He sighed and scrunched his nose. Goddess, I always loved when he did that. “I think I’m going to take a shower. Wait, there is hot water, right?”
I snorted. This man. “Pax, we just washed dishes in hot water.”
The love of my life cracked up. “I’m blaming it on the snow. That was silly. Of course you have modern conveniences.”
“We’re not off-grid,” I said, rolling my eyes. This felt real. Back to normal. Like no time had passed when we didn’t speak to each other.
“Well, after that shower, I’m going to find something to do. Maybe sweep or…wash windows. Something.”
“Are you saying I don’t know how to keep my house clean?”
Paxton threw his hands up. “I’m going to shower and get this foot out of my mouth.”
I found myself grateful for the snowstorm, but I also had to find a way to get some things done. There were things to check before the storm got worse. Again, I was thankful to have gotten that roof done the day before.
We spent the day lounging around the fire and reading and listening to music. The quiet between us, the minimal conversation would’ve been awkward with someone else, but it was perfect with Paxton.
I had to get more firewood before my window for being able to closed. “Would you mind putting the leftovers away?” I asked, trying to find a way to get outside before he noticed and tried to help me. We had simple grilled cheese sandwiches and more soup for dinner. He didn’t complain.
“Sure. No problem.”
While his back was turned, I snuck outside. But a couple of steps off the porch and I knew what should’ve been a mundane chore was going to be a little more difficult. I had to make a way through the snow from the porch to the woodshed. No time to waste. I grabbed the snow shovel and began to make way. I didn’t want Paxton to even try to help me. He didn’t have the gear and would freeze. And I would spend the whole time worrying about him instead of bringing in what we needed. It would be a lose-lose.
Almost an hour later, I’d made the trail wide enough to get my wheelbarrow through, and before long, I was pushing a huge load toward the house. I looked up toward the window and Paxton was there, arms crossed over his chest.
I’d been caught.
Chapter Seven
Paxton
We’d had such a lovely day. Spending time with Nico filled a gaping hole inside me that nothing else could. If he wasn’t a little, if he merely did collect things, childhood memories and the bunny had perhaps been a gift, could I live with it?
As a daddy, taking care of littles made me happy, fulfilled…but I could not say I’d ever felt the way many of the other daddies who had their own littles described. Listening to them talk in the conversation area of the club, I hadn’t been able to avoid putting myself in their place. Having someone for both big and little time. Out to dinner at a fine steak house or home serving chickie nuggies and sippy cups of milk to an adorable little wearing tiny shorts and a onesie. Someone to make love to when you were being big together or explore all the aspects of the daddy/little relationship at other times. The best of all possible worlds.
Sure, some people separated those relationships, and they seemed fine with it, but my fantasy was never one person in my bed and one in the playroom. Two such intimate relationships…no, I desired them with the same man. And not just any man.
The one who had I hadn’t seen in a while. The place was hardly vast. The bedroom and bathroom doors were open, and I had a full view of the rest of it. Had he gone to the office? Nico’s home was nestled off by itself, and the path between the two buildings had been rapidly disappearing when we came here the night before. Surely he hadn’t attempted to make his way there in the storm. Not without saying something?
The thought alarmed me, and I hurried to the window to look out. Conditions were terrible but not quite white-out, and enabled me to see the dark of Nico’s coat against the snowybackdrop. But what was he doing? Pressing my nose to the cold glass, I fogged it up too quickly to see much of anything.
Unable to imagine why he’d gone out at all, much less without saying something, I had to remind myself that I was not his daddy. Not yet, and if I didn’t say something, maybe never. But daddy or not, Nico was outside in a fierce storm and since I hadn’t seen him for a while, he might be on the verge of hypothermia by now.
This would not do.
Striding over by the door, I dressed in my outerwear and spotted a pair of lined gloves. Nico’s. Did he have another pair, or had he gone outside without? In any case, I pulled them on. If he wore none, I’d have warmed them for him.
The door fought me when I pulled on it, the wind trying to wrench it from my hands. Outside on the porch, I caught my breath, searching for the spot I’d seen him before. Focusing on him, I saw what he was doing. Shoveling snow. Not making a path between the office and his cabin, rather between the cabin and an outbuilding of some sort. And a wheelbarrow piled with wood stood behind him.
He’d obviously come out here to fetch some wood, and the snow piled up while he was there. My clothes, especially my boots were not perfectly suitable for the depth of snow between me and him. Not that that would stop me. I trudged along what I thought might be the path toward him, calling out as I went.
At first, I thought he didn’t hear me, but when I got close, he was squinting, peering through the snowfall in my direction. His lips were moving as well. Then I got near enough to hear him saying, “Go inside. I’ll be right there.”
“Like I would leave you here?” A bit of moonlight filtered through the clouds somehow, lending an otherworldly glow around us. It was beautiful and just a little bit unnerving. “You shovel and I’ll maneuver that two-ton wheelbarrow to theporch.” I assumed what I believed to be the more difficult task, although I had no experience in this type of work. A city boy through and through, the luxury camping the company did was enough roughing it for me normally.
So why was I so charmed by this whole experience?
Nico, of course. Anywhere he was, I wanted to be. If he felt the same, it could mean some big changes in my life.
