“He wants you,” Keaton said.
“Let’s take this slow,” Tobias added.
“I was the one who saw the way he was reacting to him at the counter earlier,” Keatonsaid.
As they argued, all I could do was imagine myself in Rick’s big fireman’s arms. The way I knew he climbed trees to rescue cats and offer up his very large ladder for people who were in need. I needed to climb his big ladder and slide down that fireman’s pole—and I wanted to do it now. I continued to kick my feet and giggle about the entire situation. It was hilarious. It was honestly giving me the flutteriest flurry of butterflies that ever did fly in the sky—or whatever, it was sending me over the moon crazy for him.
“You’re gonna get ahead of yourself,” Tobias said,tuttingand shaking his head.
“What do you know?” I asked, flip-flopping around on the beanbags to get a better view of my accuser. “You’ve been single longer than—well, Keaton, and he’s practically a nun!”
Keaton jumped on top of me, wiggling his ass down on me. “Take that back. I did hand stuff with that guy from out of town.”
It was laughable. Sure, we’d all made up a little white lie about a guy from out of town, or someone who wasn’t known to the rest of us, or the world for that matter, because they were completely made up—a fiction! I knew I’d done it, and I knew some of them had done it as well, mostly because we often used similar things that we took from our adult picture books, which were specifically catered to littles like me—likeus. They were about a trio of friends, just like us, and similarly there was an adult toycompany made by a trio. Trios seemed to rule the littles world, except I was very monogamous. The only trio I was in was for business.
***
After being apple-juice drunk and reading stories together, we headed to bed. Just because it had been my birthday, that didn’t mean I got a free pass to open the bakery late in the morning. We all usually woke around the same time. The bedroom situation was fun. There were two box rooms opposite each other, both formerly used for storage, that now currently housed mirrored setups with those not-quite-double-bed things and a whole bunch of shelves for clothes and teddies. There was an additional floor to the building, which was where Keaton’s room was. It was huge and had a private bathroom. I couldn’t be too jealous, though, since his folks had bought the place for us—so technically it was his—which meant we didn’t have a landlord to pay rent to.
I woke in a puddle of teddies, and some of their tiny noses were making indentations in my skin and turning it red. I didn’t catch all the marks until I was looking at them in the mirror with a toothbrush sticking out the side of my mouth.
“Oh god, I thought you were finished in here,” Toby said, clutching a towel to his chest. He had these charactersfrom one of the animated shows we watched tatted to his chest. “Come on—”
“I slept funny,” I groaned, making no sense with the toothbrush slurring my speech.
“I told you to stop throwing your teddies on the bed,” he said, his eyes narrowed in on me. “Finish up. It’s no longer your birthday, so I can be mean again.” He giggled.
I finished brushing my teeth and let him have the bathroom. It was far too early to argue, especially when at heart we were all just littles and we could have a pout off and make a fuss, but without a Daddy in any of our lives there were no winners to throwing a tantrum.
I sat on my bed—and unfortunately the face of the teddy that was in Rick’s gift to me. I looked at my open closet display. Whatever I wore would be obscured by my apron, and I had to be weather appropriate—fall was upon us, so maybe a cute sweater moment, but not the one with the puffy sleeves. I needed full motor control in adult mode, especially with my serious job as a baker.
I decided on blue denim overalls and a crop top with a slogan on it nobody could see—Bear Hugs Only. I loved wearing it out. On the very rare occasion we went to the city, we would get hella drunk and it was an ice-breaker.
Keaton looked me over as his toaster strudel popped up. “Are you hoping he comes in?”
I gnawed my lip for a moment, because why had he just read me like that? “If he does, then he does.”
“I guess you could burn something—like usual.” He giggled, and distracted by looking at me, he stung his fingertips pulling the toaster strudel out. It was six in the morning, and I had to be down in the bakery baking up a storm—or just a cloudy loaf.
“One of those for me?” I asked.
Keaton pulled at a layer of the pink and purple paper plates he’d placed his strudels on. “Since it was your birthday yesterday, I suppose I can extend it to reach to today.” He placed one on the plate for me. “Where the frick is Toby?”
“Showering, I think.”
Keaton wiggled his brows. “Playing with himself, more like.”
I shuddered, almost burning my mouth on the food. “Please don’t put that image in my head.”
Keaton laughed, his shoulders hunched almost to his ears as he shared the shuddering idea. I’d once heard a very loud buzzing, and after that point I didn’t want to know anything about my friends’ sex lives—that just wasn’t the type of person I was, even if I was very sexually charged when I was alone with myself.
We played Whitney Houston over the speakers while getting ready for the morning bake. My schedule for baking wasn’t traditional in any sense of the word. I would bake bread, cakes, all sorts at the same time. People came into the bakery at all hours for their breads and whatnots, and I wasa mood baker, if anything, with a slight push and guidance from Keaton and Toby.
“Do you think he’s going to come in today?” Toby asked as he prepared a piping bag with buttercream. “I mean, he’s got to, right? After those cakes. He basically said he wants you.”
I danced around the question—literally, dancing in the kitchen, with a lot of space to do so. “La, la, la,” I let out.
“Come on,” he groaned. “What do you think he’s gonna do? Come back here and give you a safety demonstration—oh my god, what if he, you know, wants to take a tour of the apartment for fire hazards, and you two just—”
