“Please stay, Rome,” she said huskily.
“What do you want me to do?” Roman asked.
“You know what I really want?” Salem said instead of answering Rome.
“No. What?” she asked.
“To go have some Daddy and Little one time. What do you say, Roman?”
Roman nodded. “I would like that.” There was a breathless note to his voice.
“I think our girl looks like she needs some play time. What do you think, Roman? Shall we take her to the playroom?”
“Ooh, yes, playtime!” She clapped her hands together while bouncing on his lap. “I love playtime.”
“Good thinking,” Roman said. “I’ve also just remembered that she owes me some lines. She can do them while in the playroom.”
“What? Nooo!” she cried. “Dada, that’s so mean. Little Tamsy wasn’t naughty. Big Tamsyn was.”
Hmm. This was interesting.
What had their girl been getting up to? He stood with her in his arms and carried her, cradled against his chest, up the stairs.
“Well, would you like to get punished as Tamsyn instead of Little one?” he asked as they entered her playroom. “Because Tamsyn usually gets harsher punishments than Tamsy does.”
“What? Nooo! So unfair. Fine.” She sulked, her lower lip poking out.
“It won’t be so bad, darling girl,” Roman said, falling for her look. “It’s not too many lines to do.”
“How many?”
“Uh, twenty-five?” Roman replied.
“Wait. What did she do?” Salem asked.
“Daddy, you weren’t here. This is between me and Dada.”
“Nope. That’s not going to fly. What did you do?” Salem frowned but at the same time his tension was lessening. He could feel the stress of his failure disappearing.
“She said that she didn’t need a bra because she had nothing to support.”
“Hmm, putting yourself down is a serious rule breach,” he told her. “And it demands more lines, I think.”
“Nooo, Daddy, you are so mean.”
He glanced over at Roman to gauge his feelings. “She can’t be let away with things like that.”
“I didn’t mean it in a bad way. It was just the truth. I don’t have much in the boob department. That’s not a negative thing, anyway. It can be a good thing. I don’t have to wear bras if I don’t want to. I don’t have back issues. Maybe I was saying it in a positive light.”
He could see that Roman was thinking. “Fifty lines saying that you will not disrespect your body.”
She groaned and stomped her way over to the desk.
He moved to Roman. “Good job.”
“Is she really upset at me?” Roman asked.
“No. In fact, it probably helps her feel more secure knowing that you will always follow through on what you say. She just likes to grumble a bit."