Page 2 of Who's Your Daddy

“I really hope it’s not thefucking with meone. I need my kitchen remodel done at some point and I’d hate to keep going to the trouble of baking cookies for assholes.” My whole kitchen was in my laundry room, so it was a pain in the ass. “I like baking and I like watching them moan as they eat chocolate chip cookies. They pouted over raisins. They’re very dramatic.”

Leander barked out a laugh. “Takes one to know one.”

“I’m going to ignore that.” True or not, it was still rude. “You must’ve had a long day.”

“You do that and see if it helps figure out your Secret Santa.” Shaking his head, Leander looked like he was finally starting totake my problem seriously. “Are you sure you actually have a Secret Santa and didn’t just find someone’s to-do list?”

No.

“It was a Build-A-Bear with tools and a little contractor’s hat and the note was signed by my Secret Santa.” I was positive.

“Okay, well, that’s hard to misunderstand then.” He raised one eyebrow and looked at me skeptically. “But if anyone could, it’d be you.”

I wasn’t going to dignify that with an answer.

“And they all pretended not to know what it was when I found it on my dining room table when I came down for breakfast this morning.” That had been suspicious. “No one breaks into your house to be a Secret Santa. Even that guy who was arrested for stalking said I was too annoying to make it enjoyable.”

Some people were really dramatic and hard to please.

“Alright, I have to admit that really does sound like a Secret Santa gift and it seems like it’s from one of your contractors.” Leander looked like that was painful. “But if it turns out to be a very confused burglar, I’m going to remind you of this conversation.”

“Fine.” Sometimes weird shit just happened. It wasn’t my fault. “What do I do?”

“You can play it off like a game if you don’t like any of them or you can hope that it’s the one you like.” Cocking his head, Leander looked confused. “Which one do you want it to be? Tree guy? The giggler? Body pillow dude? The bored cutie? Why don’t any of these men have real names?”

Oh, he asked hard questions.

“It’s probably my need for therapy talking but I have a thing for the bored one.” I’d admit to being unhealthy in a variety of ways, but at least I was up-front about it. “I want to make him smile. One laugh from him might make me orgasm.”

Scowling was the wrong response, but Leander was hard to please too. “If that’s a turn-on, we need to get you laid more often.”

“Agreed.” But that was another problem completely. “I don’t think I see him as a challenge. I considered that, but I just like his stern bored look and want to either do wonderfully dirty things with him or curl up in his lap and have him read me a book.”

So it wasn’t as unhealthy as it could’ve been.

“Oh, and I don’t want to change him. I just want him to smile at me once in a while. It’ll mean I’m special.” So maybe it was slightly unhealthy.

Still, compared to how my past relationships had gone, it wasn’t bad.

“So you don’t want to fuck tall guy? What about the short thruster?” Leander must’ve been getting distracted because he started keeping track of them on his fingers. “I’m going to say the giggler is too young or too much like you.”

“He’s really happy, but you’re right. He might need a Dom or something.” They were all lovely in their own way, though. “Well, most of them are like dessert and I’d have fun with them. I just think the bored one is a dinner I’d eat slowly. And no sugar rush, so it’s healthier.”

The rush wasn’t bad but the crash that came after was terrible.

Leander huffed. “When did you eat dinner?”

“Weren’t you planning on feeding me?” Hadn’t he said that was what we were doing? “We were starting at the bar and then going to get food, right?”

“For fuck’s sake.” The way he rolled his eyes said that wasn’t what he’d said. “Fine. But next time you tell me that you can multitask while we talk, I’m going to hang up on you.”

Oh.

“Deal.” He’d never remember that, so I wasn’t worried. “You can feed me something unhealthy because they made me eat a salad at lunch and I’m starving.”

I didn’t care how much stuff they put on it—if the base was lettuce and there was a ton of vegetables, it was a salad and that meant I was going to die if I wasn’t fed real food soon.

“Do I want to know why your contractors are feeding you?” Leander seemed to think that was weird, but I wasn’t sure why.