Page 5 of Daddy’s Little Duckling (Ivory Mountain Daddies #1)
CHAPTER FIVE
RAELYN
R aelyn usually loved to work her Saturday shifts. This was the only day of the week that she got to work with her best friend Olivia. She met Olivia not too long after she started working at Ivory Mountain.
They quickly became best friends and loved to line up their weekend shifts to be able to work together. It made the day go by faster when there was someone that made the day better and the shift more fun.
They also spent a lot of time outside of work together. Olivia was the first friend she ever felt comfortable enough to tell about her Little side.
It helped that Olivia was also a Little, so they tended to spend most of their time together in Littlespace having tea parties, watching movies, and doing all kinds of crafts together.
Rae needed to talk to someone about her weekend plans with Emmett. She knew that Olivia would be the perfect person to ease her fears about the date.
Emmett told her that they would be going somewhere special first before going to dinner, but he wanted to make it a surprise for her.
Raelyn usually loved surprises, but this time she was feeling anxious about what he had planned. She knew that she sometimes got overstimulated when in new environments.
It also didn’t help that Rae was stressing about what she was going to eat at the restaurant that Emmett picked out for them.
He didn’t tell her the name of the restaurant, so she couldn’t even plan ahead and look at the menu to find items that would fit her needs.
She had a small list of safe foods that usually made it easy to deal with her sensory issues, but not every restaurant carried food she was okay eating. Even when they did she never knew when a once-safe food would turn icky.
Olivia and Rae tried to help each other in patient care to maximize the amount of time they got to chat. It also was always nice to have a second set of hands to get residents dressed and transferred to their wheelchairs.
Making their way down their assignment lists, the girls chatted about everything that had gone on during the week and what their plans were for the weekend. Raelyn knew that she couldn’t mention anything to Olivia right now about her date with Emmett.
That conversation would need total focus. By the time their lunch break finally came, Rae was bursting at the seams to tell Olivia about her conversation with Emmett. She didn’t know how much longer she could keep it to herself, she needed to get it out.
Taking their lunch break, Raelyn spilled all the details about what had happened over the last few days to Olivia. She explained to her about how Emmett wanted to take her to a surprise before dinner .
Rae knew that she would understand where her anxiety was coming from since Olivia doesn’t usually step out of her comfort zone either. Rae watched as Olivia sat and not so patiently waited for her to get done talking.
“Oh my goodness! I am so glad that he finally asked you out! I never thought that he would do it.” exclaimed Olivia.
Confused by what she was talking about, Rae scrunched up her nose at Olivia’s outburst.
“What do you mean he finally asked me out? I had never seen him before Wednesday morning when I walked right into him.”
Olivia giggled until she realized that Rae was being serious.
“That man has been coming to visit his Nan only on the days that you are working for a few months now. I’m really surprised that it took him this long before he finally made a move..” she went on to explain.
Raelyn didn’t know how to process that information. She blushed at the thought that a man as handsome as he had noticed her and wanted to be around her when she was working, but she couldn’t believe that all those times she had been daydreaming and never noticed that he was there.
“If you knew that Emmett was coming only on my work days, why didn’t you tell me?” Rae asked her after a short pause.
“Well, I didn’t want to bring up that he was smitten with you for fear that you would run the other way. We both know that you don’t do well with attention from men, but with a man as handsome as Emmett I knew that you would make every attempt to avoid him.”
Rae knew that Olivia wasn’t wrong. After the jerk that she dated before, Raelyn had sworn off men for a while. She never wanted to get hurt like that again, but even more so, she never wanted to expose her Little again to someone who could harm her.
She knew that opening up to Emmett put her at that risk, but every part of her knew that he was a good man and would never purposely do her harm.
“I understand why you kept that information to yourself. You’re right to think that I would have run in the other direction. I still can’t believe that Emmett wants me. I mean look at me. I’m not anything special.”
Olivia shook her head. She was constantly reminding Rae that she was a beautiful and kind girl. One day she would find her Daddy who would see all the perfect qualities that Raelyn had and he would snatch her up and never let her go.
Promising Olivia that she would call her that night and spill all the details of her date with Emmett, they switched the conversation to one a little less heavy to wrap up the last few minutes of their lunch break.
They had plenty of time on the shift to continue to chat, but they both still had lots of work to get done.It always seemed like the work never stopped, but Rae didn’t mind.
The more that she did during the day the faster the shift seemed to move. Plus, if she sat down for too long Rae knew that she would struggle to find the energy to continue to work.
All of the hours she had been working lately were slowly catching up with her. She knew that when she got home, Rae was going to crash hard.