Page 15 of Lakeside Little
“And I suppose it helps for town planning,” Elijah chuckled.
“Well, it’s not quite full yet, but once it is, sure,” Mason laughed.
“I bet it’s amazing to live here,” I said, taking in the dark sights only illuminated slightly by fire and moonlight.
They both hummed in agreement. I’d always had that mentality of the grass is greener over there, and that had caught me in so many spirals throughout my life, but the grass really was greener here.
“There isn’t a job going around here, is there?” I asked, half-joking.
“There’s always work going,” Mason said. “But it’s a small town, most of these businesses have been around for years. What other skills do you have?”
“I’ve helped build houses and I even worked at a furniture store before putting together furniture for customers at their homes, if that counts for anything.” Although as I said it, I didn’t know how eager I was to work for someone else again.
“If you can make and sell furniture, there’s a market,” Elijah said. “I make most of the stuff for the bed and breakfast right out of the workshop. We need a new chair for the dining room; I’m out there grinding and shaping wood down to the right size and then upholstering it.”
It was inspiring to hear them. I had ideas, but I didn’t know where to even start. And then I locked eyes with Jack, he smiled, and he waltzed right back on over. “Is my burger ready?” he asked. “I’m starving.”
“Feed the boy,” Mason chuckled. “You don’t want him turning into a brat.”
I winked at Jack. “He’s a good boy,” I said. “He’s never a brat.”
“I just give in to everything,” Elijah said. “I think it’s the best way. And Malcolm is happy about it. It feels like I’ve known him my entire life, which is weird, because I’m older than him.”
Another thing all three of us had in common, we were all older than our littles. But mine was the most adorable, and yes, I was biased. He was mine.
7. JACK
Daddy Diego made the best burger I’d ever eaten in my entire life. I chowed through two of them so quickly, I would’ve gone for a third, but I had to share, and Daddy had to cook the rest of the burgers.
Around the firepit, I played with Oliver and Malcolm. We played with our toys, creating stories about how they were now the three bestest friends in the entire world. Malcolm was a new fan of my series and told me he’d watched so many videos that he fell to sleep with them on auto scroll.
Usually when I visited Pineberry Falls, I was the odd one out not having a Daddy, and I was sure that would’ve still been the case if I had decided not to book out one of the cabins. They were a little more expensive when I could’ve stayed with Oliver for free.
The night went on for until nearly midnight when Oliver and Malcolm were tasked with the adult job of driving their drunk Daddies home. It seemed like Daddy Diego who was only drinking wine hadn’t drunk too much.
Sitting by the dying firepit in the quiet alone, Daddy came over with a plate of grilled fish and a blanket. He wrapped the blanket around me and sat on the log, almost falling back on it because it was just a log and notorious for not having back support and the ability to roll around.
“Did you enjoy tonight?” he asked.
I nodded. “It was fun.” I held Nory up to him. “She also had fun. She met a lot of new friends, and that was good too.”
“Good, I’m glad. It wasn’t exactly what I’d planned for us, but I’m very happy with how it all happened,” he said. “I also didn’t drink a lot, which is good too because I wanted to have all my thoughts when we were together.”
“Also, Oliver left a bunch of juice boxes as well, so that was nice of him,” I said. “And I don’t think I could drink any of the wine again today.”
Eating into the fish inside of tinfoil with a fork, he revealed just how flakey it was, and my stomach surprised me to feel hungry at the sight and smell of it. I gulped hard, licking my lips. “You want to see how it tastes?”
“Pweese.”
Daddy fed me with a fork, moving it around and doing an airplane as it landed right in my mouth. I was never the first to compliment the taste of fish, but there was a sweetness to this one that exploded with flavor in my mouth. I moaned, a little too theatrically.
“Save some of that,” he laughed. “I don’t want you giving all those noises away for free.”
“I’ll save the good sounds for you,” I whispered, staring into his deep amber eyes as they reflected the glowing red dying burned logs in the firepit. “I wanna stay over tonight. If you want me to.”
“As long as you know you’re gonna need a shower, you’ve been spending a little too long near the fire,” he said, rubbing his thumb against my cheek to reveal a black mark.
“That was soft.”
