Page 16 of Space Daddy and a Boy Called Twink

Well, I understoodsomeof those words.

“I’ll take that as a yes, then,” I said.

“When you meet me tomorrow, would you mind not bringing Chelsea with you?” he pressed, as though that was essential to seeing him again.

“Okay, yeah…” Although, probably not a great idea to tell some strange guy I’ll meet him without my phone. But he didn’t say not to meet him without pepper spray.

“Good,” he said. “I can meet at the front of your place.”

At my place made me feel a little better.

“Will you be wearing different clothes?” I joked.

He thought about this for too long before saying, “Of course. That is a normal thing, right? For people to wear different clothes every day?”

I laughed. “You have the quirkiest sense of humor, Daddy.”

Despite the uneasiness prevalent throughout our conversation, a sliver of a smirk slipped across his lips, assuringme once again that despite all the strangeness, there was something else there too.

The eagerness in my belly.

The warmth in my face.

The confusion spiraling around my brain, which made me hope that some of his behavior was just him feeling the same…

Maybe…

Hopefully…

After we set a time and he left, I got back to work, mostly cleaning up behind the bar. Eric swung by while he was working his shift in the bookstore, and I already knew he was gonna give me hell even before he said, “You manage to get rid of that creeper?”

“He’s not a creeper.” I was a little too defensive of this guy I barely knew.

His gaze narrowed. “You like him, don’t you?”

My cheeks flushed. “As much as you can like someone you just met,” I admitted, which felt like a lie since the guy definitely did something to me.

He closed his eyes, like what I’d said had exhausted him. “There’s a lot of red flags there.”

I glared at him. That wasn’t something he had to spell out for me. Since I’d met Daddy, I’d noticed something was kind of off about his behavior. Clearly, something was up with Daddy, but still, I defended him. “Maybe he’s simply quirky. Or neurodivergent. We don’t know.”

“You’ve watched too many true crime TikToks and listened to too many podcasts to not see the massive red billboard that guy’s carrying around. You should not be meeting this man anywhere.”

He wasn’t wrong. Especially when the guy told me not to bring my phone…because who the hell says that? But obviously,considering Eric’s skepticism, I definitely wasn’t gonna bring that up.

“You have a broken picker,” Eric said, “and he’s literally going to kill you.”

Okay, maybe he wasn’t wrong about the broken picker, given my experience with Carter. But the whole killing me, now he was just being dramatic. Daddy was nice. He even defended me against Caramel Guy. He wouldn’t kill me. Would he?

“I think you have a job to be doing,” I said through my teeth.

“Apparently, saving your ass.”

I rolled my eyes as I finished scraping gunk off the rack in the convection oven. “Thanks for the tip, Eric.”

Although, I had to admit, eager as I was to see Daddy again, uneasiness lingered in my gut.

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