The longer we spent together, the less blush he was wearing to hide his scars. I’d also noticed my walls had dissolved around everyone. I was no longer that poor kid who arrived here with nothing but a beat-up car. I was the head of a fire house, and I had an entire community of folks backing me—gay, straight, whatever it was, they didn’t care at all. In fact, I kinda wished the fire house would’ve thrown a bit more fanfare about the whole thing.
“You’re gonna have to start wearing thermals beneath your onesies,” I told him as he shuddered and groaned.
“I rode my bike,” he said with a cute pout.
“No, I would’ve picked you up,” I said, the back of my hand against his cheek, trying to feel how cold he was. “Go get changed. I want you in something warmer.”
“Naw, but this one is cute.”
“Do as Daddy says, or you only get one bedtime story,” I said. It was one of the agreed upon punishments for minor things. A full punishment was no dessert, and sometimes no teddies on the bed.
He smiled at me. “Okay, Daddy. Which one should I wear?”
“The one with the fluff inside,” I told him. I knew it got everywhere, but it was the most heat retentive one he had here—and there was a small collection, so he had choice.
“Love you,” he let out.
It was thefirst time.
We both paused, staring at each other.
“Love you too,” I immediately said. It came right from my soul.
11. CASPIAN
I had a newfound confidence since I’d started dating Daddy Rick. He kissed my scars and told me I looked beautiful, which I knew he was only saying because he had to. It filled me with so much confidence, but I liked my sparkles, glitter, and blush. It was part of me now, and it was part of the enjoyment my little side got.
Night after night, I’d been at his apartment, lying in his big bed, though obviously there were perks to the apartment above the bakery—one, it was above where I worked, and two, my friends lived there. The other reasons were my things, but they were just things—it didn’t matter about them as long as you were with the right people to play with. Although, very different types of play between my friends and Daddy.
And that seemed to create one big feelings culmination as I told him I loved him. I didn’t know if he was going tosay it back—but he did, almost immediately, though in my mind, it felt like forever. We shared a passionate kiss after that, followed by me doing as instructed and changing out of my onesie. I knew I should’ve worn something warmer to cycle over in but I also didn’t realize just how cold it was getting out there. Fall should stand for temperature falling instead of leaves falling.
It was all good in the end, with my warm onesie on. He told me he loved me again, unprompted, as I pulled the dough, which had expanded inside the Tupperware container. It was beside the large bag of cheddar cheese. We couldn’t have cheese twist breadsticks without the good stuff.
As much as I baked all day in the bakery, I loved doing it in Daddy’s apartment with him. Rolling out dough, sprinkling cheese, making sure the sizing was right, all of it under Daddy’s watchful eye, and occasional grubby hand as he was not at all dough dexterous—a skill you needed when working with dough.
“My sister is thinking of visiting,” he said as both of our hands were in the dough.
“That would be fun,” I said. “Getting to meet your family.”
“Just my sister and my niece and nephew,” he said.
“Right.” I nodded. “You’ve met my family, right? They live in the little cul-de-sac suburban nightmare.” I snorted a laugh.
“It’s possible,” he said, keeping his eyes locked with mine. He pulled a hand out of the dough and dotted a finger of flour on my nose. “And you know I have no relationship with my father.”
Wrinkling my nose, I didn’t want to distract from him telling me about his family. “You’ve mentioned him being homophobic.”
“And the fact I was married to a woman, right?” As he spoke, he nodded.
“Yeah, are you worried your sister’s going to say something that’ll shock me?” I giggled, digging my fingers into the dough to fold in the cheese. “Because I’m obsessed with you. Nothing could scare me away from you.”
He kissed my nose, right where the dot of flour was, now transferred to his mouth. He licked it away. “Not sure if that’s safe,” he said. “You don’t do that. And yeah.” I thought he was going to say more, but he went quiet, and we went back to the dough, making sure our cheese twist breadsticks were well incorporated with all the cheese.
Once they were in the oven, we cleaned up. Daddy sat in his armchair, and I sat across his lap with a book in hand for him to read to me. He looked at the book, then back to me. “You want me to read this, or you can ask me more questions about my family?”
I gnawed at the edge of my lip lightly. The intense urge to know gossip prevailed. “Okay, I have questions,” I said with a giddy smile and giggle. “What did your dad do?”
“Okay,” he said, nodding. “I’ll tell you in the form of a story. But we don’t have long, food will be ready soon.”
