Page 3 of More, Daddy (Bluebell Bruisers #3)
CHAPTER
TWO
“What?” My response is a grumble trapped inside a yawn, grumpy and loud as I stretch my feet through the undiscovered cold pockets of the bedsheets.
“I certainly hope you looked at your caller ID and saw it was me before answering your phone.” Dean pauses. “What if I was your mom, man?”
I bark out a laugh. “Sorry—hey, Dean. What’s up?” I ask, rhetorically, because then I add, “I didn’t sleep much last night.”
“No?” he asks, and in the background I can hear the distinct chirp of the local radio station, reporting on last night’s away game.
Another yawn. “No. What’s up?”
Dean is the first to report about last night’s game. “We won all three games,” he says of the football teams. “And how many calls did you field?”
“None,” I tell him, happy to report back that my lecture-threat worked.
“My little angels,” Dean deadpans. “They came through.”
I run my tongue over my teeth. “What time is it?”
“Almost ten,” Dean says.
“They haven’t checked out yet. I’d wait until the hotel gets in those rooms before I’d start praising.”
The line goes quiet for a moment. “Damn, you think there will be damage?”
Dean put his money on the line when the school district chose ten dollar meal stipends over a safe hotel stay for the players. The pool at another high school needed retiling, and apparently that took precedence over not putting a hundred students in a bus on a winding, wet road at night.
“I hope not.” I consider how quickly the good kids like Ryan and Briar would’ve called and ratted the others out.
When I was their age, I’d die before I was a snitch, but now, as the man responsible for a bunch of high schoolers, I’m glad to have snitches and goody-two-shoes around me.
“I seriously doubt it. One of the suck-ups would’ve called me.
” I scratch the side of my jaw where a day of unshaved stubble is getting momentum.
“I’ll call some captains and junior coaches later this afternoon, get a pulse on it. ”
Dean takes another pause. “Good, okay.” He sucks in a breath. “Well, that’s not why I called.”
I peek out of my one open eye, gauging how assaulting the sun is this morning. I’ve yet to hang curtains or shutters in the back of the house, and every time I attempt sleeping in, I curse myself for having not taken care of it yet.
Yet.
I say yet as if I haven’t lived here for six fucking years.
As much as I’d like to claim a life so busy that window coverings simply haven’t made it onto my radar, that would be bullshit. A lie. And I fucking hate liars.
“Why then?” I ask Dean. He may be one of my only friends, but I’d give my left nut to get off the phone with him. The thought of rereading my chat log with DaddysGirl has my pulse leaping, and the back of my neck tingling.
“Thought you might be interested in a set up,” he hedges carefully, slowly, like he’s headed down a road full of spring loaded traps. He wouldn’t be wrong—he’s been injured making this journey before.
This time, I take a different approach. And I always find it hard to be a complete prick after a night talking to DaddysGirl . “Let me ask you something. If you don’t like the idea of being set up, why in the world do you think I would want to be set up?”
Dean adjusts the radio in the background.
He’s probably headed to work in the local food bank or plant trees for Greenpeace or some shit.
Dean McAllister is a good guy, one of those good guys that genuinely thinks in rainbow and wholesome things at all times, who wants the best for everyone in the world, who believes in good and rails against evil.
He drops his free change in those plastic boxes at grocery store checkouts, and stands and listens to people with clipboards in front of the hardware store.
Total fucking goody-two-shoes. And why is that? He hasn’t been divorced. He hasn’t felt the excruciating sting of humiliation and betrayal at the hands of the person who promised to love him most, to love him forever.
He has no reason to be cynical.
“Well, I guess I just thought—” He starts but I finish.
“No. I don’t want to be set up. Before Clara June, you didn’t want to be set up either, remember?” I tell him before adding a cursory, “Goodbye, Dean,” and hanging up.
Truthfully, I don’t have anything against set ups. Not in the traditional sense. But I’m looking to find someone who wants all the things that I want, in all ways , and those types of deep needs are never on a “friend of a friend” dating checklist.
Online seems to be the only way for me to meet someone who shares my specific interest.
I slide my laptop off my nightstand and open it, rubbing sleep from my eyes as it boots up.
The first thing I do is head to Veiled to open my chat with DaddysGirl.
For your privacy, all chats are automatically deleted at the end of each session. Start fresh next time!
