Page 47 of Who's Your Daddy

“You can’t laugh around them either. You know that, right?” I thought that rule would be very obvious but Daddy went very still. “You hadn’t thought about that part.”

“You need more comfy Daddy chairs around the house.” Daddy seemed to have decided to be stubborn and weird too because he ignored the new problem and picked me up like I was a pile of lumber. “Let’s go to the playroom.”

“Toys don’t fix everything, Daddy. Just most things.” And I wasn’t sure this was one of those things.

“Cuddles will fix the rest, though.” Daddy wasn’t even breathing hard when he reached the playroom, but he nodded toward the door. “I don’t have enough hands.”

Giggling, I was a good boy and opened the door. “There you go, Daddy.”

Ugh.

“Enzo.”

Yes, I could remember that.

Daddy snorted. “You’re never going to remember that.”

“It’d be nice if you lie to me about that. If you tell your brain positive things, it will be easier for it to remember to do positive things.” Scrunching my eyes closed, I took a deep breath as Daddy sat us down in his chair. “I’m going to remember to call Daddy Enzo. I’m going to remember his name is Enzo.”

He snickered.

The shiver he sent through me again didn’t help the situation. “That’s naughty.”

And he giggled.

“I know.” He was behaving badly, but he kissed my cheek. “You just look so cute, though.”

Curling into him, I sighed. “What will they say if I call you Daddy?”

“That you’re not as weird as this second cousin I have that spent most of his early teen years pretending to be a horse at every family event?” Daddy said that with such a relaxed tone it took me a few seconds to realize it wasn’t the answer I’d been expecting.

“Huh?” Sitting up, I frowned at him as he shrugged. “Really? But just like one of those kids who’s really into horses, right? I knew a girl like that who all she wanted to do was ride. I think horses might have one of those weird parasites that make you like them better. Like cats. But I just haven’t gotten around to learning how to study it.”

There just weren’t enough hours in the day sometimes.

Daddy blinked a few times. “That would actually make a lot of sense, but no. He didn’t ride and wasn’t pretending to be a jockey.”

Oh.

“What did the rest of the family do?” Had they been mean to him?

“Brought lots of carrots and apples to the family dinners and then worked the gossip grapevine to fix him up with a woman who wears a startling amount of leather. No one has asked what they do in their spare time but he’s not a pony at family dinner anymore.”

Because he was getting that need filled elsewhere.

“I’m a human even when I’m interesting.” So maybe they wouldn’t notice. “I like carrots and apples, though, so if they get confused, it’ll be fine.”

“See? There’s an upside already.” Daddy pulled me back against his chest and kissed my head. “We’re not going to worry about that, though.”

It was nice he was such a positive thinker.

It wasn’t helpful…but it was nice.

“Right now, I’m more worried about them overwhelming you and suffocating you.” Rubbing my back, Daddy gave me another kiss. “They don’t understand personal space or privacy or common sense. So I’m going to apologize right now for whatever rude thing they say or stupid question they ask.”

I was going to have to tell Leander about this…Daddy thought they were going to be the problem, not me.

“I can be patient.” Hopefully. “And I won’t tell them if they ask a stupid question and I won’t act bored even if I’m bored. I can do that.”

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