Page 73 of Daddy's Trust
“The difference is whether you’re willing to admit to them or not. Whether you let them take over your life or you use them to make you a better person. I shouldn’t let what I worry about turn me into a jerk or an asshole, like just now when I fired them out at you and you looked like I’d hit you. That makes me feel like a class-A jerk. I don’t want to feel like that. So I own up when I’m a jerk.”
“That’s amazing. I wish more people were like you.”
Cash snorted. “I bet you weren’t thinking that when I told you that you couldn’t leave the table until you’d eaten more of your food.”
She smiled. “You could be right.”
“I’ve had a few people make comments about how I couldn’t possibly be a good Daddy with my lifestyle, my age, and my temper. But I know I can. I’ve spent time with Littles. Ralen and I have gone to a club a lot and helped in the Little rooms. I actually feel calmer and more in control when I have a Little to take care of.”
She could understand that.
“There were a number of clues that you were a Little, but I was more certain once I saw your face when we walked into LittleLand. If you weren’t a Little, you might have been more confused. But you looked like somebody who had been let into a candy store and told to go wild.”
Yeah, she guessed that was a good description for how she’d felt.
“Will you be happy waiting here?” he asked.
Happy? Yeah, she’d be happy if she had to move in here.
“That’s what I thought,” he said, obviously reading the look on her face. He cupped her face between his large, warm hands. “I need you to stay here, though. Promise me. There are cameras everywhere, so I’ll be keeping an eye on you, but I want you just in this small area. It’s safe. I just don’t want you wandering around on your own. Little girls shouldn’t be left unattended, but it can’t be helped.”
Did he just really call her a Little girl? Was he trying to Daddy her? She’d never had that before, so she couldn’t really be sure, but she felt this sort of strange, tingly, jumpy feeling in her stomach, like nerves, but happy nerves rather than anxious ones.
“Addie, I’m going to need some sign that you heard me,” he said in a firmer voice.
Oh, Lord. It was like he was reaching into her head and finding exactly what she wanted, then giving it to her. Addie had been certain that she would never experience anything like this. And now that she was, she was kind of worried she’d mess it all up.
What must it be like not to be riddled by anxiety all the time? Did other people just go about their lives without worrying about everything they said and did and whether it was wrong? Whether they would upset people? Or think about every interaction afterward, dissecting it and trying to figure out whether they’d done anything wrong.
Did other people not see threats at every corner? Did they not get a cold and think they were going to get pneumonia and die?
How much space would there be left in her head for other things if she could just get past all the things that worried her?
If her mother’s voice didn’t keep coming back to her.
Don’t go near that person, they could have germs.
Don’t speak to that person. They could be mean.
Don’t eat that food. You didn’t prepare it. Someone could poison you.
A party? Certainly not. Someone could drug you.
Don’t you know that people are just looking for pretty little girls like you to steal and sell into slavery?
When Addie was twelve, she’d actually made a friend who had invited her to play. But her mother had refused to let her go because she was concerned that they would drug and hurt her.
In the end, she’d had to sneak out of the window of the two-story house and climb down the large tree next to it. She’d made it down and gone to Jenny’s house.
Jenny was the only person at school who had ever shown her true kindness, and there had been no way that Addie wouldn’t go to her house that afternoon.
It had been the most amazing afternoon of her life, but when she’d tried to climb back up the tree, she’d slipped and fallen, breaking her wrist.
After that, her mother had taken her out of school. Even though school had been a struggle at times, it had meant seeing Monroe and Dotty every day.
However, once Mother pulled her out, she’d barely seen them at all. Mother had kept a closer eye on her, so it was harder to sneak out, and she hadn’t liked when Monroe or Dotty would come over to see Addie.
It wasn’t until their father decided to intervene and demand some parental rights that she’d gotten out of the house. She didn’t know how Dotty had done it, but she was certain that she’d had something on their father to make him do that.
