Page 23 of Bash

“I wasn’t asking. Come,” he said, pushing the door opening and motioning her to follow him.

“Iam nota dog!” she said, stomping after him, probably to give him a piece of her mind.

I shook my head. I was pretty sure that they’d each just met their match.

“Who was that man, Daddy?” Allyson asked, “Should we help her?”

“He’s just a friend from work, Little one. And Jasper is a safe person, he’s just used to getting his way. Willow will be well taken care of even if she doesn’t want to be,” I answered. “Are you all done with your work?”

“Yes, Daddy.”

“Well, that was my last client for the day. What do you say we go have an ice-cream date?”

She bounced on her toes with excitement. “Yes, please!”

“Okay, go get your things while I finish cleaning up my station.”

“Yes, Daddy!” She hurried away to do as I asked and I smiled at the sweet picture she made rushing off to obey me. She was such a good fucking girl.

I waited until she was out of sight before I sat down in my station and opened up the folder. Images of an older couple poured out. I flipped through them trying to make sense of it all. Jasper was usually much more organized and the jumbled mess in my lap didn’t make sense. It was only when I recognized a young face in a photo that I realized the file contained things about Allyson’s foster parents. I laid the papers out across my tattoo chair and tried to make sense of the contents of the manilla folder.

Suddenly, I realized exactly what I was looking at. Jasper had given Allyson justice. Flipping over a few more papers it was easy to see he’d dug out every filthy secret they had and exposed all of the skeletons they were hiding in their closets. It looked like Mr. Landry was subscribed to over thirty online porn sites, and had a hard gambling problem. And Mrs. Landry was involved in a scandalous affair with a younger man, a twenty-three-year-old high school teacher. Scanning a few more documents, I found an outline of an article that I was sure would hit the papers in a few days.

Town Favorites are A Fraud? The real truth about the Landry Family and their fourteen years of foster-care scamming.

I grinned, once again thankful for Jasper being for me and not against me. My girl was avenged and she’d never even know. I flipped over a bank statement and winced when I saw the stateof the Landrys’ finances. It looked like they were negative several thousands of dollars. Fuck, his gambling must be killing them.

The last thing inside the folder was a large pink envelope. Scrawled across the front were the wordsFor Her Future.Confused, I opened it and was floored to see the amount of one-hundred dollar bills placed inside. Pulling out a note, I read,I heard she wants to be a nurse, it isn’t fair she wasn’t given the tools to make that dream come true. Here’s fourteen thousand to get her started.Suddenly their negative bank account made a lot more sense. Bless Jasper.

Shoving everything back in the folder, I stuffed it in my desk and locked it up. I’d shred it later, and slowly deposit the money into a bank account for her, but right now I had a playdate with the sweetest Little girl in the world.

“Ready, Daddy?” she asked, bouncing from foot to foot.

“Ready, Allybaby,” I told her, grabbing her hand and bringing it up to my mouth for a kiss. Iwasready for our little date, but I was even more ready to spend the rest of our lives together.

***

Allyson

“Sprinkles,” I told Daddy, holding my cup of cookie dough ice-cream atScoop Circus, the local ice-cream shop. It was so adorable and set up like an old diner. I’d never been before, but had fallen in love the second Daddy had pulled up.

Daddy sprinkled them on there for me. “Do you want any cherries?”

“No, thank you.”

He added some to the top of his ice-cream creation.

“Anything else, baby?”

“No,Daddy.”

He finished putting some nuts on his ice cream before deciding he was done too. His ice cream looked very healthy, mine not so much.

I followed him to the register and we set our cups of ice cream on the scale. Daddy paid and then turned to me. “Inside or outside, baby?”

“Outside,” I answered. He led the way and held the door open for me. “Pick a table, baby.”

“I’m the boss today.” I giggled, choosing a table.

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