Total pages in book: 58
Estimated words: 56560 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 283(@200wpm)___ 226(@250wpm)___ 189(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 56560 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 283(@200wpm)___ 226(@250wpm)___ 189(@300wpm)
I wanted to ask if he’d had a long night, but I was afraid of how he’d answer.
Not because I was delicate, but Orlando was still kind of innocent.
“I heard coffee.” Blinking, Terrence was somehow aroused and frustrated, so I didn’t mind the short question. “And someone said donuts.”
Had he honestly stopped playing with himself because he wanted donuts?
I wasn’t sure there was any right way of asking that question without it being incredibly inappropriate under the circumstances, so I nodded and just ignored the implications. “Yes. Do you want icing with sprinkles or chocolate with gooey stuff in the middle?”
No matter how many times I’d given him the real names, he always looked confused, so descriptions were easier.
“Can I have both?” Blinking, he looked around again like he wasn’t sure how he’d gotten to the living room. “I’m not greedy, though. I don’t want. I mean. I can share. Yes. I can share.”
He could when it was absolutely necessary, but he had a wannabe Daddy who knew to be prepared.
“You won’t be greedy if you ask for both.” Getting that out right off the bat seemed like the best way to handle him in his current mental state. “If you go sit down at the table, I’ll bring you coffee and the donuts.”
“Yes, Sir.” Turning, he walked over to the table that was tucked in a corner and sat down like he was a robot.
I wasn’t exactly sure he was awake, but he was listening and polite, so it probably didn’t matter.
“Coffee and donuts. Yes, we can do that.” Then I’d get to work on my actual work.
Heading back to the laundry room where we’d relocated the coffee pot again, I ran into Sergio, who was doing his best not to laugh. “He sounds…not quite awake.”
Understatement of the year right there.
“I’m bringing him coffee and some of the donuts, so if I could get the next cup, that’d be great. Oh, and do not go anywhere near the table for at least the next five minutes.” We had to talk about limits before my soon to be boy wandered through the house with that fire hose waving around.
Sergio snickered but managed to do it almost silently. “Not gonna ask.”
“Thank you.” Because I wasn’t sure what a reasonable lie would have been under the circumstances. “I think he stayed up too late.”
Again.
“I’m not sure he actually goes to bed until we get here.” Carlo poked his head around the door. “That’s something you’re going to want to work on once you figure out how to get him to stop ignoring picking out who his Santa is.”
Dickhead.
“Thanks. I’ll put that on my list.” It was growing by the day, mostly because Terrence was stubborn and needed more supervision than I could currently provide.
Being his contractor only didn’t give me quite enough ways to punish him when he was a pain in the ass or reward him so he wouldn’t want to be a pain in the ass to begin with.
That seemed to be the catch-22 of being a Secret Santa Daddy.
“While you’re working on that to-do list, here are his donuts.” Carlo held out a paper plate with Terrence’s goodies on it just as Sergio finished Terrence’s coffee.
I wasn’t sure it took a village to raise a kid…but it did to keep a little happy.
But Terrence was cute and there were upsides to whatever we had going on at the moment. Just giving him his presents was fun, and he lit up when I did things like find where he’d hidden the coffee maker.
It moved on a regular basis and I’d given up asking him what he’d done with it. There were only so many times he could shrug at me before I just accepted he was possessed by a demon and didn’t know what was happening in his off time.
But as far as littles with quirks went, his weren’t the strangest I’d run into.
Yep, and he lit up like it was Christmas when I made coffee magically appear. “Here you go.”
It totally made up for his manipulative tendencies and the fact that he was deliberately ignoring having a Secret Santa.
“Thank you.” As he went wide-eyed over the sprinkles and chocolate, his little side peeked out. “Sprinkles.”
“Yes, and I have one with chocolate sprinkles for you later when you get dressed and are ready to work.” I was a terrible Daddy but he needed a push to be functional some days.
I was starting to think Carlo’s ridiculous comment about Terrence not going to bed until right before we got to his house was truer than my cutie would admit.
At the moment that was because he was little and only thinking about chocolate, though. “How ready?”
Before I could answer, he’d shoved half of the cream-filled donut in his mouth and moaned. “Real clothes and you have to be awake enough to tell me what day it is.”