Page 18 of Daddy Knows Best

This was harder. My body wanted everything immediately—to climb into his lap, to find out what his skin tasted like, to let him inside me in every possible way. But my brain, the part that had learned something from three days of processing, knew better.

"Public affection is okay," I said slowly. "Holding hands, kissing, normal couple things."

"But?" He prompted gently when I paused.

"But maybe we wait on... the big stuff?" My face burned, but I pushed through. "Until we both explicitly say we're ready?"

Something pleased flickered across his face. "That's very mature boundary setting."

"I have a good teacher."

"Had," he corrected. "Now you have a Daddy who's learning too."

We kept building our agreement—communication expectations, date plans, how to handle the inevitable weird moments. His handwriting filled the page with negotiations that felt nothing like contracts. These were promises to each other, not professional obligations.

"One more thing," he said, adding a final line. "First scene to occur Friday—your place or mine."

"Scene?" My voice hitched on the word.

"If you want." He met my eyes, heat flickering in the gray. "Time to explore what we both need without therapeutic justification. Just us."

"Friday," I agreed, already calculating hours. "My place. Sir Reginald can be our chaperone until then."

He laughed—full and real, not the controlled chuckle from sessions. "Deal."

We both initialed the paper, then sat back to admire our handiwork. A relationship agreement written on printer paper, no letterhead or professional seals. Just two people trying to build something careful from the ruins of what we'd been.

"Now what?" I asked, suddenly shy. The paper said we could touch, but starting felt impossible.

"Now," he said, standing with that fluid grace, then offering me his hand, "I take you to dinner. Like people do when they're courting."

N ate's electric Mini Cooper hummed through North Point's wet streets like a bee navigating between flowers.

I sat carefully in the passenger seat, hyperaware of how the sundress rode up my thighs.

Without panties, everything felt dangerous and delicious.

He drove with the same precision he did everything—smooth gear changes, perfect parallel parking on the first try.

The Lakefront Conservatory glowed against the darkening sky, all Victorian iron and glass lit from within like a jewelry box.

Rain had stopped, leaving everything gleaming and fresh.

Couples ducked through the arched entrance, and my stomach flipped at joining their ranks.

We were a couple now. Sort of. Courting, at least.

"Used to bring my study groups here in grad school," Nate said, coming around to open my door—when had a man last done that? "They do this thing with lavender honey in their cocktails that's probably too on the nose for us."

"That sounds perfect," I said, accepting his offered hand.

The humidity hit immediately, tropical and thick, carrying the perfume of countless flowers. Edison bulbs strung between iron rafters cast everything in warm gold. Ceiling fans turned lazy circles, stirring air that tasted green and alive.

"Reservation for Whitlow," he told the ma?tre d', who led us through a maze of plants that belonged in dinosaur movies.

Our table nestled beneath a monstera so large its leaves could have served as umbrellas.

The intimacy of it—tucked away in our own green cave—made my pulse quicken.

A waiter appeared with water and menus, and I realized I'd never seen Nate navigate a normal social situation.

Who was he when he wasn't managing my crisis?

"Elderflower mocktail," I told the waiter, remembering my empty bank account and new sobriety with equal clarity.

"Balvenie, neat," Nate ordered, then caught my expression. "What?"

"Single malt. Very sophisticated." I traced patterns in the condensation on my water glass. "Let me guess—you have opinions about ice diluting the flavor profile?"

"Guilty." He leaned back, finally relaxing into his chair. "Also guilty: owning whiskey stones, subscribing to three different coffee roasters, and maintaining a spreadsheet for my vinyl collection."

"Vinyl? Really?" I couldn't hide my delight. "What genres are we talking?"

"Mostly jazz, some classical. But." He glanced around conspiratorially. "Third row down, hidden behind the Coltrane? Complete Backstreet Boys discography."

I nearly choked on my water. "No."

"And *NSYNC. Ninety-Eight Degrees. If they harmonized in the late nineties, I probably own it on 180-gram vinyl."

"Dr. Whitlow had a boy band phase." I pressed my hand to my chest in mock scandal. "I'm shook."

"Just Nate," he corrected gently. "And it wasn't a phase. 'Tearin' Up My Heart' is a perfect pop construction."

Our drinks arrived, and I lifted my elderflower concoction in a toast. "To shocking revelations."

