Outside, you set yourself to running for a few minutes, until you find that your breath is starting to come more harshly. You slow down then, but the quick bit of running has done its job; you're no longer freezing your ass off. Absently, you can still feel the cold breeze blowing against your skin, but it won't take long for you to begin to sweat now.
You're out there for a bit under an hour and a half, running loops around your block, before you begin to feel your legs burning, and your breaths are coming short and rapidly. It's not the best exercise you've had, but it feels good to get your body moving. It helps... clear your head, kind of. Regardless, you slowly make your way back home, arriving back a little after eight thirty, and head straight to the shower.
The initial cold spray of the water in the shower causes you to begin shivering violently, even given the elevated temperatures caused by your run, but the shivers fade quickly as the water warms up. Soon, you're luxuriating beneath the warm water. It's tempting to stay in here for a while longer and let the warm water wash away the tight knots in your muscles, but you can't— literally, you can't, you're going to run out of hot water soon.
You shut off the spray of water, quickly towelling off and throwing your dirty clothes into the washing basket. Then you stick your head out of the bathroom door, turning your gaze suspiciously down each hall to make sure the path is clear before you dart back to your room and pull your clothes on. Not that you think Dad wants to peek, or anything, it would just be really embarassing if he saw you running around naked.
Once you're dressed, you make your way out to the kitchen and pull your phone over to you, absently checking your texts. There's a text from Victoria wishing you a good morning, two from Madison— one of which is just comprised of a series of weird text icons forming the shape of a text-man stretching his arms out for a hug— and a well-wishes text from Emma. You amble around the kitchen answering them as you make yourself some toast for breakfast.
Oh, Dad bought some raspberry jam. A smile crosses unbidden over your face. Raspberry and apricot jams are your favourites. You pull them out, and when your toast pops out of the toaster, you begin spreading jam over them.
Then, a few moments later, you make a disgusted face when you finally begin eating the toast. Okay, the jams might be nice on their own, but as it turns out, raspberry and apricot jams do not go together. You make sure to text Madison and let her know, just in case, then turn back to your jams, pouting at them as you begin to scrape the jam off each of them and layer them thickly with just raspberry jam.
Your phone buzzes after that, a reply from Madison— "A lot of jams don't go well together. You should try apricot jam and Gran Queso instead, I'll make you some on Monday". You smile softly as you text back, a simple "Thanks". You cast about for a few minutes, looking around your kitchen, then— oh! You bend your head back over your phone, texting her back again.
"Spending the weekend with Dad. I'm sorry you can't come over again
"
She replies back a couple of minutes later. "Aw
And I just bought some new lingerie last night, too
" You debate for a few moments over how to respond to that, when your phone buzzes again, a second text from Madison arriving. "Want me to show you?
"
You can't text Yes back fast enough as you sip at your coffee. She doesn't reply for a few minutes, and anxieties begin to rise in your head— is she upset that you're asking her for pictures of herself in her underwear? — before you can quell them.
Then, your phone buzzes, twice. You open the text, and a download bar appears across the top of your screen. You take another sip of your coffee as you wait, impatiently waiting for the bar to finish. Then it does, crossing 100% less than two minutes after you first opened it, and you quickly tap the images to open them.
They're simple images— Madison standing in her bathroom in front of a full-length mirror, holding her phone up to the side of her head— but that doesn't make them any less sexy. There's an embarassed flush to her face, strong enough that you can see even her shoulders are faintly red, but she's smiling happily in them, as though pleased to be doing this for you.
In the first image, she's wearing nothing but a set of dark black lingerie. The lingerie itself is nothing special, just an ordinary lacy bra-and-panties set, but it looks delicious on Madison. The material is dark, and it contrasts extraordinarily well with Madison's pale, creamy skin, coloured even paler than normal by the stark white light of her bathroom. Idly, you wish you could get Madison and Sophia alone together in their underwear. You can't decide which you like better— dark lingerie on Madison's white skin, or white lingerie on Sophia's dark skin.
