Eventide (Her Father, My Master)

Her Father, My Master: Eventide

Mallorie Griffin

Amazon Edition

Copyright 2012 Mallorie Griffin

Check out other works by Mallorie Griffin

Be sure to read the first installments in this series:

Her Father, My Master: Mentor

Her Father, My Master: Enthralled

All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is

purely coincidental.

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Spring meant the arrival of two things. Home, and being away from my master. Of course, in the

rising May heat, it was closer to summer now than spring, but I didn't care. I hated it all the same.

I'd just spent an entire year with Mr. Hendricks. Well, not quite an entire year – there had been winter

and spring breaks, but close to it. And I found myself only wanting more and more of him.

We had experienced out share of struggles and turmoil, but he had invited me back after the summer

passed, so that must have meant that he wanted me back, too. I wished I never had to leave him in the first place, but I did. Because to everyone else, to the entire world, I was in college, not a slave to my former best friend's father.

Maddie.

She was the one who started this entire mess, by fucking my boyfriend at the time. I should have

thanked her for the amazing, eye-opening experience into a world I'd never even known about before, but

instead I was livid with her. I was incensed by her for far too long. But as the days wore by, I found that anger diminishing further and further. It made so little sense to hold onto such rage. It took a lot of effort, for one thing. So I found my anger at the girl melting away, like ice under a summer sun, into nothing.

Now, I didn't feel anything when I looked at her. I viewed her as little more than an obstacle to my

desire. Her father.

And then she got a job at the same place I worked.

I had a job at a local coffee place, the same place I worked last summer, and they gladly gave me my

job back for this summer. But I wasn't there more than a week before Maddie was hired on as another

barista. This would truly be a test of the control that my master had strived so hard to teach me.

Derrick, one of my other co-workers, noticed my apprehension, the first day we shared a shift though.

“Is something the matter?” he asked me in a hushed tone in the back room of the shop. Maddie was out

front, taking orders, and I was supposed to be working the espresso machine, but I was so agitated, I felt

an overwhelming urge, a need to get out of there.

“No. Yeah,” I admitted. I didn't want to, at first, but it was weird. I felt like I could trust Derrick.

He just had the kind of face that made me want to tell him everything. He looked boyish and open, yet

soulful and trustworthy at the same time. I liked how his green eyes sparkled when he was about to tell

me a joke, and the way his nose crinkled up when I laughed at the inevitably horrible pun that he would

spout out. He was already my closest ally here. And I had to open up to somebody, or else I was going to

implode by the end of the summer.

“The new girl, Maddie,” I continued, then paused for many long moments.

“What about her?” Derrick prompted, giving me one of those looks of his.

“We used to go to high school together. My boyfriend... he cheated on me with her.”

Derrick's eyes widened in shock. “Wow, I'm sorry.”

“It's okay, it happened over a year ago.”

“Wow. But I can see why you're not exactly thrilled about working with her.”

I sat down heavily on a box of paper cups, the cardboard crunching under my slight weight. “Yeah,

and I don't know how I'm going to get through the summer now.”

Derrick stood awkwardly by my side. He didn't know what to say, I was sure of it. Maybe I'd gone

too far, too fast. It's not like he was really my friend – hell, I hardly knew the guy. We'd worked together all of one week, so far. I cursed myself for my stupidity, my social idiocy. Had my previous year away

from the outside world really twisted my ability to cope with it so much?

Or was there something about Derrick that just made me want to open up to him? He was a good guy,

after all.

But he wasn't my master. He was far too polite, too considerate. He would never be able to dominate

me, I was certain.

I shook my head, trying to force my brain to stop being so damned weird. Why was I thinking such

things? I couldn't even begin to guess.

Derrick seemed to sense my confusion, and he backed off, walking near the manager's office and

checking the schedule posted on her door. “Look,” he said, pointing to the slip of paper. “Would it be

easier for you if I took your shifts? Or if we traded, or something?” He looked at me in askance.

“No,” I said. “No, but thanks, really. I need to learn to cope with this.” And it was true, I did. I

wouldn't always have the luxury of only being around people I liked, and this was as good a place to start

as any. Though I really did not care for Maddie, at least I didn't feel the burning, almost irrational hatred of her that I'd felt in past months. She wasn't worth that kind of strong feeling to me. At least, that's what I told myself.

“Okay. You want to get back out there, then?”

“Yeah.”

Just as I stood up, I heard Maddie's high pitched voice call back to us. “Little help up here? I'm

getting kind of swamped!”

I sighed and restrained the urge to roll my eyes. I had to be mature. I was an adult now, after all. I

needed to learn to keep my emotions in check, to control them better, or else they would control me. Mr.

Hendricks had told me as much before.

