Page 33 of Soothed By Daddy
“Uh…yeah, it’s on fire, or no, it’s not on fire? I don’t get the sorry part at all.”
“The house isn’t on fire. Sorry for probably waking you.”
Cyrus looked more disheveled than I’d ever seen him, even after coming home from work sites. His hair was spiky, like he’d been running his fingers through it repeatedly and had forgotten to smooth it back down. His wrinkled T-shirt matched with the sloppy sweats.
And then he stood there.
“Okay, no worries.”
And kept standing there.
“Why did you wake me up?”
“You went with Chris when he showed up. Why?”
“My guy, it’s”—I turned to look at the clock in the kitchen—“three a.m.”
“Yeah, I know, but I really need to know.”
“Because.” I sighed. “I was curious, I guess. We ended so badly that I wanted to hear he was sorry. Spoiler alert—he wasn’t. He acted like his cheating was an out-of-body experience.” Cyrus still had nothing to add. “If you want to talk, cool. Come in, and I’ll make some tea. If not, I want to go back to bed.”
“Yeah, okay.”
“Which one?”
“The tea, please.”
With a nod, I waved him into my house and headed for the electric kettle on my counter. My mom swore it was her favorite thing, but I said she was ridiculous. Joke was on me because I used it every morning to make my tea—Irish breakfast, no exceptions. I worked quietly and quickly to place a mug in front of Cyrus. The steam curled into the air like smoke from a volcano. Cyrus stared at it as if the answers to the universe could be found there.
“I guess you want to know why I woke you up.”
“If you don’t mind.”
Cyrus visibly gathered himself. I’d never seen him this unsure. Heck, even when I discovered he lactated and he suggested I nurse, he’d seemed pretty casual about it. But now? He was fidgeting with nervous energy that kept him moving in his seat.
“So you know I’m divorced, right?”
“Yeah, I know you have an ex, Cyrus,” I said as his hands curved around the cup.
The heat would’ve burned me, but he seemed unbothered by any potential pain.
“I thought we’d be together forever because we made all sorts of promises to each other. But after we were together, I realized he was completely embarrassed by me. I was too rough, too boring, too poor. And then I started lactating.”
“Oh. I assumed it had been going on forever…”
“Nah, it started after we got together. The doctor said it was just one of those things, but it wasn’t harmful. There are meds I could take, but I have to stay on them, or I’d start lactating again. Since it’s not harmful, and the med side effects would’ve sucked, I didn’t want to do it. He was pissed. He literally wanted me to lock myself away in a room any time I used my pump. Hell, he preferred I do it when he wasn’t home.”
“I get that some people might not be into it, but that seems kinda extreme.”
We’d moved from the kitchen to the sofa. I tucked my feet under me, and Cyrus sprawled on the other end. More often than not, we ended up in these same spots every time he came over. It was our thing. In my fantasy world, we’d be snuggled up together, but that world didn’t exist. According to how this story was going, it didn’t exist because Cyrus’s ex was an asshat.
“Yeah, at the time I didn’t see it that way, but yeah, it was.” Cyrus paused to sip from his mug. Given how he squared his shoulders before continuing, I suspected we were reaching the point of why he was here. It pissed me off that his ex made him question his worth. “It wasn’t all his fault.”
“How so?”
“I didn’t try very hard to fit into his world. His friends invited me a few times to join them, but I wasn’t really interested in what they were into, so I was quick to say no. And honestly, I didn’t invite them to my woodworking garage out back of our house either.”
“Still, he could have been nicer.”
