Beautiful Monster: a standalone age-gap romance by Sara Cate

Author:Sara Cate [Cate, Sara]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2020-06-08T16:00:00+00:00

Sunny

My phone buzzes behind my head, and I reach back and silence it without looking at the name on the screen. Alexander and I were up until almost two a.m. binge-watching something on Netflix, and I know it’s probably at least eleven in the morning already. I smell the coffee from the kitchen.

He didn’t touch me again after the encounter in the pool, which I had to admit grated my nerves. I wanted to keep playing that little resistance match, but that was the difference between us. For me, it was a game. For him, it was his life.

I don't know if Alex will ever get over our age difference and be ready to let me in. Somewhere in his head, he thinks he belongs with someone else, someone his age, better suited to his lifestyle instead of a teenager he won't even introduce to his friends. I have to live with the fact that if he did give in to what I tempted him with last night, it would just be sex. And that’s it. And that would kill me.

My phone starts buzzing again. My dad’s picture pops up on the screen. Sitting up in a rush, I click the green button and hold it up to my ear.

“Hello?”

“Where the hell are you?” he bites across the phone line without a greeting.

“What?” I stutter.

“Your mother said you’re sleeping over at the neighbor’s house.”

The blood drains from my face. In a rush, I jump out of bed and run to the kitchen. Alexander is sitting on his laptop with a coffee cup in his hands. I take a mental picture of how hot he looks in the early morning light.

“Well, did mom tell you why?” I respond.

Alex tilts his head in question at my conversation. I just shake my head at him.

“I’m staying in his guest bedroom because I can’t stand to be in that house anymore, Dad. I can’t be around her anymore.”

“What the fuck did she do?” my dad asks, sounding exasperated. I’m still waking up, but now I can make out the sound of his car in the background and realize that he’s on the road somewhere. Whatever effort he put into calling me was just enough to put in a call on his way somewhere.

“Don’t worry about it,” I mumble. I’m not protecting my mom. I just don’t need the added anxiety. If I tell him what she did, then he’ll get involved. And it’s prolonging something that I just want buried in my past.

“So, what? You’re sleeping with Alexander Caldwell now?”

I flinch at the accusation in my dad’s tone.

“We’re just friends, Dad.”

Alexander’s eyes are on me, and I avoid his gaze as I defend our relationship—our strange, undefinable relationship.

“Well, I don’t know how I feel about you sleeping in a strange man’s house. I know Caldwell, Sunny. He’s not the kind of guy you leave your nineteen-year-old daughter with.”

“I’m twenty, Dad.” Staring out at the pool, I feel Alex’s presence behind me, putting his hand on my shoulder.

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