Page 66 of Tinley's Daddy
“But you don’t want him to. I mean, you want him to be your Daddy, right?” Rayna blinked back tears. “Please don’t tell him to go.”
“Why are you crying?” I blinked away my own tears.
“I don’t know.” She let a tear fall.
I crawled out of my chair and into hers and hugged her.
“Kyler is my first and only real Daddy, and it’s scary.” She sniffled. “I love him with everything in me, but his life is so different from what I grew up in and we are still getting to know each other.”
“He loves you too.” I patted her shoulder.
She shook her body from head to toe. I laughed.
“Anyway. My point is, I almost lost him because I expected him to do something instead of telling him what I needed.” Rayna wrapped her arms around me. “I think if you want Josh, you should decide you want him and then the rest will work itself out. Okay?”
“Okay.” She made it sound so simple.
“Plus, I want you to stick around for purely selfish reasons. It’s more fun to get into shenanigans with an accomplice.” She wiggled her eyebrows.
“I don’t like those words.”
“What words?” Rayna pushed the button, and the chair rose up and up.
“Shenanigans and accomplice.” The chair continued to rise and we rolled off right onto the floor. We looked back at the chair and at each other and erupted in a fit of giggles.
Once we gathered some composure, we headed back toward the stairs and made our way back into the library and plopped into the lounge chairs near the window. The whole street was visible from our vantage point. A Christmas tree was being delivered to the house across the street.
“What are you going to get Kyler for Christmas?” I flipped through a book she handed me.
“Oh my goodness.” She closed her book. “We have to go Christmas shopping.”
“I don’t have any money.” I looked around the mansion I sat in and laughed. I hadn’t thought about it much, but it was true. I had no job, no prospects. I didn’t think my former employer had left my position open as a vigil. Although I bet the magazine would love to hear my story.
“I bet you do.” Rayna returned to her book. “They seem to have a knack for producing bank accounts and credit cards with your name on them. It’s so like the things billionaires do in romance novels.”
“Don’t you feel weird about it?” I stood up and went to study more of the books on the shelves.
“Not after the spanking I got from denying my Daddy the right to take care of me how he saw fit.” She giggled. “It seemed like a silly thing to fight about. Like saying I agree to submit to you, but don’t you dare say what’s mine is yours.”
I turned to face her.
“It is not an argument I can win.” She shrugged. “So we have to go shopping for our Daddies.”
“How can we shop for them when they won’t let us out of their sight?” I turned back toward the bookshelves.
“That’s what all the security is for, right?” Rayna’s voice went all sinister. “Leave it to me.”
Funny, I didn’t picture her as a brat. But shenanigans and accomplices were definitely part of a brat’s vocabulary.
The next day,Kyler and Josh took us shopping and out to lunch. It was fun to be escorted around sections of stores or back rooms of stores. Everywhere we went, the salespeople knew Josh and Kyler by name. We stopped at an antique toy store in the village where Josh bought me two sketches done in color pencils of a Dalmatian family. It was so beautiful, I couldn’t wait to get home and see if I could recreate it. We stopped into a small Italian restaurant near Central Park and had lunch. The restaurant was packed and had people waiting. We walked right in and into the back of the place into a private room.
After we ate, Rayna pulled me into the bathroom.
“Okay, just follow my lead,” she yelled while I was using the bathroom.
“Follow your lead with what?” I came out of the stall and washed my hands.
“We’re going shopping for presents for Daddy and Josh, remember?” She handed me a towel.
