Page 235 of The Daddy P.I. Casefiles: The Second Collection
“Potentiallya good one,” I snap. “Who left me plugged to run off to Queens and sent me a fucking thumbs-up emoji when I tried to be there for him and left me to drop into the black hole of subdrops and fuckingjudgedme for doing the scene I committed to right in front of him.”
A lady two tables over shoots me a glare and I hunch down into my coffee miserably. “I’m not sure he’s such a good one,” I say quietly and without expletives.
“He ran off to Queens to rescue his drug-addicted daughter. That makes him a fucking paladin.” She ticks her points off on her fingers. “He sent you a thumbs-up emoji because it was lateat night and he was exhausted and because he’s a man and they barely have opposable thumbs, much less know how to text.”
I salute her with my coffee cup. She’s right about that.
“He left you to drop into the black hole of subdrops, and you should make him fucking grovel for that, but he didn’t know you were dropping, and you didn’t tell him because you have steel-bitch balls. I love you, B, but you’d have to be in the last stages of kidney failure before you asked anyone for help, so you can’t really lay that one at his door.”
I roll my eyes. She’s right about that, too, but I don’t have to admit it.
“And was he judging you, or was he having a huge mantrum because you did a scene with another Dom?”
“Felt like he was judging me,” I mutter into my coffee.
“He was jealous, B. C’mon, you know what was going on. Theo all but peed on your leg, putting his arm around you like that. And Mac reacted like?—”
“An asshole,” I interject.
“A jealous, alpha male. You walk out in your lingerie, on another Dom’s arm, and what’s he to think? He’s got no way to know you weren’t deep in dick five minutes before.”
The lady two tables over huffs, picks up her bag and her coat, and leaves.
“We’re scaring off the ‘Nillas,” I point out.
“Fuck ‘em,” Ruby says. Which sums up her whole philosophy. I’m going to get that put on a T-shirt for her. “We’re solving important problems here. Did you make it clear when you told Theo you’d give him a rain check that sex was off the table?”
“No,” I groan. “Because it wasn’t then.”
“So, Mac figures you’ve bounced right from him to Theo and given Theo the thing you didn’t give him?—”
“He’sthe one who said no sex, Rubes.”
“Yeah, do you thinkthat’swhat’s on his mind when you stroll out on the arm of a guy you’ve fucked a hundred times?”
“Hey, two dozen. Tops.”
She leans over the table and hisses. “The point is that Theo’s dick has been where his hasn’t, little sis.”
Ruby and I aren’t related, but she’s called me her little sister ever since the first day we met at Mother Kay’s. It brings a tear to my eye and today is no different. I blot it with the coffee shop’s napkin.
“So, you’re saying, what? I fucked up?”
She reaches across the table and catches my hand in hers, curling her black French-tipped fingers around mine. “I’m saying you’re my blue Kali and any man who wants you should get on his knees and beg for your attention. But since this one’s gotten it, make him grovel for the sucky aftercare, and consider that you might have overreacted a little.”
Mac called me his goddess. That’s usually a name reserved for Dommes, and it was so cool that he flipped it around and made me feel like one during our scene.
“A little?” I sniffle.
Ruby pinches the air between her fingers. “Don’t forget the groveling.”
Groveling is more Ruby’s thing than mine, since she’s a pro-Domme, but I nod.
“Do I call him?”
“Men and apologies and phones?” She shakes her head. “Whatever you decide to do, do it in person.”
She’s right. I’ve never, ever had a good make-up conversation with a guy over the phone.
