He gave me a gentle smile that made me wish it was last night again, when I’d been safe on his lap and hadn’t had to do anything at all. But even though there were plenty of Littles on their Daddy’s lap, Edwardwasn’tactually my Daddy, no matter how amazing of a job he was doing at standing in for one.
Last night, he’d just picked me up and put me there, but I’d never presume to do something like crawl into his lap on my own. Especially since, like he’d just said, he didn’t even understand all this stuff.
“It’s, um, it’s not role-playing, exactly,” I said, feeling like a hypocrite trying to explain, since I wasn’t even a real Little. “Well, maybe for some people it is? But Littles reallyareLittle on the inside. And when they’re free to do, um, all this? They’re not pretending or acting or, um, role-playing. It’s… it’s who they really are.”
But the more I was around them, the more I felt like it wasn’t whoIreally was.
“They?” Edward asked quietly, like he could tell I didn’t fit, too.
I flushed, looking down at my plate and fiddling with the toast. Iwantedto be one, or at least, I wanted something, but I just didn’t know how to stop being… well,me. The regular, too quiet, always awkward, never-any-fun me.
Before Edward could press me on it, a Daddy sitting on his other side who must have overheard my stumbling attempt at an explanation joined in on the conversation—well, kind of took it over, actually—and started telling Edward all about the age play lifestyle and the different ways caretakers and their partners fit into the BDSM community.
ThatDaddy’s boy, I was pretty sure, wasn’t even a Little. Not every boy and girl in the room was. There were definitely those who were just… something else. Some, I was pretty sure, were puppies? And others were just people who were all grown up, but who still had a Daddy who took charge and gave them rules to follow and did all those things that sounded so nice.
I was pretty sure I wouldn’t appeal to that kind of Daddy either, since I’d never been able to turn off my worries enough to… well, to be what they’d enjoy. In the bedroom and stuff. And since I’d also never been good at dating the normal way, being Little had sounded perfect. I’d thought regressing the way I’d read about online would be like… like finally being able to relax.Allthe way relax. A chance to let go of the adult world that I’d been trying to stay afloat in ever since I was a kid, and for a little while at least, just have no worries at all.
Right now, though? I felt waylessrelaxed than I had earlier, when it had just been me and Edward, up in his room.
Maybe,maybewhen I finally met up with Daryl, it would get easier? Maybe, when I was around a Daddy who wanted to bemyDaddy—even temporarily—one who knew all about this kind of stuff and who got turned on by it andlikedit, maybe then something would click inside me, and I’d be able to become Little?
Sam had implied Daryl wasn’t a real Daddy, or at least not a very good one, but neither was Edward according to Edward, and I knew for sure that Edward was wrong. So if Daryl still wanted me…
I took out my phone and checked for notifications. None yet.
I was strangely relieved, which made me feel a little guilty but which was still true.
Even though I’d come all the way to Asheville to meet Daryl, and even though I felt out of place here at breakfast, I would still rather spend time with Edward than…
Well, I’d rather do that than just aboutanythingelse.
He still had his hand on my back, making me feel safe and cared for even though his attention wasn’t on me anymore. No, it made it feel like his attentionwasstill on me, at least a little bit, even while he was talking to the other Daddy.
That Daddy said something that made Edward laugh, and the sound made my mouth automatically turn up in a smile, too. It didn’t matter that I hadn’t been paying attention to what they were saying and was a ball of tumbling worries of my own, Edward being happy made something inside me happy, too, and it would be nice—sonice—if I could have just stopped everything else and only hadthatto focus on.
Making Edward happy.
I shivered, all sorts of ways I could imagine doing that bursting to life in my head. Things I wasn’t very good at or hadn’t ever tried, but that had all my partsreactingwhen I thought of doing them with Edward. To him. For him.
But he hadn’t said anything about how obviously turned on I’d been this morning, even though he’d helped me hide it with the robe, so maybe—no,probably—he wasn’t interested in any of that stuff with me.
Plus, there was Daryl.
I sighed, and poked at my eggs.
A gummy bear landed on top of them, and I jerked my eyes up to see Sam giggling across from me.
“Yours looks boring,” he said, plopping three more gummies on top of my breakfast with an ear-to-ear grin. “There! That’s what you need!”
“Thank you,” I said, even though I was pretty sure it wasn’t, because gummies with scrambled eggs sounded gross. I would never want to say so, though, since I’d hate to hurt Sam’s feelings when he was being so nice.
Thankfully, before I had to actually eat one in front of him to prove I was a good friend, a big man with lots of tattoos and a trimmed, salt-and-pepper beard sat down next to Sam, making a tsking sound as he shook his head at what was left of Sam’s waffle.
“Boy, is your Daddy really going to let you get away with eating all that?”
Sam’s eyes lit up. “Yes,” he lied shamelessly, shoving a huge bite of the mess into his mouth.
The tattooed Daddy looked over at Edward and the Daddy Edward was talking to and raised an eyebrow.
