1
Rene
I squintedat my gas gauge, trying to guess whether or not there would be enough left to restart the car once I stopped it, then quickly jerked my eyes back up to the road so I didn’t accidentally run off it. Besides, actually managing to get all the way to the hotel without having to get out and push was probably more important than what would happen once it was time to leave, especially because it was already getting dark out.
I bit my lip, anxiety trying to drown me, and wished desperately that I hadn’t packed Teddy in the trunk.
Dumb. Okay. He wouldn’t help… much. I just had to find the dang place and then… then everything would be better.
My phone had died fifty miles ago, and since the outlet to charge it in my old VW Golf had stopped working a couple of weeks ago, checking in with Google Maps wasn’t an option, but Ihadto be close now, right?
I couldn’t see the directions I’d printed out very well since my interior lights had died along with the charger outlet, but I’d mostly memorized them anyway, and I was pretty sure I was in the right neighborhood.
Daryl—I mean,DaddyDaryl—had already warned me that the hotel was actually a converted old house, but I’d at least expected them to have a sign up. So far, I didn’t see anything like that, but I slowed down even further to try and read the addresses of the houses I was passing, doing my best to ignore the growing tightness in my chest as a thousand and one worst-case scenarios played out in my head.
Like having to spend the night in my car, in the dark.
Or having gotten the dates wrong for the Cuffd event, and taken all that time off work for nothing.
Or discovering that Daryl was actually a catfisher who didn’t even want—
Oh, shoot. I really had to remember to call himDaddyDaryl, the way he wanted me to, if I wanted this to work out. Shouldn’t it come more naturally if I was actually meant to be what… what I hoped I was, though?
My chest started to get tight again at the thought that I might not, probablywouldn’t, be any good at being the kind of boy Daddy Daryl had talked about. Even when I’d been an actual child, I’d spent more time taking care of Mom than, well, being little, and I already knew that thinking about things in my own head and looking stuff up on the internet was a lot different than actually doing anything.
I swallowed hard. I wasn’t any good at regular dating, so could I really expect this to be any different?
The streetlight just above me suddenly flickered out and died, startling an embarrassing eep-like sound out of me with the reminder of how close to full dark it already was. The rest of the street was well-lit, though, full of a weird mix of older houses, newer condominiums, and even a few businesses.
I realized my fingers had started to cramp from how tightly I was gripping the steering wheel, I forced myself to relax.
Well, to calm down at least.
Okay, tokeep driving. That was the best I could do.
And really, it wasn’tthatdark out yet, and the neighborhood looked like the type where nothing bad would even consider happening. I’d printed out the confirmation for my room reservation and prepaid for the whole thing on my debit card, so check-in should be easy even though I was arriving so late. And hopefully, Daryl would be a little nicer once we finally met in person, too. Because wasn’t that part of being a Daddy?
Okay, there. I’d reminded myself of the positives, just like Mom’s doctor was always telling us to do. And sure, planning ahead for worst-case scenarios was the one thing I was actually good at, and it was definitely a life skill that had come in handy given how many of those scenarios had come true for my mom and I over the years, but things could also go right sometimes too, right?
Like the way my time off had been approved even though Daryl had only asked me to come last week.
And the way Mr. Olson had agreed to check in with Mom while I was gone, even though I hadn’t been able to pay him since I was already losing three whole days’ worth of wages and was close to being short for next month’s rent from it.
And even the way that the timing with this special Daddy event had worked out, happening right here in Daryl’s hometown, just a few weeks after we’d met online, and with the whole hotel reserved for it so no one who wasn’t… who wasn’t, um,kinky, would be around to think all those Daddies and boys were weird.
I mean, to thinkwewere weird, since I was going to be one of those boys, too… hopefully.
If it turned out that being the kind of boy I thought I might want to be was something I could actually do.
If I didn’t mess it all up by being too quiet, or too awkward, or tooanxious. Or by completely failing to know how to play.
I bit my lip again, chewing on it until it stung as all the ways this weekend could go wrong ran through my mind like a cringeworthy movie montage of failure and rejection, but then I slammed on the brakes—literally, not figuratively, although I did forget to feel anxious for a moment—and widened my eyes, because I was pretty sure I’d found the hotel.
There was no sign up—or maybe that was a little one, the plaque right by the door?—but the house, a huge old Victorian that, other than the color, would have looked more at home in one of those fancy historical preserve neighborhoods than this one, was very, very purple. So purple that the color was unmistakable, even with most of the daylight gone.
I didn’t remember any mention of purple on the hotel’s website, but then again, I’d clicked straight through to reservations from the Cuffd app. And no one would actually paint theirhomethat color, would they? Besides, right next to it was a discreet parking lot, camouflaged from the road with a whole row of gorgeous hickory trees, so thishadto be it.
I pulled in, and my car started to sputter and do a weird shaking thing as I maneuvered into one of the last vacant parking spaces, but instead of thinking too hard about worst-case scenarios like my little Golf never starting again when it sort of diedbeforeI’d turned the key off, I was going to try and treat it as a positive for now. After all, I’d made it, hadn’t I? And this was the weekend I was supposed to be trying new things, so maybe not expecting everything to go wrong all the time could be one of those new things, too.
