Page 24 of Bad Daddy

Lily grinned at him. “You’re welcome!” She rubbed her hands together. “You can practice using it while we work on your statistics homework.”

Between Danny’s text-to-speech reader and Lily’s present, the math was a breeze. Danny didn't have to struggle through trying to read the word problems, because the text-to-speech gadget scanned them and then said them out loud for him. Instead of having to squint and sweat to try to write down his work, he just said the steps out loud to the note-taker thing, and the formulas appeared on the screen.

“I could do this stuff with my eyes shut,” Danny said astonished, as the last problem set finished writing itself out from his dictation and Lily gave him a thumbs up for a correct answer.

“I know,” Lily huffed. “That’s the whole point.”

Danny couldn't help but beam as he looked down at his work, and Haru’s words suddenly came back to him.

“If you didn’t have to memorize your textbooks, what else do you think you could do with your mind?”

Danny… kind of wanted to find out.

***

“I’m sorry for yesterday,” was the first thing Danny could think to blurt out when he dropped into the chair across from Haru at the cafe’s little table.

“Danny! Hey there.” Haru shook his head. “I told you, it’s fine. Did you walk here? It’s freezing out! And you didn’t…”

Danny realized, belatedly, that Haru was holding up his coat like an offering. Danny took it, blushing furiously.

“It’s okay,” he said, hanging his warm coat off the back of his chair for something to do. “It’s not too far. And I walk fast.” Though now that he was inside, after the cold outside and all the moving, he was overheating with all his layers. “Don’t worry about me.”

Haru opened his mouth, then closed it again. He cleared his throat. “Why don’t I go order? Here–” he held up his phone. “I took a picture of the menu. I can read it out loud for you, and you can tell me what you want?”

“Oh, I…” Danny darted a look at him. “Really?”

“Yeah, of course.” Haru smiled. “I do it for Jacob all the time.”

“Oh, okay.” That made sense. And if Haru was used to it, there was no harm in Danny taking the offer. “Then… sure, yeah. That’d be really, um, helpful.”

“Sure thing,” Haru said warmly, and started to read. He was good at reading out loud. His voice was smooth and easy to listen to, and he didn't pause in weird places.

Danny listened as he de-layered, pulling off his hat and gloves and stuffing them in the pockets of Clint’s coat, then unzipping said coat and draping it over the coat already on the back of his chair. The caramel mocha sounded really good, so he went with that one. At Haru’s prodding, he also admitted that he wouldn’t say no to a slice of the lemon loaf. Haru gave him a salute and set off.

Danny watched him go, wondering what he had done to deserve someone like Haru giving him the time of day like this. Multiple times, even.

He didn’t get less uncomfortably warm as the minutes passed. The area Haru had picked was right near a vent, which would normally be great, except that Danny was wearing a million layers.

He unzipped his hoodie, and eventually just took it off, then unbuttoned the flannel he was wearing over his T-shirt to get some air circulation. That helped a lot, but by the time Haru returned with a tray, Danny had also rolled up the sleeves of his flannel and was seriously considering taking it off and just looking like an idiot in a T-shirt, in the face of ten degree weather.

Haru blinked at the pile of clothing now draped over the back of Danny’s chair, setting the tray down on the table. “I see you’re a pro at layering,” was all he said, as he slid over the plate of lemon loaf and a mug.

“Gotta be, in this weather,” Danny said, reaching to take the mug. He had finally removed enough that he wasn't too hot anymore, and the sip of caramel-coffee-mocha was delicious. He sighed into it, closing his eyes to enjoy. “Thank you.”

“Yeah,” Haru said, sounding kind of odd. “Of course.”

Danny opened his eyes, about to ask if everything was okay, if Haru’s order had maybe got messed up… and realized that Haru was staring at his wrists.

His bruised wrists. That Danny had just exposed like an absolute idiot.

He took a shallow breath. He couldn't do anything about it now. Trying to hide them would just call more attention to the fact that he had fingerprints pressed into his skin, and—it wasn't anything, not really. Danny didn’t exactly want Clint to mark him up, but Danny was the one who had agreed to the relationship and Danny was the one taking Clint’s money. If getting bruised up once in a while was part of the gig, that was fine.

It was fine.

“I, um, I appreciate you giving me back my coat,” Danny said, feebly trying to get Haru’s attention onto something else. “I mean, like you said, I’m a pro at layering, but, you know. Having a nice coat helps.”

Haru nodded. He looked like he was thinking something through. “Is your gray one not as nice?”

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