"To new beginnings," he countered, touching his glass to mine.

The mocktail tasted like pure summer. I watched him savor his whiskey, noting how different he looked in soft lighting without fluorescent office overheads. Younger. Less controlled. More like someone I could imagine dancing badly to boy bands.

"Your turn," he said. "Embarrassing college confession."

"Oh God." I buried my face in my hands. "Freshman year, I entered a poetry slam. Thought I was the next Sarah Kay, you know? Wore all black, had this piece about capitalism and coffee shops that used the word 'corporate' seventeen times."

"Seventeen?"

"I counted. It was very important to my artistic vision." I peeked through my fingers. "I forgot half the words on stage and tried to improvise. Rhymed 'systemic oppression' with 'skinny vanilla obsession.'"

His shoulders shook with suppressed laughter. "Please tell me there's video."

"Burned. Destroyed. Wiped from the internet with extreme prejudice." I lowered my hands, finding him grinning at me with such open warmth it made my chest tight. "What about you? Any public humiliation in the Whitlow archives?"

"Competitive triathlons," he admitted. "Trained for two years, bought all the gear. The wetsuit alone cost more than your return shipments."

"And?"

"Turns out I get seasick in open water. Threw up on a volunteer kayaker during my first race. They had to rescue me five hundred meters from shore."

"No!" I covered my mouth, torn between horror and hilarity.

"The local news ran a segment. 'Investment Banker Nearly Drowns in Lake Michigan.' They got my profession wrong but the humiliation right."

"Investment banker?" I raised an eyebrow.

"The wetsuit was very expensive. I looked the part." He shrugged, self-deprecating in a way I'd never seen. "Sold all the gear and bought therapy textbooks instead. Better investment, as it turns out."

Our entrees arrived—some architectural arrangement of vegetables for me, perfectly seared fish for him.

We ate and talked, trading stories that had nothing to do with treatment plans or behavioral contracts.

He'd traveled to Japan after undergrad, gotten lost in Tokyo for six hours because he refused to ask for directions.

I'd fostered failed kittens in college, naming them after romantic poets until my roommate staged an intervention.

"Byron the cat peed in her closet," I explained. "She said it was poetic justice."

"Terrible pun." But he smiled as he said it.

The ease between us felt dangerous. Like without the structure of therapy holding us in careful formation, we might crash into each other with too much force. Every time his hand moved on the table, I tracked it. When he shifted in his chair, my body responded like a tuning fork.

Dessert arrived in a frozen beeswax shell—honey semifreddo that looked like art and tasted like magic. I was busy photographing it from three angles when I felt pressure against my ankle. Nate's boot, deliberate and warm, right against my bee sock.

I looked up to find him watching me with an expression that made my stomach flip. Not clinical assessment. Not professional concern. Just want, simple and undisguised.

"Hi," he said quietly.

"Hi," I whispered back.

His boot pressed harder, just for a moment. A reminder. A promise. A connection that had nothing to do with the other diners or the gorgeous setting or the perfect dessert melting between us.

"Eat your honey," he said, voice pitched low enough that only I could hear. "My little bee needs sweetness."

The pet name in public, quiet as it was, sent heat flooding through me. I took a bite of semifreddo to cover my reaction, but from his satisfied expression, he knew exactly what he'd done.

The rest of dinner passed in a blur of charged touches—his fingers brushing mine over the check, his palm warm on my lower back as we left. Normal couple things, according to our agreement. But nothing about us felt normal.

T he harbor boardwalk stretched out before us, city lights fracturing across black water like scattered coins.

Salt air mixed with remnants of rain, and somewhere a boat horn mourned the passing day.

Other couples dotted the path—anonymous shadows holding hands, stealing kisses, living their own stories.

Nate's fingers intertwined with mine as we walked, and the simple contact felt monumental. No intake forms between us. No professional distance mandating careful space. Just his palm warm against mine, his thumb finding the soft spot between my knuckles.

We walked in comfortable silence for a while, but questions built in my chest like carbonation. The easy dinner conversation had awakened harder truths, things that needed air before they festered.

"Can I ask you something?" I finally said as we passed a cluster of teenagers sharing vapes and secrets.

"Always."

"Are you worried I'll be too much?" The words tumbled out in a rush. "Like, real-world Emily versus therapy Emily? Without the structure and the rules and the professional framework holding me together?"