The second image is much the same, except that instead of wearing the bra and panties, she's only wearing the bra. She's holding her panties in her free hand, off to the side. She'd sent you a text with the pictures— "Sorry, I forgot you don't like it when I wear panties ;3"
You shoot back two texts in response— a simple "Good girl." first, then "You're always my gorgeous girl, but you look even better than usual when you wear that." Then, while you're waiting for a response— which turns out to be another little text face, this one blushing and smiling— you save the images to your phone, specifically to Madison's gallery.
After that, you get up. Dad still isn't awake, which is unusual— usually he's up by this late on a Saturday— but you don't want to go and wake him up. He deserves to sleep in a little.
Instead, you send off another text to Madison— "You should wear that for me on Monday!"— and a different, unfortunately less sexy text to Amy— "Will you be at the clinic on Monday?"— then begin wandering around the house, taking in its state with a critical eye. With all your newfound responsibilities, you've been letting the housework go slack. Dad does it where he can, but he's busy as well. The house isn't in the greatest condition.
Well— Dad did take care of you over the week, even if he didn't really know what was going on. It would be unfair of you to just force him to take over the housework again when you're not doing anything today.
While you wait for Dad to wake up, you wander around the house, casually cleaning things. There's not really that much to clean, since neither you or Dad have many possessions to throw around, but there's more to cleaning a house than just picking up stuff scattered over the floors. You dust some of the cabinets around the house, wipe down the stove, and you're starting a load of washing by the time Dad finally comes out of his bedroom.
You see him pause as he walks past, taking in your efforts. He steps in, looking curiously around, then gives you a questioning look. "You didn't need to do that," he says. "I would have done the washing later today."
Shrugging, you give him an embarassed smile. "It's okay," you say. "I don't mind. You took care of me during the week, so this is the least I could do."
He frowns, and your smile immediately melts away. When he sees that, he frowns even more. "No, that's not— you don't need to repay me, Taylor. I'm your father. It's my job to take care of you."
"But-" You try to protest, but it's hard to think up an argument to that that doesn't go back to the same issue. He seems to sense your struggle, because his frown melts, replaced with a small but genuine smile.
"No, it's fine, Taylor," he says, stepping forward and pulling you into a hug. "This isn't something you need to repay me for." He can see you're still unhappy with that, though, so he continues, "If you really feel like you need to, we still have that bookcase down in the basement. I don't think I need to spend the day doing housework, so we could spend some time fixing it up?" He gives you an uncertain smile, which you return as you lean into the hug.
The bookcase is a broken-down monstrosity the two of you had salvaged from a garage sale a while back. Its previous owner had apparently bought a new one after their children had damaged this one. Dad had bought it off him for a mere five dollars, but you're not sure it's even worth that much. Three of its four shelves are either missing or damaged, the paint is scratched and peeled off all over the place, and its legs are half-rotted and need to be replaced. The two of you have been intending to fix it up for a while now, but then work had gotten busier for Dad, and you'd started devising this plan, and it just fell by the wayside. One of a few projects like that. It's cheaper that way.
"Sure, Dad," you say quietly. "I'd like that." His smile becomes more genuine, and you feel your own doing the same.
As you follow him down to the basement, you surreptitiously check your phone. Sure enough, Madison had responded to you almost immediately— "Sure!! I'll wear it any time you want me to, just tell me when!!"— and Amy responded to you about ten minutes after that— "No, not on Monday. I'll be in on Tuesday and Thursday. Why?"
You're forced to look away to watch your step as you descend down the basement stairs, ignoring their creaky groan and the scent of moisture that washes over you as you go down. Dad has flicked the light on, which lets you see where you're going, but also throws the basement's chipped brick walls and ugly concrete floor into sharp relief. You're not here to remodel the basement, though, so you don't care too much; instead, you just go back to your phone and type out some responses.
