Niccolo

4 Months Earlier than

God didn’t permit Caterina Lucatello and me to have kids earlier than she handed. Daily, I thank Him for that. My stepdaughter is greater than sufficient for me to deal with.

Christine is having a panic assault. “I can’t match into my costume. Nic! Nic!” She yells as she steps out of her bed room and into the hallway. “Niccolo!” Her voice echoes by way of the home, and I contemplate getting up and locking my bed room door. “I would like you to zip me up!”

My head rings with ache as a migraine kinds behind my proper eye. A gnawing sensation spreads from the again of my cranium and down by way of my neck. I rise up from my mattress to seek for meds. As quickly as I stand, the room begins spinning, and I discover myself leaning towards the wall for assist.

My stepdaughter bursts into the room a couple of moments later. Her face is flushed as she rushes in, the billowing skirt of her brilliant pink promenade costume held up by one hand.

“Niccolo. I can’t match into my costume. I would like you to squeeze me into it and doubtless reduce me out of it later.” It is a demand, and I can not deal with calls for proper now.

I stroll previous her to my toilet. Behind the mirror is a drugs cupboard with 4 containers: allergy drugs, Tylenol, Rizatriptan, and Nurtec. The final two are for my migraines, and I dry swallow one earlier than letting the opposite soften beneath my tongue.

“Hiya?” Christine storms into the toilet behind me. “Did you hear me?”

Ache casts a shadow on my temper. Often, I might like to see my stepdaughter traipsing round in a half opened costume, an invite for me to chase and pin her to the bottom for its elimination. However proper now, her voice sounds shrill, and each fiber of my being is screaming at me to place in earplugs. “Please, preserve it down, Chris.”

She turns, holding onto the door body to regular herself as she presents her again to me. Christine leans ahead, and I can nearly really feel the curve of her hips resting in my palms. “Zip. Me. Up.”

On days like as we speak, I don’t keep in mind why I accepted duty for Christine after her mom’s dying. It’s the ache speaking, the little voice in my head jogs my memory, you’re keen on her.

I fumble with Christine’s zipper, however she’s proper; the costume now not suits her. The material puckers and bunches to let her breathe. “I don’t know if that is going to work.”

“Make it work,” she responds between clenched tooth. “I don’t have another choices, and Kaye goes to be right here in an hour!”

I like her finest buddy; they preserve one another grounded. I want Kaye have been right here proper now to cope with Christine’s outburst. “If I get this zipped up, you aren’t going to be snug. Why don’t you—”

Christine snaps her head in my course with a glance of indignation. “I don’t care if I can’t breathe when you get it zipped up. I’m becoming into this costume, Nic.”

The little voice in my head says to keep in mind that she’s nonetheless a egocentric teenage lady. Sure, she turned eighteen a few weeks in the past. Sure, technically, she’s an grownup. However she remains to be, at her core, a egocentric baby. “Thoughts your tone, Christine,” I warn her.

She taunts me as an alternative. “Or what? What are you going to do?”

My palm twitches in an inappropriate approach. “If you happen to’re going to be a brat, you’ll be able to look ahead to Kaye to get right here and enable you to. I’ve a headache and—”

“All I’m asking is that you simply zip up the costume. It isn’t that large of a deal. Simply do it, and I’ll go away you alone.” Maybe she has some extent, although her tone is grating on my nerves.

I work the zipper whereas she clings to the door body. Each inch of progress attracts the material tighter round her chest. It takes a minute, however the zipper will get midway up earlier than lastly gliding the remainder of the best way to the highest.

When she turns round to face me, I get an eyeful of cleavage. The corset-style prime cinches her breasts collectively right into a scrumptious view.

“Thanks,” she says with fake sweetness in her tone. “Despite the fact that you acted like an actual ass about it.”

“Hey!” I name after Christine as she turns to depart the toilet. “You wanted my assist, not the opposite approach round. You possibly can attempt being grateful with out the angle.”

She snorts in derision and sweeps away from me. “And you may attempt being a nicer stepfather. However till then, neither of us will get what we wish.”

I’m pushed by anger, frustration, and ache—a myriad of feelings and sensations that energy me ahead earlier than frequent sense can kick in to cease me. I seize Christine’s wrist and pull her again earlier than she leaves. “Apologize,” I maintain her tightly, “now.”

As an alternative of apologizing, a small smile performs on her lips as she says, “Make me.”

I don’t at all times take my fatherly obligations severely, however my actions are a reflex to the disrespect. My persistence snaps like a twig, and I drag Christine throughout the room, urgent her face-first into the mattress. With one hand on the small of her again, I deliver the opposite down on her ass. The blow is cushioned by the promenade costume’ thick materials, however it’s a jarring motion that catches Christine off guard.

With a small shriek, she glares over her shoulder. “What are you doing?” She calls for.

I apply one other stroke to her different cheek, feeling my pants tighten and my head throb in disagreement. “If you happen to’re going to behave like a toddler, you’ll be punished like a toddler.”

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