I retied my apron, and went out front, and this time I really did roll my eyes. Maddie's idea of

'swamped' was a whole two customers, with incredibly simple orders, to boot. But still, I found her

struggling with the espresso machine. The milk steamer was currently screaming at her, and she glared up

at me.

“Where did you go? You know I don't know how to run this thing yet!”

Professionally, with all the calmness that I could currently muster, I brushed Maddie aside and

expertly made the ordered latte, then placed it on the counter for the surly looking middle-aged woman

who'd ordered it.

“Finally! I've only been waiting twenty minutes!”

I wanted to scream at the woman, and tell her that she couldn't have been waiting more than five, since

she only just walked in right when I went back to the back room a few minutes ago, but instead, I took a

deep breath, and willed calmness into myself. Yelling wouldn't do any good.

“Sorry for the wait, I instead brightly said, and she only shot me a glare and whirled around, stalking

out of the shop with her drink.”

“Some people, huh?” Maddie whispered at me as I made the second drink, for an older man who

looked slightly more patient than the previous customer.

“Yeah, some people,” I agreed, snapping the plastic lid over the cup and handing the drink off. I

really didn't want to talk to Maddie at all, but I realized that I would have to interface with her on some

level. We were co-workers now, after all.

The store was empty now, except for one silent girl tucked away in a corner, typing furiously on a

small purple netbook. It was just me, Maddie, and Derrick. And Derrick was currently in the back,

cleaning something or other, so it may as well have just been Maddie and me.

“So how did you come across this job, anyways?” I asked, trying to sound conversational. I was

pretty sure I sounded cold, though. Almost accusatory.

Maddie cringed backwards, ever so slightly. She could sense the awkward atmosphere too. “My dad

told me about this place,” she said.

“My-” I caught myself just in time. I'd almost let it slip. I'd have to be careful. It suddenly seemed

much more dangerous to be working alongside Maddie, now. “Your dad?”

“Yeah. He said he came here often, and he noticed you were working here.”

I narrowed my eyes. “Did you get a job here, just because I have one? Are you trying to drive me

away from this place too?”

I must have sounded really catty, because Maddie shrank back ever more, before surging forward with

a slight fire in her eyes. “No!” Then that fire was snuffed out. “Well... maybe.”

“Why?” I couldn't understand her.

“I wanted a chance to patch things up. Between us.”

“We don't have a problem.”

Now it was Maddie's turn to look accusatory. “Oh come on, I'm not stupid. I know we've had

problems ever since that, you know, that thing.”

“You mean that time you fucked my boyfriend?” I glared at her, feeling all the immature, turgid

emotions associated that that time in my life come boiling up again, no matter how much I tried to will

them downwards.

Maddie dropped her head now. “Yeah. Look.” She lifted her head again, meeting my fiery gaze as

she shifted from foot to foot. “I know I did a dumb thing. A really stupid, asinine thing. It was a

mistake. A huge mistake. If I could go back in time and stop it, I would. But things are the way they are now, and I just want your forgiveness. Like, really. None of that fake high school posturing.”

I sighed. As I looked into her eyes, I could see the sincerity of her apology, how contrite she truly

was. But I still didn't know if I was ready to forgive her. And it wasn't even about Joey, my old

boyfriend. I hadn't talked to him, or even seen him in months. It was about the breach of trust. “I don't know if I can trust you,” I said flatly, echoing my thoughts.

“You can, really!” Maddie looked at me eagerly, and I just felt tired. “Let me prove it to you.”

“Okay, look. We're working together now. I can't stop you from that. I'll have to talk to you

sometimes. If you can prove to me that you're not an utter shit head... well, you're welcome to try. But it's going to take a lot of time before I can trust you again. If it ever happens.”

“All I ask is for a chance,” she said solemnly.

I tilted my held quizzically. “Why do you even care so much?”

“Dude.” Maddie looked at me with an almost shocked expression on her face. “We've been friends

since kindergarten. I don't want to just give up on that relationship. I don't want to just throw it away.”

But you already did
, I wanted to say. But I kept it to myself. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe she really had changed.

Maybe I should give her another chance.

*****

By the end of my shift, I just wanted to get out of there. Maddie was grating on my nerves like crazy,

and Derrick left at three, when Kat and Suz came on for the evening rush. They both got along with

Maddie famously, and I inevitably felt left out. More than left out, I felt usurped. Kat and Suz both

worked here last summer, and I felt like they should have stood by me.

But, I had to remind myself, they didn't know the whole history between Maddie and me. And I didn't

want to tell them. I didn't want to start the same drama and backbiting that I'd experienced in high school.

It seemed so petty, looking back on it, and it was so wearing. I didn't want to do it again.

That didn't mean I was ready to forgive Maddie, though. I thought I could tolerate her, at least, but not