Page 77 of Her Daddies' Everything

“I don’t . . . I can’t. What if Jenner does need me?”

“Do you always spend your time worrying about what other people need?” he asked.

“Yeah. Pretty much. Isn’t that how everyone is?”

He snorted, shaking his head. “Nope. Not in my experience. Most people are selfish assholes.”

“That’s not true.”

“Sweetness, it is.”

“You’ve obviously just been around the wrong people. It’s good you’re around us now.”

“Is it?” he asked.

“Uh-huh. We’ll show you how good people can be.”

He stared at her intently. “Yeah. I’m seeing just how good people can be right now.”

Immy wasn’tsure where to look. His gaze was so intense. Was he speaking about her? Did he think she was good?

“I’m not that good,” she whispered.

He raised an eyebrow. “Oh no? And what have you done that’s so naughty, Immy-girl?”

“Um. Well. When we lived at the cult, I once stole some chocolate cake from the Deity’s house. It was Jenner’s birthday and we didn’t have anything to celebrate it with. And I’d seen the Deity eating chocolate cake that morning. So I snuck in and stole a piece.”

“What would have happened if you’d been caught?”

“Oh, if the Deity punished me, then I’d likely have been forced to write lines or put in the naughty room.”

“Naughty room?”

“Hmm. It was really a cupboard under the stairs. It was dark in there . . .” She swallowed heavily, not wanting to think aboutthat. She pushed those memories away, but she knew that the naughty room was likely related to her fear of the dark. “Anyway, I didn’t get caught and Jenner got to have some chocolate cake for his birthday. He gave us all a bite. It was the best thing I’d ever eaten.”

“You didn’t get cake for your birthday?” he asked in a surprisingly soft voice.

“I got nothing for my birthday. None of us did so it wasn’t like we knew any different. Actually, no, that’s not true. The others remember having birthdays before the cult.”

“Not you?”

“I think I have a vague memory, but it’s hard to know if it’s a true memory or if I just made it up. I came to live at the cult when I was five. So no, I couldn’t really remember much before then.”

“That was a long fucking time to live there.”

“Yeah. Ten years. A long time.” She stared off into the distance as the memories threatened to overwhelm her. “The weird thing is that there have been times I’ve wanted to go back.”

“What? Why?”

“Not because I wanted to be with the Deity or anything. It’s just . . . it was simpler. It was us against the rest of them, you know? There, we knew the enemies. We knew what to expect. Here, sometimes it feels like I’m stumbling around trying to play by the rules when I don’t have access to the rulebooks. Everyone seems to know what to do but me.”

“Think we’ve all felt like that at some point, Cherry.”

She shook her head. “Maybe a little bit. But I seem to feel it a lot. So much so that I’m too scared to live apart from my friends. I should be out there, doing things, exploring the world.”

“Is that what you want?” he asked.

“Not really. But I think it’s what I’m supposed to want.”

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