Page 40 of Their Little Helper

“Yeah, but it’s his name and I should get used to using it in public.” Or things would get weird. “I’m…I’m not good with standing out. I’m already…noticeable…so I don’t like adding to it?”

There was nothing wrong with people who liked standing out, but the idea gave me a stomach ache.

Daddy nodded, giving me his sweet Daddy smile. “I can understand that. We don’t want to make other people jealous with how perfect you are. It would be rude.”

Um, yeah. That would work.

“Thank you.” I knew I’d have to ask Daddy about what he was comfortable with in public and what he thought of as public, but I figured that could wait.

Well, I hoped that could wait because I was already running on empty as far as extroverting went. Part of me wondered how I should explain that but Daddy seemed to be psychic because he gave me his cute frown again. “How’s your battery?”

“Low?” He always knew everything so there was no point in hiding or lying. “I worried even though I said I wouldn’t, but I only did it a little. I just did a little for a long time?”

That was just as exhausting as doing a big worry for a short time…the problem was I always forgot that.

“We’ll come up with a better plan for managing that in the future.” Daddy seemed so confident about that I automatically felt better. “For now, you’re going to do what you can and when it gets to be too much you can be quiet and use your lines.”

Oh.

Daddy had on his special shirt…another shirt?

“Thank you.” Didn’t say Daddy…I was doing great. “I’m excited for lunch.”

And not just because I was hungry.

“And the museum?” Daddy smiled as he squeezed my hand and started leading us toward the deli. “Your…Santostexted me this morning to make sure we had a plan laid out and knew all our options for snacks later.”

Daddy was going to struggle with the name thing, but I appreciated him trying even though it made him roll his eyes. “We’re going to have to talk about appropriate times to text but having another planner partner is a good thing. It’ll make taking care of you easy.”

They were cute.

I wasn’t sure I should point that out, though.

Would Doms like being cute?

I’d only met the fake angry kind and not the nice ones before, so I wasn’t sure. Daddy didn’t need much of a response from me, though. He chattered and nearly skipped along the street as we got to the restaurant. “At that point I’m going to demand a break and attention, so we’ll need privacy.”

Hmm.

Regular people attention or Daddy Dally attention?

Maybe both?

“Okay.” I didn’t think he needed my input on that, so I decided I’d let him just tell me later what he wanted. “There’s…Santos.”

Yeah, that was going to be hard.

Daddy snickered, shaking his head. “I’m going to do my best but using his name sounds weird.”

“If you take us to meet your family you’re going to need to get used to it, right?” He kept saying he was going to take us home, but I wasn’t sure what the timeline for that looked like.

“Of course you’ll both meet everyone.” Daddy shrugged as he opened the door for me. “I’ll probably just call him Pokey to drive him nuts. It’ll be fine.”

I wasn’t sure Papa would approve of that plan, but the deli wasn’t the place to have that discussion. Raised voices and drama would probably be involved and I wanted to be able to come back and have lunch there again.

“Harley saved me from nefarious creatures. He deserves dessert.” Daddy’s happy tone as he led me over to my seat made Papa frown as he stood up from the table.

“What did you do?” Papa was…smart…and slightly frustrated.

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