Sometimes I forget I can’t reread the chat, and my frustration screams at each discovery. I scan the empty chat, disappointed and annoyed, and my body tenses. But then she comes online, her username appearing on the screen beneath the word active .
My nerves unspool, allowing the thread running through my shoulders to slacken. My breathing levels out as I sink back into the pillows and tug the laptop further up my legs. Just seeing her screen name lifts weight from my chest.
A message appears.
DaddysGirl
You’re online
I hope I didn’t wear you out last night
Last night, we talked about everything under the sun after establishing that no, she doesn’t have anything against Elvis impersonators at large.
More so, just one specific impersonator in her general area who turned up for a blind date and was supposed to serenade her with Blue Suede Shoes but instead stripped down to a blue suede micro thong.
Like the other apps we’ve used that have let us down— DaddysGirl was also no stranger to being mismatched with incompatible people outside her demographics—and how those shortcomings ultimately led us both to Veiled .
She’d said Veiled appealed to her so I can stop worrying about everything and just…
connect. Even if it’s fleeting . I’d agreed, though I didn't take that extra step to outline how I was hoping to connect with someone interested in the same specific thing that I am. She knows—I mean, she saw my checklist. That’s why she messaged me—because my checklist matched with hers.
Suede0989
My cheeks are sore. You made me laugh so much last night.
Her dancing bubbles appear, and life feels electric for a moment.
For months I talked to a handful of potential dating candidates across all those other apps.
Not once was I ever excited to read their reply, and not once did I try to set up a physical date.
But with this woman, who I cannot see and know very little about, who for all intents and purposes could actually be like Dean or Hudson , has captivated me.
DaddysGirl
I have abs now, thanks to our conversation last night.
You know, abs from contracting my stomach muscles from laughing.
I smirk.
Suede0989
Got it.
You tired? Do you drink coffee? I need to get my coffee started.
DaddysGirl
Let’s get our coffee started at the same time. Coffee date?
I swing my legs off the bed and carry my laptop to the kitchen, setting it on the counter between old takeout containers from two days ago and a phone book which I use to block the draft from under my back door when it’s windy.
I type out a response as I set the carafe in the sink to fill with clean tap water.
Suede0989
If you were here, I’d make your coffee for you.
I haven’t been getting sexual, not yet, but I am making my feelings known in so many ways. DaddysGirl is aware that old Suede has caught feelings. The best part? Those feelings are mutual.
I feel it.
Suede0989
I’m in the kitchen, getting mine started now.
I try to picture her filling a carafe, the same way as me, but I struggle with an image in my mind.
In all of last night’s good jest and banter, we continued to follow the rules on Veiled and did not discuss anything about ourselves in reality.
No subtle comments about appearance, or baited remarks about bodies.
We were so immersed in conversation that neither of us went there.
To help shape my future fantasies, even if just around morning coffee, I can’t help but ask–
Suede0989
Do you have a single cup or a full pot?
DaddysGirl
12-cups
Didn’t peg me for a weakling one-cupper, did you?
After pouring the carafe into the tank and loading the filter with grounds, I hit start and drag my last clean mug from the cabinet. I love the way the smell of dark roast brewing slowly infiltrates the space around me.
Suede0989
My mistake
DaddysGirl
Tell me now if you’re a weak one-cupper
The only size I’m queen of is your coffee cu p
Set against the white subway tile backsplash—one of the first things I redid in my old house was the kitchen—I snap a photo of my blue ceramic mug and send it to her.
Chats are monitored through AI—which can fuck off to hell—but because this photo gives nothing away about me, who I am or where I live, the photo stays in blue approval mode for only a moment before flashing through, their green approval color outlining it.
Suede0989
Give me a three-cup mug or give me death
Her dots appear, and as the coffee percolates, and the sunshine from mid-morning spills onto my hands over the keyboard, I can’t help but smile. A disgusting, completely corny, making-myself-sick-a-little smile.
I’m drunk on feeling the spark of interest and excitement, like chatting with her on this app is an untapped heady high.
DaddysGirl has sent an image. Do you accept?
I click “yes” and on-screen appears an image of a large metal tumbler, blue with a stainless band at the top. It looks like it holds 30 ounces. It’s huge. In the background, fuzzy and out of focus, I spot a small coffee pot brewing.
Suede0989
Big mug
How many of those puny pots does it take to fill your mug?