To Amy, you send a simple text; "I'm just trying to decide when to head in. I'll see you on Tuesday then
". Meanwhile, to Madison, you send a slightly more frisky text; "You're very eager to wear it for me. Maybe I should take you out to buy some more
"
You receive responses back almost immediately. A simple "Cool, see you then, Taylor." from Amy, and a— a very enthusiastic "Yes please!!" followed shortly by another, "I have some money you can use. Please take me and buy clothes for me!!"
You raise your eyebrows at Madison's response. That's— a lot more enthusiasm than you'd thought the idea would get, and you hadn't exactly thought she would be unexcited by the idea. As Dad moves over to the bookcase and begins laying it flat on the floor, you reply to her text. "Okay, maybe on Monday. So you like the idea of me buying clothes for you?"
Her reply comes almost alarmingly quickly. "I like it when you tell me what to do, and I want to look sexy for you
"
Which, okay, makes perfect sense. You feel a little silly for not connecting those dots earlier.
"Taylor." Dad's words draw your attention over to him. "Are you ready to start?" You nod in response, your thoughts still on something a little sexier than this bookcase.
Over the next few hours, you idly text your girls— mostly Madison and Victoria, but occasionally Sophia too— as you and Dad work on restoring the bookcase.
It's not easy to restore furniture, you soon find.
Three of the bookcase's shelves are either rotted away, or otherwise damaged enough to be unusable. Luckily, Dad has brought home plenty of wood from the Docks over the months, so you have plenty to build replacements for them with— but the wood you end up building replacements out of doesn't match with the fourth shelf, each being substantially thicker than the wood the bookcase was made out of, so you have to tear it out and replace it, too. Then the two of you have to sand it down— by hand, since Dad doesn't own an electric sander— and revarnish and repaint the entire thing. You end up just tearing the legs off entirely— it can rest on its base.
It would almost have been easier to build a bookcase from scratch, you think. But then you look at the end product, and you can't help but feel proud. It's showing signs of wear and tear, the shelves don't quite match the decor, and neither of you are professional painters. But you love it, despite all the splinters you got while cutting out the shelves and how sore your arms are from sanding it.
"Alright," Dad says with some satisfaction, dusting his hands off. You look down as the sawdust puffs from his hands in small clouds and sinks to the floor. There's... a lot of sawdust on the ground. You'll have to come back down here later and sweep it all up. "It'll take a while to dry, I'll set the fan up down here to help it along. We'll have to keep the basement door open for a few days to let it air out. Tomorrow, we'll bring it up to your room. Okay?"
You nod your head enthusiastically. "Okay!" you exclaim brightly. You don't really have enough books to fill your bookcase, but one day you will. It's better to have too much empty bookcase space than it is to have too many books without anywhere to place them.
Before you leave, you linger down here for a few moments. Hm. The basement down here is a lot bigger than you remember it being, and since Mom— well, since she's gone now, there isn't very much down here after you and Dad took her stuff up to the attic. It's a lot bigger than your room. A lot drearier, too, but that's nothing you couldn't solve with enough carpet and wallpaper. It probably wouldn't be as easy as you think it could be, but— you want a room that's bigger than your current one. And preferably one not so close to Dad's room.
Maybe... But on the other hand, the sex dungeon jokes practically write themselves. Then again, that's because it's kind of accurate...
Ah, you can't think on it too much now anyway. You have precisely fifty-two dollars and thirty-one cents in your bank account. You're pretty sure that wouldn't buy enough carpet to cover even half the basement floor, let alone paint or wallpaper, or furniture. Still, something to consider for the future. Maybe. If you can ever think of a way to explain it to Dad without saying to him, "I want a sex dungeon, can I remodel the basement?".
You shake your head. Your thoughts go to some really weird places at times. Dismissing them, you wander up out of the basement and out to the kitchen, where you set about preparing dinner and finally replying to the texts you've been neglecting since you began painting the bookcase.
You wake up the next morning in one of the most pleasant moods you've had in a long while. Things are actually going quite nicely at the moment. Aside from Emma, you're in a good place with all your girls, you actually have a job that pays you money, and you just spent most of a day working in companionable silence with Dad. What's not to enjoy?
