Page 22 of Their Little Helper

Dally cocked his head, all drama ceasing. “You’re my boy. I can take privacy if you want me to but I don’t need it.”

He’d never need it.

I had a feeling we’d have to teach him about privacy at some point and Harley’s confused smile said he was thinking something along those lines too. He was too polite to say anything, though. “You are going to need some firm boundaries when it comes to privacy.”

Dally frowned as he sat up. “I don’t understand why people keep saying that.”

I bet he didn’t.

Harley opened and closed his mouth a few times, but we were patient. “I think I might need to figure out privacy limits too. I…I’m an only child and never lived with anyone else.”

Oh.

Looking a bit like Harley had just announced he was an alien, Dally frowned and couldn’t seem to process the information. “There’s just one of you? One? And you’ve always lived alone?”

I wasn’t sure I could chime in, but I raised my hand. “Me too. The closest thing I’ve had to living with someone was half a semester in college where I had a roommate.”

That hadn’t lasted long because they hadn’t understood boundaries and limits either.

“I…” Dumbfounded, Dally kept looking back and forth between us. “That’s so weird.”

We were not the weird ones.

Harley smiled instead of pointing that out, though. “I bet you have good stories about your family, don’t you, Daddy?”

He was learning fast about how to distract his Daddy.

I approved…but I wasn’t going to let him do it to me.

“I have lots of stories. Bathroom stories and getting lost stories and frog stories and getting lost with the frog stories.” Dally seemed to be serious about that list which just made Harley’s smile widen. “Oh, and then there are cake stories and getting lost because of the cake stories.”

Had he been the one getting lost?

Had he said how many kids were in his family?

Had he said anything about his family?

Had he said anything about his life that wasn’t strange and vague?

“And then I’ve got getting forcefully lost stories.” Dally gave Harley a quick cheek kiss. “But don’t worry. They only did that a few times and I got returned fast.”

For fuck’s sake.

7

DALLY

“Daddy, is…” Harley’s voice dropped as he walked slower and ended up well behind Pokey…who was surprisingly not pokey when he had somewhere to go. “Is Papa rich?”

“It’s entirely possible, but remember, we don’t judge people for things they can’t control like being Type-A.” It was sad really. “He probably can’t help it. My best friend has a rich Daddy and it’s sad but there’s nothing he can do about it. You love who you love and deal with the rest.”

Harley stopped on the sidewalk in front of the ridiculously fancy building. “Oh. I…I hadn’t thought about it like that.”

Most people hadn’t.

“That’s why rich people find special partners. They need distractions and people in their life to give them something to do other than work. He’s probably working a thousand hours a week and his doctor probably told him to find a hobby before he drops dead at his desk.” That man was one glare away from a heart attack. “He needs us.”

“I…” Harley took a deep breath before he looked up at the building and seemed to lose his train of thought again.

---