That earned a glare. “John, for real? I’m hitting my goals and then some.”
“But—”
“It’s called work-life balance. I need to have the day off and my work is done.”
“Can you come in on Saturday?”
“No. I have plans this weekend. No one is going to miss me for a few hours.” I wasn’t going to stand there arguing. I didn’t need this job, but maybe John didn’t know that. A part of me wantedto tell him exactly that, but the other part was afraid he’d fire me. That wouldn’t be the worst thing that happened, but I didn’t like leaving like that. I grabbed my messenger bag and turned to leave. He didn’t stop me, so that was that. “See you tomorrow.”Damn. It was only Wednesday. How was I going to deal with this boring job until Saturday?Whatever–off to Daddy’s house.
Daddy Warner opened the door for me as I walked up and greeted me with a huge kiss. “Come on in.” He held his arm out, welcoming me. It was kind of nice, like he used to do when we first started dating. Now, I normally came right in and found him wherever he was working, which was mostly in his office but not always. “I have some coloring stuff set up on the veranda.”
“Oh…that sounds nice.” I followed him out to the back porch. The covered area overlooked the pool, and Daddy had set out a selection of books along with my crayons on the table. “Can I change first?” I was still wearing work clothes, and sitting outside would be hotter, even with the ceiling fan going.
“Of course. You don’t need to ask.” He kissed the side of my head. “I can make a cold fruity drink if you like.”
“Yes, please. Can you make it just a little boozy?” I held up my two fingers to show him the little bit I wanted.
“Sure.”
“Awesome. Be right back.” I loved playing little, but there were advantages to being an adult and one of them was alcohol. I didn’t imbibe a lot, but sometimes it was great. A little bit would make me feel warm and nummy.
After changing into swim trunks and a tank top, thinking I might swim later, I raced downstairs. “Daddy! I ready to color!”
I sat at the patio table and colored while enjoying the afternoon breeze. His backyard was perfect, with lots of potted flowers and plants and, of course, the pool. For an hour or so, I didn’t think about anything except color-color-color. I stayed in the lines and picked fun colors, making the dinos purple andorange instead of green. The plants around them were green, so they would blend in too much if they were too. The orange was for dipy-dacus, and the purple for T-rex. “Rawr!”
Of course, Daddy walked out to the patio just then. “What are you roaring at there?”
I held my coloring book up. “Dinos. Rawr.”
“Ahh…I see. Nice. I like the T-rex.”
“Me too.”
“I came out to see if you’d like something different for dinner, or if you still want wings.” He sat beside me, examining my picture.
“Nah…I want meatloaf and mashed tatotes. Can we order a DoorDash from Metro Café? They have the best meatloafs.” I’d totally changed my mind, opting for comfort food.
“Sure. That sounds good.”
“And heavy. We may need to swim afterward.”
Daddy pulled me into a hug and kissed me. “Anything you want.”
Saturday at Joey’s
The project didn’t take all that long, and I didn’t know if I actually helped, but it was fun. He had a great strategy planned out. “Colin will love this. I’m sure he’ll go with you on it.”
“I don’t know.” He shrugged. “I did my best. Thanks for helping me sort some of this out.”
“It was fun.”
“Best part, we got done early, so we have time to swim before lunch. You brought your trunks, right?”
“Yep. Let’s go change.” I hurried and changed in the guest room, then cannonballed into the pool. Their place was so nice. You could even see the Bay from the pool. Joey jumped in and splashed me. We chased each other around for a while. Then we got the noodles out and hung onto them as we floated around the pool.
“This is fun. Thanks for having me over.”
“You’re welcome, Cody. With Daddy gone all day, I thought it would be a good idea. I didn’t want to be alone, and my other friend, Tucker, couldn’t come out. He’s been busy a lot lately.”
