Page 21 of Daddy!

"That's a very good question." His eyes found mine as he took one of my hands in his, the other cupping my cheek. "Because you're my baby, and I love you. So, when I can, I'll give you a choice about things. Bacon or sausage—I don't much care, really, so that was easy. But there'll be a lot of times when I won't give you a choice about things—even things I know you won't like. But you are my star, the center of my world. What you want, what you need, what you feel, comes way, way, way ahead of anything about me. It's all about you, babygirl."

I ducked my head down, blushing furiously, but Mane just kissed the top of my head and headed back into the kitchen.

After that, I wasn't really sure what to say or do. "Can I help, please, Daddy?"

"Of course, you can! I can tell you're a very good helper! Why don't you take this stuff into the living room and set it all up on the coffee table?" He piled plates, silverware, butter, syrup, and napkins onto a tray, then handed it to me. "Too heavy?" he asked, eying me closely as I turned around carefully.

"Nuh-uh."

"Thank you, sweetie."

"Welcome, Daddy."

"When you're done, let me know."

"Done."

He trotted into the living room. "Wow, you're quick! Good job!" Then he turned on the TV and put it onto cartoons again, this time Animaniacs. "You stay in here and watch TV. I'll bring breakfast in soon, and we can eat together, then we'll figure out what we want to do for the day."

But before he left, he noticed that I had yet to sit down. I was watching the adventures of Wakko, Yakko, and Dot from a standing position. So, Mane, realizing immediately what the problem was, went into our bedroom and rescued our softest pillow from the bed, which he put down on the couch for me. "Poor princess. Your feet'll get sore if you don't sit down."

"I know, but—" I turned to see what he'd done and went to sit down. "Much better." I craned my head back. "Thank you, Daddy."

"You're welcome, little one." He headed for the kitchen again. "Be good. No changing the channel."

"Yes, Daddy."

Breakfast was wonderful. He didn't feed me again, but then, waffles with butter and syrup didn't much lend themselves to hand feeding, anyway. And they were sublime, as always. When we were done, he let me help clean up, thanking me for the help as we wandered back to the living room. Mane was big on manners.

"Well, what should we do? We could go to the beach or take a drive up the coast—we should do as much of both of those things as we can before it gets to peopley out there and Route 1 becomes a parking lot. The fourth's coming right up, and we'll want to hole up in here for that weekend. We could go down to Boston, if you like, and go to the Aquarium or the Museum of Science, or we could go to the IMAX in Reading, if they're playing something fit for a little."

They weren't, unfortunately. They were showing some kind of Star Wars iteration that neither of us was interested in, and besides, he said it was too old for me, anyway.

So, we ended up going up the coast, stopping at Long and Short Sands in York to beachcomb. It was kind of stupid, probably, to go to Maine and do what we could have done right across the street from his house, but it was a very nice drive. There wasn't enough traffic to be annoying, and since we'd had a pretty big breakfast, we had linner—a combination of lunch and dinner—at a family style place I'd been going to since I was a kid that had great, fresh seafood and large portions, although, since it was past Memorial Day, they'd already converted over to "season" pricing, so it was a bit expensive.

I got "the look" from him when I reached for my purse—full on, chin down, looking out at me from beneath a furrowed brow.

"I don't think so, little girl. You put that back right now, before you get your little bottom smacked."

I gasped in surprise. We'd slipped easily into conversing as adults, and that was a sharp reminder that was not who I was this weekend. And I did exactly as I was told, too, not at all willing to put that past him, especially since I was sitting sans pillow on a hard, wooden chair. But I could see that it was going to put a serious crimp in something I'd been trying to do ever since we got together.

He made more than I did. It was a hazard of teaching for a living. No one did it for the money, because there wasn't any to be had! But the Navy had been taking care of him forever—and until this posting, he'd lived in housing they'd provided for him wherever he ended up, so he hadn't had rent or a mortgage to pay, and he'd been able to build up a nice nest egg. The house his parents had given him was fully paid for, so even here, in his home port, all he had to worry about were taxes and upkeep.

Mane wasn't rich by any means, but he was definitely better off than I was. And, even if he hadn't been, he was the kind of man who would have been careful with his money and would still have insisted on paying for everything, anyway.

I was an independent woman. No one bought me things any more, unless Bette covered the lunch bill sometimes, and I didn't count Christmas or birthday presents from anyone. I paid my own way. I liked it that way. If I did go out with a guy, I didn't feel any sort of obligation towards him if I ordered what I wanted—lobster, if the craving hit, or a porterhouse steak so that I had something to eat on for a couple of days—when I was paying for my own dinner.

But Mane would not have that. It almost torpedoed the relationship before it began, because he wouldn't let me pay for our first meal out together, and I was livid. When we got back to his car, though, he turned in his seat and took my hand, explaining patiently that he wasn't trying to be a jerk at all. He was trying to be a gentleman, as his mother had taught him to be, and that the fact that he had paid did not mean that he expected anything from me at all—not even so much as a kiss goodnight—unless I wanted to.

My thoroughly disbelieving look must've said it all, because he busted out laughing.

"Are you for real? You open doors, you pay for dinner, and you want to act properly because of your mother?"

He had frowned. "Well, when you put it that way…"

But I had always tried to pay, and I had always gotten shot down. Until he started Domming me, and then he had banned me from even offering.

This time, he said, in a disapproving tone that rubbed me the wrong way in little, "I can see that that's a rule I'm going to have to add to the accumulating list of them, young lady, which is something we're going to discuss, this evening."

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