Page 7 of Soothed By Daddy
I didn’t know how he knew, but the crusts were trimmed off, and the sandwich was cut into triangles. He’d added some carrot sticks and hummus, along with a few fresh strawberries.
“It looks super yummy.” Georgie, my little self, wanted to come out to play so badly, but I tried hard to hold him back. Cyrus might not be into littles, and he hadn’t asked for that. He’d asked for help with his milk, which didn’t mean anything beyond me nursing from him. It was hard though. Super-duper extra hard.
“Thank you for fixing my dinner.” I swiped up a carrot, dipped it in half the hummus, and then popped it into my mouth. Theywere the itty-bitty, teeny-tiny ones. I didn’t think Cyrus knew it, but they were my favorite kind.
“I’m glad you like it, dino boy. Oh shoot, did you want something to drink?” Cyrus looked around and placed his hands on the table as if he were about to get up.
“I wanna wait for my drink,” I said hesitantly.
In return, Cyrus gave me a knowing nod. “Yeah, that makes sense.”
I shoved Georgie to the far recesses of my mind.
Cyrus fixed his plate and sat at the table with me. Once he was settled, I wasn’t sure what to talk about, but I figured house stuff was a pretty safe topic.
“Have you fixed a lot of houses?” I shoved another carrot in my mouth. Hopefully, if it was full, he wouldn’t expect me to keep talking and would pick up the slack.
Cyrus held up his finger in the universal sign to wait, chewed a little more, and swallowed before he answered. “Only the one, but I took it down to the studs and put it back together again. It was a three-bed, three-bath midcentury.”
I thought he’d keep talking, but I didn’t have that kind of luck, and I was nosy. “Did it belong to your family?”
Cyrus’s laugh was a little bitter, mixed with relief. “It belonged to my ex and me. He took it in the divorce.”
“Are you sad about that?” I knew it was none of my business, but I also really wanted the answer and maybe the rest of the details that came with it.
Cyrus contemplated my question before giving me an answer. “I was sad about the house because I loved that place. I was sad that my marriage ended the way it did, but I’m not sad that I’m no longer in the marriage or living there.”
Curiosity was going to be the death of me. “How did your marriage end?”
Cyrus gave me a raised eyebrow look that told me that he knew exactly what I was aiming for. “You ask a lot of questions for someone who hasn’t told me a single thing about how you ended up living in this house on your own.”
“That’s easy. My ex-boyfriend said he was a Daddy, but he liked littles in name only, so he decided to make himself feel better about it by downloading every app known to man.”
“He cheated on you?”
“According to him, he wasn’t because they were ‘just talking.’” I added air quotes for emphasis.
“Wow, that’s a lot of talking.”
I shrugged and said, “Meh, it doesn’t matter anymore. It was probably true for some of them, it wasn’t true for all of them.” This conversation felt too heavy to be having over PB&J sandwiches, which should only be a happy event. To change the subject, I said, “This might be the best sandwich I’ve ever had.”
Cyrus cracked a real smile and said, “Have you had a lot of sandwiches in your day?”
“Yeah, I have a lot. They’re the best.”
“Eat up this one so you can get your…milkies?”
I tried to contain my excitement, but it didn’t work very well. I did a tap dance while I sat in my seat, but not enough for him to notice.
“Is it worth a dance?” Cyrus asked.
I started to open my mouth because I forgot that I’d shoved my sandwich in there.
“Hey, no talking with food in your mouth, please.”
I obediently shut it, nodded a lot, and then went back to concentrating on my sandwich. Something inside me bloomed at the way he spoke with calm authority, without judgment, even though I didn’t think he was into littles. It was grounding.
The rest of our meal flew by. I cleaned my plate, including all my veggies and crustless sandwiches. Cyrus and I stuck to safe topics, with no more discussion of our exes or how we ended up in this old Victorian together.
