Page 6 of A Little Spilled Milk

I just shook my head, trying to hold in my tears, which was only making them flow harder.

“That’s… oh?—”

And suddenly, he was squatting down beside me.

And I’d never wanted more to wake up and find out this was all a dream and I hadn’t embarrassed myself in front of my crush.

Or maybe I wanted it to continue and have him offer to be my Daddy. Yeah, that was the better option. Too bad it wasn’t a dream.

4

EMORY

“It’s Vinnie, right?”

He glanced up, his tear-stained eyelashes fluttering, much like my heart.

“Mmmm.”

“Are you hurt?”

He pushed out his bottom lip. “No, not physically.”

I wondered if he’d skinned a knee and needed a band-aid. I had some in my bathroom that were decorated with cartoon characters. Or maybe he hurt himself and needed cream rubbed on an owie.

“Let me help you up.” I’d imagined running into my neighbor one day and offering him my teat, undressing him and putting him in footie pajamas, but now that it was happening, my brain couldn’t grasp that he had been carrying raw milk.

I’d been right when I’d scented it on him as we passed one another in the corridor.

“Thank you.” His bottom lip wobbled.

“We’ll need to get this mess cleaned up.”

Vinnie nodded, staring at the spilled milk as if he’d lost his best friend.

But as I hefted him up, he leaped into my arms, tears spilling over his shirt and mingling with the milk.

“I’m sorry,” he sobbed. “But everything has gone wrong.”

I rested my head on his and hugged him close, breathing in his floral shampoo while his tears soaked my sweater.

“Tell D—” I almost blurted out Daddy. “Tell me all about it.”

“I had to go away for work.”

That was why I hadn’t seen him.

“And there’s something wrong.”

An alarm went off in my head. “Are you sick?”

He shook his head, and I carried him inside and placed him on the sofa. I handed him a box of tissues and said I’d be back in a minute.

If I was Vinnie’s Daddy, I would have insisted he help me, but I wasn’t, and until I discovered why he was so upset—it wasn’t just the spilled milk—I wanted him to stay where he was.

He was in my apartment, safe and warm, covered in a blanket, and I offered him some juice. As I reached for a glass, my hand brushed over a sippy cup. I may be longing to be someone’s Daddy, specifically Vinnie’s, but I couldn’t assume anything, and I took the glass instead.

I left him sipping his juice and sniffing, and I grabbed a mop, broom, and a garbage bag. It didn’t take long to gather the broken glass and clean the milk residue. The floor should be mopped again because the corridor now had a whiff of sour milk, but I had to attend to Vinnie.

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