Page 2 of Irish

On the other end, Irish's voice was a low rumble of readiness, without hesitation he responded. “Anything for family. Give me the details.”

Makenzie watched her brother, her eyes wide with a mix of fear and gratitude. Her chest tightened at the thought of the unknown, but the certainty in Sean's eyes fortified her crumbling resolve. He would always protect her. She listened as they made a quick plan. He hung up with Irish and ordered the rideshare before turning back to her.

“Ride's on the way,” he said. “We’ve got to move fast. The car will be here in five.”

“Thank you,” she said. “You always know what to do.”

“Kenzie, listen to me.” Sean cupped her face, thumbs brushing away the remnants of her tears. “Everything will be okay. You're strong, braver than you give yourself credit for. You don't need anyone to storm your castle; you can break free on your own. You are doing the right thing. I’ll take care of everything on my end. For now, get in the car and go to the airport.”

“In my wedding dress?”

“Do you want to explain to Ma why you are changing clothes? The wedding starts in ten minutes, Kenz.”

She shook her head. She’d have to go to the airport dressed for her wedding. A true Runaway Bride moment. “Think of it as a vacation. I can’t imagine you’ll be gone more than a week or two. Do you have enough money to buy what you’ll need in Denver?”

“I make six figures, Sean.” He seemed to always forget how successful she was. He shook his head and laughed lightly.

“I forget how much money corporate accountants make.” His phone beeped, and he looked down. “Car’s here. I told the driver to pull around to the back. Let’s get you on your way.”

Their foreheads touched, a silent exchange of years' worth of shared memories and mutual support. In that moment, Makenzie felt the weight of her gown less like a shackle and more like a battle cloak, readying her for the fight ahead.

“Go. I'll handle everything here. Get the next flight out to Denver when you arrive at Dulles.” Sean's hand on her shoulder was a squeeze of reassurance.

Makenzie's heart hammered against her ribcage as she slid into the backseat of the car. Her wedding dress, once a symbol of a fairytale ending, now felt like a costume of rebellion as she gathered the heavy skirts in her arms.

“Airport, please,” she said.

The driver, a shadowy figure in the front, nodded and pulled away from the curb. She refused to look behind her at the church as they drove away, scared if she saw her parents standing out front, she’d change her mind. Her thoughts raced. She tried to push away the guilt. She didn’t like not knowing what was going to happen next and worried about what her friends and family would think about her.

There weren’t many things she was certain of as the car drove away from the church. But she was sure Eugene was not the man for her. Hope sprung in her chest, replacing the dread. She was doing the right thing. Maybe—just maybe—she could find her way to a new kind of happily ever after.

The plane's hum was a distant backdrop to the tumult in Makenzie's mind as she stared blankly at the fabric seatback in front of her. She traced the delicate lace of her wedding gown, now crumpled and out of place among the rows of weary travelers. She had traded altars for altitude, vows for velocity, and yet doubt and guilt warred inside of her. Ignoring the looks from other passengers had been easy, talking herself down from a cliff, much harder.

“Mom! There’s a princess sitting behind us!” She heard the little girl behind her exclaim excitedly. “Can I ask her for her autograph?”

“No, sweetheart. Let’s give the princess her privacy.”

Makenzie could have hugged the little girl’s mother. The last thing she wanted to do was talk to anyone.

“You look like you could use a drink. What can I get you?” A flight attendant's voice pierced her thoughts, but Makenzie shook her head, declining with a wan smile. She didn't need another glass of complimentary sadness; she was intoxicated enough with her own spiraling thoughts.

Her life flashed before her. Her workday consisted of numbers and spreadsheets that marched in endless columns, a parade of precision. Eugene, too, appeared in her mental slideshow—his reliable smile, his predictable affections, the chaste pecks he left on her cheek and lips, none of which could ignite any form of arousal.

She thought back to meeting him. Eugene’s mother joined the quilting circle Makenzie’s mother ran at Holy Comfort. The two women got to speaking about their children and the nextthing she knew, her mom had set her up on a blind date. While Makenzie felt all the pressure from her mother, Eugene hadn’t.

If Makenzie had known that her mother planned their first date, there wouldn’t have been a second one. Eugene picked her up promptly at seven in a Lexus. When she’d complimented the car, he told her it was the safest luxury car on the market. That should have been her first sign. They arrived at Sam’s on the Waterfront, one of her favorite restaurants overlooking the Chesapeake Harbor. Sam’s was one of her favorite restaurants, and Makenzie wrongly assumed Eugene had done his homework on her. When he couldn’t decide on what to eat, and asked her to pick for him, warning bells went off. She should have listened to them. Months passed of her choosing everything. What movie to see, what food to eat, where to go for brunch. Eugene was like a loyal Golden Retriever, tagging along everywhere she went. He had no real opinion on anything. Politics. Religion. Sports. He couldn’t even pick his favorite musician. “I like them all.” There were no surprises, no impromptu adventures. They scheduled every minute of their time together on a shared Google calendar.

She shifted uncomfortably in her seat, the dress balled up around her. The seatbelt was a reminder of the constraints she felt both in the air and on the ground. Lucky for her, the seat she was in was in the very last row of the plane and she had it entirely to herself. It was the only time in her life she’d been happy to get the back row of a plane.

The image of her online Daddy loomed in her mind, a figure cloaked in anonymity and allure. He was a few years older than her with a lifetime of experience in the lifestyle. Their conversations had been a secret dance of words, a tango where she could twirl freely within the safety of the ballroom… Until it wasn’t.

When she’d joined KinkLife, she’d been happy to simply exist in the shadows. She read the forums and looked at thepictures, wistfully wishing for her own Daddy to come along. Stumbling upon a story writing forum, she’d get lost for hours at night reading fictional stories about Daddies and their Little Girls. One day, someone posted a link for LittleLife and she’d joined. As the months passed, she became more comfortable and started commenting on threads.

That’s when Daddy J had popped into her inbox. At first, it felt like an online roleplay. They flirted back and forth, and he jumped off the screen like a character in one of her favorite romance novels. They’d exchanged phone numbers, only his was an online free Google Voice number. He’d explained that he worked a high-powered job and had to keep his identity anonymous.

At first, they’d laughed a lot together. He’d add a new rule or so every couple of weeks. Normal rules. Rules which made sense. Then, he got more and more demanding. She had to call him the second she woke up and leave a voicemail. He’d forbidden her from using the bathroom, getting a sip of water, or rubbing the sleep out of her eyes. Then there were the punishments. He wanted her to videotape herself doing a variety of different things like standing in the corner with a bar of soap in her mouth. Soon, he forbade her from drinking water for twenty-four hours, or eating for seventy-two—dangerous punishments. He went from calm to explosive, screaming at her on the phone. Finally, she’d had enough and blocked him. He reached out to the girls she’d made friends with on LittleLife and told them all sorts of untrue, horrific stories about her, and the online bullying began. She deleted her account soon after and never went back. Not to BDSM. Not to DDLG.

She’d cried many tears over it. Because, on LittleLife, she'd found solace, slipping into the identity of a Little. It was there she'd tasted the sweetness of surrender, the rush of yielding control to someone who seemed to understand the hiddenchambers of her heart. She’d been free to be all of herself, not just the part the world accepted.

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