Page 34 of Soothed By Daddy
Cyrus’s knowing smile turned into a chuckle. “Gonna take my side?”
I smiled over my mug at him. He didn’t want to date me, but I was gonna be his person whether he liked it or not. “Always.”
“Yeah, so, tonight, after you went inside, I started thinking about what Tye said when he was fishing.” He paused again, taking a deep breath as if he knew the next part was make or break.
Foolish hope sprouted in my chest, but I wasn’t ready to let that hope grow too much or too fast. If I were wrong, I’d be crushed, and I wasn’t sure how I’d handle still pretending that our friends-with-benefits situation was totally casual and whatever.
It wasn’t what I’d expected. And it wasn’t casual either.
“What did he say?” Wait, what? “Why weren’t you fishing too?”
“Because I don’t want to murder worms, and that was all he had,” Cyrus answered nonchalantly, as if it were the most reasonable answer in the world. Maybe it was, but at three in the morning, my judgment was probably off on almost everything.
“Yeah, of course not. Make sense. Please continue.”
“He asked if our open relationship was a new development.”
Oh.
“I’m sure you explained we’re friends.”
The words crackled in my throat. To cover for myself, I immediately gulped down a swig of tea and made a show of clearing my throat. The needy little part of me wanted to stomp my feet and howl at the unfairness of it all. I didn’t get offended by much, but jeez.
“Yeah, I did, but then I started thinking more about it. My plan was to say something when you got home, but I decided to be a chickenshit instead.”
Cyrus looked miserable, and I wasn’t sure how to interpret it. His friend’s mistaken assumption that we were dating upset him so much that he woke me up at three in the morning to tell me about it?What the eff, dude?
“Whelp, thanks for telling me. I don’t know your friend, but if we ever meet, I’ll be sure to tell him we’re fuck buddies and how dare he assume otherwise. Good talk. Can I go back to bed now?”
I was insanely proud of how well I kept my composure. Yeah, the last bit was a little bitchy, but I was human and had limits. With as much dignity as I could muster in my dancing ice cream cone pajamas, I stood up from the sofa, paused long enough to place my tea on the kitchen counter, and headed for the front door.
“What? Wait! No, you don’t understand,” Cyrus yelled from behind me. He jumped off the sofa and headed straight toward me.
“I understood fine, thanks. He assumed couplehood, and you made it clear you’re not cool with that. The need to tell me about it right now is kinda strange, but do you, I guess.”
I’d made it across the room with my hand on the doorknob before Cyrus appeared next to me. He dropped his hand on my shoulder and squeezed gently. In response, I dropped my head against the door and miraculously resisted the urge to bang on it. “Cyrus, it’s late, and I’m tired. Please go home.”
“I’ve completely fucked this up.”
“The only fucked-up part I see is the one where you needed to let me know right this second.” My voice trailed off and my shoulders tensed up to my ears.
If only I’d thought to grab Plummie so I could hug something and hide my face. At some point, my composed facade would crack, and I’d be left even more humiliated than I already was.
Cyrus was my milk dealer, an occasional caretaker, and usually a friend. Period. End of story.
“I think we are dating.” My jaw dropped. “Yeah, I think we are dating,” Cyrus repeated himself more firmly. “It would’ve been better to wait until a decent hour though.” My jaw remained unhinged. “Mostly, I hoped you’d want to know the minute I figured it out.”
“Uh. Um. Yeah. Okay.”
“And I want to keep dating you.”
If he’d announced he was an alien from a galaxy far, far away, I’d have had fewer follow-up questions.
“I’m sorry, what?”
“We’ve been dating, and I want to keep dating you.”
“I’m sorry, what?”
