Page 49 of Just A Little Joy

“So I might’ve done another thing…” My voice trailed off when Casey looked at me with narrowed eyes. “But it’s small.”

“Small is good.”

“Yeah, exactly. You know at the party when your onesie wasn’t working right? I didn’t want you to have to mess with it anymore, so I got a replacement.”

“Daddy, that’s so sweet. Thank you.”

“Or two.”

“Oh, well, it’s nice to have choices, so thank you for that.”

And now what? No one mentioned this part. If we were just hooking up with each other, I knew what would come next—no pun intended—but I was completely out of my element. I hadn’t even been this nervous on my first pro game, and I could barely remember my name that night.

“Daddy, wanna make some bracelets with me?”

“Yeah, I absolutely do, bub.”

We settled at the kitchen table to make our masterpieces. It was harder than it looked in the videos we watched before getting started. The glorified dental floss wasn’t made for grown-up male fingers.

Casey showed me the pink-and-white one he’d made for Rory. The beads he’d chosen for the other boys were laid in front of him too. Orange was for Owen, green for Nico, and blue for Jakob.

“How did you pick colors for the boys?”

“Their auras,” Casey answered absentmindedly.

His tongue peeked from the corner of his mouth as he concentrated on knotting the string. When he finished Rory’s, he laid it reverently down and then arranged it just so.

“Is that a thing?”

Casey sat back in the chair and thought about my question. Finally, he answered, “I can’t see ’em, but it’s the colors I ’magine.”

He said it so simply, so matter-of-fact, that I wondered if he could see them and just didn’t want to say anything. The wondering was fleeting because I was distracted by how much I liked having him in my home.

The quiet moment echoed around the room in outsized importance, except it wasn’t inflated at all. Casey at my side felt more right than anything, or anyone, ever had. The question that popped into my mind and stayed at the forefront was how I would be able to keep him?

“Whatcha thinkin’ ’bout?”

“Lots of things, but mostly how cute you are.”

Casey stopped his line tying and turned toward me. “You think I’m cute?”

His preening was over the top with his hands under his chin and simpering eyes. The giggles that erupted from my throat were deep and warm rather than high and flighty, which made no sense, but somehow, he made it happen.

It had been too long since I’d touched him, and his soft hair pulled me in like a beacon. I chuckled at my own ridiculous and mixed-up metaphor.

“What’s so funny?”

“My own ridiculousness,” I said as my fingers curled through his dark hair.

It was silky soft, the ends curling just a little. I was amazed at how thick it was. I was not a little bit jealous. I was a lot jealous. Once I started running my fingers through it, I could not stop. Everything about Casey made me want him more. His lightness. His laugh. His body, which he spent so much time sculpting in the gym.

My fingers moved from his hair to the side of his throat. He shifted into my hand with a soft sigh. I shifted across the table and pressed a light kiss to his lips. When I pulled back, he followed and brushed his mouth against mine.

“Daddy, do you think we can finish this later?”

“Yeah, of course. Did you want to do something else instead?”

“Wanna take a bubble bath with me?”