“You are both very welcome,” I told them, pressing a kiss to the tops of each of their heads. “Thank you for keeping me from spending another lonely evening guessing alone at my table.”
“Awe, Daddy, we don’t ever want you to be lonely again,” Murry said as Raleigh pressed tighter against my side.
“And now that you have us, you won’t have to be,” Raleigh declared.
There were no words worthy of a response, not when my eyes had started stinging, so I hugged them harder and sent up a silent thank you to the guardians of the universe for allowing them to be a part of my life.
11
RALEIGH
“I can’t sleep. Is it okay if I sit out here with you?” I asked, after following the light up the hall to find Daddy Dorian sitting on the couch, a drink by his left hand as he flipped through the channels.
“Of course you can,” he said, patting the cushion beside him. “Is something bothering you to keep you awake? You know you can talk to me about anything, don’t you?”
“Well, I was kind of supposed to tell you something a few days ago, but you were having a very bad night, and we decided to distract you instead, and we’ve kind of been busy ever since,” I explained. “It sort of hit me when you mentioned the road trip that there were a couple of things we wanted to talk to you about, which reminded me that I’d never gotten around to the first one, and then I started to wonder if Aspen was wrong about us needing to tell you, because it’s all really still new between us and you’ve got so many plans and details on your mind right now that it just doesn’t feel fair to add our mess to your burden.”
“See, now I am going to insist that you tell me what you’ve been keeping from me,” Daddy Dorian said. “And in case there is any question about whether or not you should do as I ask, let me explain now that it is non-negotiable and not a request.”
His words helped settle my thoughts and erased the doubts and confusion I’d been wrestling with. Blowing out a long breath, I centered myself and nodded. “Yes, sir.”
With one arm wrapped around me, he held me tight to his side, giving me the time I needed to find my words. When I had, I told him everything that had happened with Sean, including him watching us through the shop window and what Aspen had told us about his encounter with him.
“I know about what happened between Sean and Aspen,” Daddy Dorian said. “And if Aspen has a plan to put that son of a bitch in his place once and for all, then you should trust him to pull it off. He’s a master schemer when he wants to be. Has something like this happened to you guys before?”
“Being grabbed, pinched, or smacked on the ass happens more often than we’d like, which is why there are always bouncers on hand to toss those offenders out. They take pictures of them too and circulate them to the rest of the staff to make sure they don’t come back in. No one’s ever low-key stalked one of us before.”
“I would not call stalking low-key,” he said. “That’s as serious as it comes. Now that I know what he’s up to, I can keep an eye out for him too. Thank you for telling me. If he comes near you guys again, and I’m not with you, I want you to contact me immediately, the same as you do Phoenix. I will drop everything to get to your side.”
I cuddled against him tighter while he stroked his fingers through my hair, making it easy for me to relax and just cuddle.
“We will, I promise,” I replied. “It’s scary to think he could be watching us to see where we go. Like, okay, maybe the grocery store could have been random, but popping up here? That’s just…who does that? We never did anything to him. When we went to work for the club, it was because we’d aged out of the system, and what little we had for savings had come from delivering papers and raking leaves for people. We both struggled through school, but we finished; it just wasn’t with any marketable skills. We applied at all the fast-food places, gas stations, and grocery stores and didn’t even get interviews, so, when a friend offered to teach us to dance, well, at least we were graceful enough to pick it up easily.”
“And you’ve been there ever since?” He asked, his voice an equal mix of impressed and horrified.
“Yeah. It pays the bills, so we stuck with it,” I admitted.
“How does what I pay you two stack up against what you make in an average week?” he asked. “Is it close, or did I come in way under the mark when making that offer?”
“No, um, you pay us more than we make at the club,” I admitted. “Which is why we, um…”
“We’ve been talking about quitting,” Murry said from the doorway, hair disheveled as he blinked sleepy-eyed at us. “Missed you next to me.”
“Sorry. I couldn’t sleep, and I didn’t want to wake you.”
“You should know by now that never works,” Murry said as he shambled across the carpet to occupy Daddy Dorian’s other side.
It had become our favorite way to cuddle, each on either side of him, making a big old Daddy sandwich.
“What’s keeping you from going ahead and quitting?” Daddy asked as he held us.
His question made me squirm a little, bottom lip pinched between my teeth. Murry, on the other hand, let out a yawn and muttered, “Was just making sure you like our work enough to keep us before we walked away from a sure thing.”
“Hmm, I see,” he said, fingers trailing from my hair to my back before sliding beneath it to caress the back of my neck. “I can appreciate that. It’s a valid concern when starting anything new, especially when you feel safe and secure in what you’re already doing.”
“Everyone at the club is like family to us,” I said. “So much so that our boss told us he hoped we quit if this job worked out for us, because it would offer us different opportunities and a chance to do something that wouldn’t get us groped.”
“Well, at least not unless it’s by Daddy,” Murry muttered.
