Page 116 of Monster Daddies

“Yes.” Hugging me tighter, Alton seemed relieved we were on the same page. “Lots of kisses are important too.”

So did he like attention or was he more touch starved than I’d originally thought?

“I’m glad we’re in agreement on that.” As well as a lot of other things so far. I knew that wouldn’t always be the case, but it seemed like the matchmaker had been right. We were compatible on enough of the important parts that I wasn’t worried about the rest.

“Do you see the park?” Long strides and the fact that the park wasn’t as far from the road as he probably assumed meant itdidn’t take as long for it to appear through the trees. “Should we go on the swings first?”

Alton sucked in an excited breath and pulled away to see the park. “Oh, it’s so big.”

Well, our species was significantly bigger than anyone who presented as human and that meant our children were much bigger than he’d probably imagined as well. “So it’s got plenty of room to play.”

The fact that he was on the short side for a human impacted that too, but I knew better than to point it out first. Addressing height was something I was going to let him bring up first. Money, body counts, and political beliefs were stuff I’d bring up before asking a man who grew up around humans if he knew he was short.

“I like playing.” He was excited but waited until we were standing by the swings to start hislet me downwiggles. “Look, Daddy, it’s got a fort and a slide.”

“I’m glad you like it.” Each generation of new fathers seemed to get the impulse to add on to it and improve the park in some way. The women liked to joke that it was their way of showing off their manhood and it’d turned into some kind of weird competition. “The slide is tall, though, so we’re going to be careful on that one.”

Some people had no common sense because that thing needed a safety railing on the stairs and higher sides in general.

“I’ll be safe.” Patting my chest, Alton beamed up at me as I set him on his feet. “You’ll catch me.”

At the end or if he fell off the sides?

He was never playing at the park by himself.

Chapter Three

Alton

“And I like Legos and green and books and cartoons.” I liked lots of stuff. “Green food and green Legos and green-color stuff.”

Daddy chuckled and gave me another push making me go higher and higher. “That’s a very good color. I don’t think I have much green in my house, but you might be able to help me with that.”

I was good at colors.

I looked backward at Daddy to tell him that but swings were very swingy. Daddy caught me before the ground did. His eyes got real big. “Oh. That’s…”

“You’re a good catcher, Daddy.” He didn’t have to worry about me going fast on the slide. He was bigandfast. “Yes. I’ll help make your house green.”

Daddy sat me back on the swing and took a big breath. “I think I just lost a couple of years off my life right there.”

Why?

Hmm… Daddy probably just liked to worry. I’d heard lots of them did.

“I’ll help you find them.” I was good at finding things. “I can find green for you too.”

Daddy let out a deep breath as he rubbed my back. “You’re going to do a great job helping me find green, but let’s be careful on the swings. If you fall, you might not want to play.”

Oh.

“Okay, Daddy.” I held on tighter and showed him I was serious. “I’ll be safe so we can go fast.”

“That wasn’t…” Daddy mumbled something about gods above but he pushed me big and made me go faster. “Thank you for holding on tight.”

“Welcome, Daddy.” I was good and safe and went really high as Daddy pushed me and my swing went up and down and back and forth. “What kind of green do you need, Daddy?”

“I don’t know.” Daddy got a thinky sound in his voice as he pushed me again. “You’re going to have to help me figure that out. There are too many choices and I don’t know the names of the colors.”