“What happened in here? What did Ellie say?”
Whether she’s responding to the briskness in my voice or a desire to get on with the exam, she is succinct and honest. “She told me about your wife.”
“Ah.” I nod. “It was a long time ago, and I don’t like to talk about it,” I explain. It’s true, I don’t like to talk about it, but I also don’t want to think about Cynthia here, now, with Ginny. “Up on the exam table.”
She scurries to obey, and I have to fight a smile at how adorable and eager to please she is. She hops up and faces me, waiting expectantly.
“Let’s have a look at that arm, hmm?”
Mutely, she sticks it out toward me and I carefully unwrap the bandage. Then, as gently as I can, I tug up the corners of the band aid and whistle as I inspect the scratches.
“Bad?” Her eyes are wide and I can see the fear in them plainly.
“No, sweetheart.” Without meaning to, I slip into the same reassuring tone I’d use with a child. I keep finding myself doing that around her, and if shewasthe type I’m usually attracted to, she’d probably tell me to go fuck myself. But instead, she gives me a small nod and tries to relax. “Does it hurt?”
“A little,” she says in a teeny-tiny voice that tells me it hurts more than she’s admitting.
“Do you want some Motrin?” I hold the bottle up. I could just as easily give her ibuprofen like I did yesterday, but there’s something about her. I find myself wanting to baby her, to treather like she actually is a child. To care for her in a way I haven’t cared for anyone since Cynthia died.
Scrunching her face up, her nose crinkling adorably, she shakes her head adamantly. “No. Yuck.”
Just as mine had, her voice has changed, and she suddenly sounds every bit like the little girl I was treating her like. “I know it doesn’t always taste good, but sometimes it’s necessary.”
“Nope.” She folds her arms across her chest and lifts her chin. “Nope-ity nope!”
I can’t help myself; a chuckle slips out.
Ginny’s eyes narrow at me, and her lips purse.
“What if I give you a reward for taking your medicine like a good girl, hmm?”
She considers this, her eyes narrowing further. “Whatkindof reward?”
“Well, why don’t you tell me? If you do the hard, yucky thing, you should decide what you want as a reward.”
When her eyes meet mine, they’re open wide and sparkling. Her tune has changed, too, and her voice is melodic and sing-songy as she asks, “AnythingI want?”
I swallow the chuckle that rises to my lips and give her a mock-stern look. “Now you know I did not say that. But why don’t you tell me what you’d like, and we’ll see?”
She tilts her head, considering. “How about a root beer float?”
Despite myself, my lips twitch. “I could manage that, I think.”
“With cherries,” she adds.
“Sure.”
“And sour gummy worms.”
“You don’t put gummy worms in root beer floats, much less sour ones!”
“Thesmartpeople do,” she responds, giving me a sly grin.
There’s something utterly charming and heart-warming about this side of her, and I feel like the biggest pushover in the world, but still, I find myself nodding. “Deal. But medicine first.”
She bats her eyelashes at me. “Yes, Daddy.”
My cock, which I’d talked down to semi-hard, shot straight up. That title, especially from such pretty lips is my kryptonite, but I can tell by the beet-red color surging across her otherwise normally peach skin that she didn’t mean to say it and that my hearing it embarrasses her. I try my best to put her ease by ignoring it. “I’ll be right back.”