Page 2 of Cheese Daddy

She was single now.

Newly single. That makes a difference.

He wouldn’t want to be the rebound guy. Plus, he would feel like a creep, hitting on a woman the moment she’d gone through a breakup. She would need time to recover, even if it had been mutual.

Bree is single.

All the logic in the world couldn’t push the thought out of his head.

* * *

Bree

“I can’t believe I wasted a whole year on that asshole!”

“I see we’ve moved to the ‘anger’ portion of the post-breakup emotional rollercoaster,” Eden said. She held up her hands in surrender when Bree glared at her, brushing her pink hair out of her eyes with one of them. “No judgment. I spent years there. Sometimes, I’m still there.”

Bree winced. Yeah, her year-long debacle of a relationship wasn’t anything compared to Eden’s divorce… then running into her ex because he was one of her best friend’s best friends. Rita, the third point on their bestie triangle, shrugged apologetically. When she’d started dating Andres, she’d accidentally brought Eden’s ex, Marcus, back into her life.

There’d been a few anger explosions between the two of them, although it really seemed like it was more on Eden’s side. Marcus was zen as hell, which was the opposite of how he'd been described. It seemed he’d turned over a new leaf—literally, since he’d quit his stressful day job and started a plant nursery.

She looked guiltily over at the pretty peace lily on the table next to the glass sliding door out to her balcony. She’d bought it the other day at Marcus’ nursery, Flower Power. Eden swore up and down she didn’t mind, but Bree still felt a little guilty. They’d gone in after lunch because it was right behind Rita’s boyfriend’s taco truck, so Eden could spy on Marcus, though she claimed she just wanted to look at some flowers, and Bree had fallen in love with it.

“Sorry, I’m just so mad. I could tell he was pulling away from me, and instead of accepting the obvious, I kept putting more and more of myself into it, then he dumped me anyway.” Tears sparked in her eyes.

“I thought it was mutual,” Rita said from her position on Bree’s couch, leaning forward. The pretty blonde was full of sympathy, whereas Eden was full of wanting to go smack Samuel upside the head, even though she didn’t know the whole story. She’d probably want to smack him even more once Bree finally fessed up.

Bree hadn’t told her besties too much about how everything had gone down. She’d glossed over some important details because she hadn’t wanted to admit them right away and also hadn’t wanted to hurt her friends. Some of the things Samuel had said about her had been cruel, and her two besties had some of the same interests.

In fact, Rita’s relationship with Andres and the fact he was her Daddy Dom had been the catalyst for the breakup. Seeing how happy Rita was, Bree had the thought that maybe she could turn her fantasies into reality, too.

Unfortunately, Samuel was not only not interested in being a Daddy Dom. He thought she was a sick pervert for even wanting one. She hadn’t told Eden or Rita because she hadn’t wanted them to feel bad about their own fantasies.

“It was sort of mutual,” she replied, sniffling as sadness hit her out of nowhere again. Not so much because she was feeling the loss of Samuel, but she was feeling the loss of what could have been.

Samuel had been her first serious relationship since college. Not that her college relationships had been all that serious. At first, he’d been everything she wanted—bossy in a hot way, attentive, interested in the same things, and he could take care of himself. He could cook, liked a clean house, and had a good job, all the things her previous boyfriends had expected her to take care of for them.

Yes, even the job thing. One of her exes had lived on her couch for two months before she’d finally broken up with him. Bree had a sad habit of choosing losers, which was why she’d been so thrilled to meet Samuel.

This time she’d been the one who hadn’t measured up to someone else’s standards. It hurt. It made her angry. And it made her sad. She would have never expected him to turn on her like that over simply wanting to call him ‘Daddy’ and have him be a little more bossy than usual every so often.

Was it really that sick?

No. Remember what your books say. Kink shaming is not okay, and you’ve seen that at the Outlands. As long as everyone involved is a consenting adult, that’s what matters.

Samuel was just a judgmental prick. She would have been fine if he hadn’t been interested. She hadn’t been fine with the disgust and cruel words, which was why it was mutual-ish.

“Are you ever going to tell us exactly why?” Eden asked. “It’s okay if you don’t want to, but I won’t lie. I’m dying of curiosity.”

“Let’s just say it turned out we wanted different things… and he was a total asshole about it.” That was as close to the truth as she wanted to get right now.

“I’d say he was a total asshole about a lot of things, but fine,” Eden countered.

“Eden!” Rita hissed at her.

“What? It’s true. I’m glad Bree is finally seeing it.” She pointed her finger at Bree. “You were far too good for him, and life is too short to spend it with an asshole who doesn’t appreciate you. Trust me, I know.” The asshole in question being Marcus, of course.

“You know what? You’re right.” Bree sat up straighter. Her anger was turning into determination. Who needed an asshole who hadn’t been paying attention to her for months, much less fulfilling any of her needs? Who cared that he looked good on paper? When it came to being a good boyfriend, he’d been just as much a loser as a lot of her exes. She lifted her glass in the air in a toast. “Here’s to new beginnings.”

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