Page 44 of A Daddy for Maddy

“No. It’s perfect. Your bed is soft.”

“I have a housekeeper who comes every week to clean. They change the sheets and do laundry, too. These are fresh. I planned to have you here last night, but no one’s been here since.”

“They feel good.”

“I’m glad. I’m going to take very good care of you.” He tucked all my things back into my pack and again set it at the foot of the bed. “And now I’m going downstairs to make you a tray of snacks and juice. You just rest, baby boy. Okay?”

“Okay.”

He fussed with the covers a bit more, then turned and left the room.

I sighed happily, wriggling myself down further under the feathery wonder of his bed.

“Kornie, we found ourselves a real daddy,” I said, hugging my stuffie to me.

19

Colin

Maddy ate a cookie and an orange for his snack.

“You make good snacks, Daddy.”

I laughed. The cookie was from a package. The orange grew itself.

Maddy kept saying he was fine and that he wasn’t tired. But he still spent most of the early afternoon fast asleep, eating only his snack and skipping lunch. He’d been through such an ordeal. And it was all my fault.

I reasoned with myself that I was the victim of a stalker. And that in order to not let my stalker win, I had needed to go on with my life as usual. I couldn’t help who I fell for. Who I wanted to date. If I felt attraction for a boy and a need to care for him, it was something deep inside me that came without reason, without a plan.

Maddy fell into my life when he was a no-fault part of a littles fight. And now, again, he’d gotten hurt on only his third time at the club. The club was turning out to be a curse for him. Maybe I needed to have him stay away? But I worked there. It would be difficult if this turned into a long-term thing for us.

Plus, seeing the club itself as a curse was only one point of view. It did, in fact, bring us together.

I loved watching him sleep. Like a little cherub with flushed cheeks and long eyelashes brushing those cheeks.

I hadn’t gotten much sleep on that hospital cot, so mid-afternoon I lay by his side listening to him breathe and fell asleep myself.

We both seemed to wake at the same time.

My gaze went straight to the bruises on his neck. They were still dark but maybe fading just a bit.

He blinked at me. “They don’t hurt.”

I smiled. “Good.”

“You slept with me.”

“Yes.”

“It’s official.”

I chuckled. “Hmm.”

“Thank you for watching over me.”

I reached out and brushed my fingers over the side of his face. “My pleasure.”

He frowned.

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