Page 9 of Coulda

“Forever. The new rule is if you talk to Rio about being a Daddy anytime from now until we all are fifty or dead, you have to tell me.” Amber looked around the circle of friends and waited for each one to nod.

CHAPTER3

Rio knelt on the hardwood floor in his one-room apartment. Opening the battered wooden lid of his footlocker, he unpacked a few treasured mementos. At the very bottom sat a tattered volume wrapped in brown shipping paper. Carefully, he lifted the packet and removed the protective covering.

Amber always sat her books on the corner of the bar when she came in after school to talk to her dad or beg a ride to an event. He’d moved them once when a tipsy patron had almost coated her algebra book in bourbon. Over the years, it had become a habit. He liked taking care of her.

When he’d found her books on a table in the corner one evening as he was cleaning up, Rio had picked up the stack and noticed one wasn’t a textbook. Carrying them to the shelf he’d established for her books, he read the spine. It said simply,Daddy.

Jolting to a stop, he’d looked around before setting down the pile to extricate the tattered one. After one look at the cover and scanning the blurb, Rio confirmed what he’d always suspected but tried to ignore. If reading this book was a good indication, Amber was a Little girl.

A hint of blue on one page made him turn to that location. In the margin, she’d written,

Daddies make their Littles feel safe and secure. What an amazing thing to experience! I want this. Amber

There were notes from Harper and Maisie as well as Beau and Colt. Rio knew that the book disappearing with their thoughts and names pinpointed on the pages would panic the tightly bonded group, but he needed time to read her comments. Without allowing himself to second-guess his decision, Rio left the other books where he'd found them and tucked the ‘Daddy’ book in a mound of boxes to take out to the dumpster. Carrying it outside, he placed it in the saddlebag of his battered motorcycle to read later.

“Rio, did you move my books? Or one of them?” Amber asked the next day after school when she rushed in with her friends. He could tell she was nervous from the way she couldn’t meet his gaze.

“No. If you leave them on the bar, I tuck them underneath. Did you check there?” he asked, watching her reaction.

“I did. I left them in a different spot last night. Everything is there except for one book I need. Do you think someone else would have moved it?” she suggested.

“I doubt it. It’s been pretty dead in here all day. Maybe you left that one in your locker by mistake.”

“Maybe?” she answered with a skeptical expression. Amber looked over her shoulder at the group scattered behind her.

Rio found the entire group’s reaction to his words telling. This meant a lot to them. Their bond had astounded him. Rio had gotten to know all of them as they’d trailed Amber into the bar. Now the mystery of how they all fit together so perfectly clicked into place like the pieces of a puzzle—something more dynamic than simple school friendships drew them together.

Rio had debated returning the book to Amber. He’d made his first slip when he’d called her Little girl. The shocked look in her eyes had made him want to hug her close and reassure Amber that everything was going to be alright—even better than alright—but he didn’t have that luxury.

Allowing himself time to enjoy the sweet notes that she’d jotted in the book, Rio dreamed of a life where he could claim her as his. If only he wasn’t so much older. Thirteen years’ difference wouldn’t be earth-shattering if he were fifty and Amber thirty-seven. Shaking his head, Rio carefully rewrapped the book and grabbed the cardboard box he’d brought it home in. Adding a gift he’d already bought her for graduation and a letter that took time to craft, Rio sealed it securely and wrote her name on the front.

She would be better off at her fancy school getting the nursing degree she’d already decided on when he’d first met her. Unlike other teenagers, Amber’s goals had never wavered. Rio was proud of her.

* * *

“Hey,Dad. Why are you behind the bar?” Amber questioned, spotting him hard at work.

“Rio took off. An emergency of some kind,” Jack answered as he filled orders.

“Oh, no! He’ll be back tomorrow?”

“No. He’s left town for a while. I’ve told him I’d welcome him back at any time.”

“Left town?” Amber echoed as she climbed weakly onto a stool.

“Yes. Like I said he had some kind of emergency out of town. He left you a graduation present in that cubby where he always stashed your books,” her father said, waving his hand under the bar.

Sliding behind the bar, Amber stayed out of his way as she retrieved the package and hugged it to her chest. “This was nice of him,” she said when her dad looked at her expectantly.

“Aren’t you going to open it?”

Scrambling for an excuse to unwrap it in private, Amber answered, “I haven’t graduated yet.”

“I don’t think he’ll know.”

“I will. I’ll take it home. It will inspire me to pass this calculus test tomorrow.” She purposefully distracted her father as he loaded the server’s tray.

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