Page 7 of Imperfect Skin

“Oops. There are corn dogs. All the food is like you’d have at the sideshows at the beach. There are even hot doughnuts,” Alice said excitedly.

“Of course there are. Did you think Rhys would have a party without proper party food?”

“Well, I thought it was going to be boring grown-up stuff, but it’s not.” Alice wiggled until I set her down again. She reached out and grabbed my hand. “You got to try the little eggy pies,” Alice rambled, leading me to a plate filled with tiny quiches and dainty pies. I let out a chuckle watching her shovel more pies and other party food onto a plate. Where the hell she put it all was a mystery for the ages, but with the amount of energy she had on any given day, the more food the better for the little tornado.

“Hope you’re going to leave some for me, petal.” Callum’s deep voice came from behind my shoulder. I looked back to see him smiling and tried to ignore the frisson of heat his gravelly voice always stirred in me.

“Only a few more. Benji brought his colouring books and comics so we’re going to draw.”

“Who’s Benji?” I asked, looking over the mountains of food that filled the table.

“Doctor Cullen is his uncle or something. He’s staying with him while his mum finds a new place to live. He’s over there.” Alice pointed to a young boy close to her age. By his looks, with a mess of blond hair and an impish smile, he did resemble Doc. He wore a bright green tulle skirt similar to Alice’s and he had on a bright pink pair of Converse.

I shared a look with Callum, neither of us aware that Doc had a sister, or one that had kids.

“His grandparents were mean, so his mum said they were going to find somewhere nicer to live.”

“Well, I’m sure Doc is going to make sure nobody is mean to him here, and you’ll look out for him, right?” Callum asked, kneeling down to tie Alice’s laces.

“Can I go play now?” Alice asked, wiggling impatiently and causing the plate to seesaw enough that I was worried Cal was going to wear a head full of party pies.

“You certainly can, my love. Don’t forget your gran will be taking you back to hers tonight for the weekend.”

Alice nodded, then grinned down at her dad. “You should do Mouse’s laces too. They’re undone,” she announced, before dashing off to join Benji at one of the tables.

Callum smirked up at me as I looked down at my sneakers. Okay, so yeah, my laces did have a habit of coming undone. I had other stuff to focus on.

“Your laces are always undone. How you’ve not tripped over them and broken your neck, I’ll never know.”

I stood still as Callum lifted my foot onto his bent knee and started to tie my laces. When he was done, he patted my calf and gave me what I could only describe as a fondly exasperated look.

I wiggled my foot and grinned. “Thank you, Daddy Cal.”

Oh my god.

Why did I say that? I was blaming the punch or hanging out with Rhys. It was the only reason I said that. Fuck, now Cal was looking at me like I was a complete weirdo.

Cal’s hand tightened on my ankle for a moment before he smirked up at me. “Be thankful you’re not my boy. Your bum would be red twenty-four hours a day with the number of spankings you’d earn.”

I waggled my brows suggestively and pouted for good measure. “Any Daddy worth his paddle would know a guy like me isn't afraid of a spanking. That would just be stoking a fire they couldn’t put out. You don’t know me as well as you think, Callum Harris.”

Oh fuck. Why couldn’t I just shut up?

It was as if my mouth and brain had just had a disagreement, and I was left dealing with the fallout. Callum, for his part, smirked and something flashed in his steel grey eyes. Dear god, now I was falling back on corny romance lines in my head.

“I think I know you well enough, and I think you might have it the wrong way round. I’m probably the one person here who knows you even better than you know yourself.”

I gaped, not sure how to answer that. What the fuck did he mean by that?

Holy shit.

I was certain Cal was just giving me shit in return for my comment, but my stupid dick didn’t know that. I looked around quickly to see if anyone had noticed, but everyone was happily partying and eating.

“I-uh, need another drink.” With that flimsy excuse I bolted for the punch bowl, leaving Cal still on his knees in the middle of the room. What the fuck had just happened? Jesus Christ, way to go, dickhead.

I grabbed the ladle from the punch bowl and poured a hefty slug of the sickly-sweet rum drink. I’d barely finished swallowing before I reached for the ladle again, my earlier idea of heading to The Pit sober flying out the window.

Why the fuck had I said that? And then Callum had to go and say what he did. I didn’t need to be thinking of him spanking the sass out of me. Jesus fuck, I was going to need to get laid fast, before I did something stupid like drop to my knees and beg Callum to be my Daddy.

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