have to force him, and maybe that’s because he could
sense, in that moment, Savannah’s intentions were not seductive. This was
comfort. Something inside of her was giving instruction now, to run her fingers
through his fine hair as he lay bundled against her on the couch.

The TV took over, as it tends to do,
but it wasn’t the lame jokes or the canned laughter that prompted Savannah’s
smile. The look of relaxation on Eric’s face as he faded into sleep did more
for her than any drug possibly could.

Chapter Six

The birds had barely begun chirping
when Stacy’s bedroom door clicked open. Savannah jumped—at least, she started
to jump before realizing there was a man in her lap. Eric’s sleeping head was
damn heavy. Her heart leapt into her throat. She was stuck. She couldn’t get up
without tossing him off the couch or extracting herself by stealing off to the
side.

In an oversized T-shirt and pyjama
pants, Stacy sleepwalked to the bathroom. When the door closed and locked
behind her, Savannah relaxed just enough to mutter, “Shit,” as she tried to
pull herself out from under Eric’s head.

Eric seemed to wake up at her hissed
expletive, and just in time to see Savannah yank her legs out from under him.
The right side of her dressing gown was not so easily extricated. He looked
down and she looked where he was looking. With her robe caught under Eric’s
elbow, his lucky gaze landed smack against her bare bush.

Savannah’s blood ran cold. This was
exactly what she’d hoped for last night, but now it seemed so wrong. Why?
Because it was unintentional or because Stacy was nearly awake and peeing just
across the hall?

Before Eric could say anything,
Savannah yanked on her robe. Eric’s elbow slid out from under him and his face
landed flat against the cushion he’d slept on in her lap. Savannah took
advantage of the opportunity to run away. She didn’t stop until she’d reached
her room, shut the door, and locked it. Once inside, she fell across the bed
she hadn’t slept in and gazed at herself in the mirror. After a time, she
opened her robe and looked at her bush through Eric’s eyes. That’s when she
smiled.

* * * *

After dressing fast as lightning,
Savannah assembled her notes and grabbed her microbiology text. She’d get more
reading done at the library than she would at home—too many distractions on the
couch and in her sock drawer. If she got enough work done during the day, she
could fully relax during her date with Chris.

Speeding past the kitchen with only a
sheepish grin for Stacy’s father, Savannah crammed her feet into a pair of
shoes, hoping they were on the right feet, and rushed out the door. She hadn’t
even brushed her teeth before leaving, but gum was made for times like these.
As she hopped down the stairs, Savannah instructed herself to think about Chris
now
so she wouldn’t be distracted by pre-date imaginings
later
,
when she tried to study. People laughed at her near-bureaucratic organizational
skills, but her grades said it all. “A place for everything and everything in
its place” applied not only to the objects in her apartment, but to thoughts in
her mind.