The door opened and in walked Daddy Rick, his fireman trousers and tight navy-blue T-shirt showing off that body I hadn’t mapped out as well as I’d wanted. “Hi,” I almost screamed, racing out from behind the counter.
“Oh, is there a fire?” Maggie asked, glancing at him entering.
He looked around, then back at me. “No, just here to collect my order.”
“Right, your order,” I said. “It’s actually just throughhere.”
We went down the hallway near the apartment door entry and made out, and we didn’t come up for air until the bell on the door rang again. He placed his big manly finger to my mouth, hushing me.
“She’s gone,” Toby called out.
“I do need my order,” Daddy said.
“And here I thought you just came to kiss me.”
He kissed me again, then kissed my forehead, mostly getting the bandana. “That was part of the reason,” he said. “I also wanted to know your policy on coming over to mine?”
“Two dates in two nights?”
“We can do tonight,” he said.
“Oh, I thought you were—” Heat rushed into my face, and not just because Toby and Keaton were watching.
He must’ve felt it because his hand touched my cheek seconds later. “It was going to be my next question,” he said. “But I was going to ask about spending the night.”
I nodded; it was subtle. “I could,” I said. “I wake up early, but—”
“I also wake up early,” he said. “I was speaking to Janey; she’s the engineer on the rig. She told me I should be upfront, honest, and tell you my intentions, which seems like something I should—as a Daddy—do for someone as cute and adorable as you. I don’t want any other man in town walking in here and snatching you up.”
Throwing my arms around him, I pulled him into as much of a bear hug as I could, inhaling his musky scent and letting out a moan, which might’ve resulted in a little spit leaking out from my tongue. “I wanna stay over,” I said. “I’ll have to bring a lot of stuff.”
“You have all day to get ready, and—hopefully not be too distracted from work,” he said.
I was already distracted by him, so adding this into the mix tipped the scales into a full-blown frenzy of thoughts. “I’m ready to see your apartment. I remember you saying how awful it was.”
“Well,” he whispered, tilting his head. “It’ll be better once you’re in there.”
If I hadn’t been holding myself up around his waist, I would’ve melted to my knees and let him sip me up with a straw so I could live inside him—all warm. My brain was clearly frazzled with excitement. “It’s a date,” I said.
Once he’d gotten his cupcakes, he blew me a kiss from the door. “I’ll see you tonight,” he called back. For a second, as I stood at the counter, I could’ve fainted, and I did lean slightly into Keaton who nudged me back to my feet.
“I’m staying over at his,” I revealed to them.
“Your room is a closet,” Toby said.
“It’s only their second date,” Keaton said. “But if you do move out, it’ll be a closet.”
“I’m not moving out,” I said, and was saved by the timer. Time to remove more cupcakes before theyburned—I didn’t want Daddy Rick back here before it was time.
The guys were rightfully annoyed. We had our little time together in the evening, and being gone meant they had to play together. And in my world, that was awful because they didn’t do the voices of the picture book stories like I did. For some reason, they’d made it feel like I was going far away, when in reality I was probably only going a couple of blocks away.
8. RICK
Janey was my voice of reason. She always had been when it came to a second opinion, but she was also a huge romance reader—probably why she left the book club. I always overheard Maggie complaining about it, and Janey giggling in the background because the only reason Maggie stayed was for the gossip and less for the books.
“Is this your first boyfriend?” she asked, tucking into one of the cupcakes.
I was sitting in the large red armchair with a newspaper resting on the arm, my chocolate cupcake holding it down.“We’re not boyfriends,” I said.
