Page 68 of A Little Bit Naughty

She turned from loading the dishwasher. “Mostly I just have you here to help.”

“No, I mean, how do you deal with missing José?”

She gave him a piercing look. “Is this about Isaac?”

“Probably. But it shouldn’t be. He was just a fling.”

She rinsed her hands and hugged him from the side, leaning her head against his shoulder. “So when José and I started dating, I have to admit his travel schedule made things difficult to figure out. He would leave and we would pine after each other, and everything was more intense. It was hard for me to figure out how much I missed him as a person, and how much was just this longing for the idea of him. I think it also made the excitement of a new relationship last much longer—that bubbly feeling of seeing him for the first time happened again and again.”

“Oh,” Remi sighed. Was that all this was? The excitement of a new relationship and the intensity of it being over so quickly? “How did you figure it out then?

“Mostly we just stuck around together long enough that his travel schedule became a routine and the excitement of seeing him each time became more mellow. It mattered less whether we were talking on the phone or seeing each other in person. Or at least it did before we had kids.” She laughed. “But while we were dating, we called each other even when we were having crappy days, or when we were running late for things, or when he was bored in the airport, or when I was pissed off about something with work, or he was annoyed with his family. We got to really know each other instead of just having these visits that felt like holidays. It was a mixture of long conversations on the phone in the evenings and just seeing each other in everyday situations. Like any other relationship.”

Remi nodded. He knew all that, mostly. Long-distance relationships evolved and deepened like any other type of relationship. But could that even work with a little who needed Daddy’s physical presence and a Daddy who couldn’t handle giving up that much control? Things really were different sometimes in kinky relationships.

And God, what was he going on about with all of this “relationship” business anyway? Isaac had been very clear about what he wanted. He’d said the same thing on the first and last day of his vacation: he didn’t want a long-distance relationship, and he didn’t want a Daddy while he was in school. So they weren’t going to be having those phone calls. There wasn’t a relationship at all.

But oh, how Remi’s heart had broken when Izzy had kicked that box across the floor because he needed his Daddy…

Remi must have taken too long to respond to Dani, because she was giving him the big sister glare. “Flights to Boston aren’t that expensive.”

“I know.” In fact, flying to Boston probably wouldn’t be that difficult. Isaac had clinic on the weekends, but he didn’t have to teach any classes past Thursday mornings, and if he used the time on the plane to work on the paper he was co-authoring, he’d hardly lose any work time. “But we agreed it was just a fling.” He said it out loud, and to himself. “I’m not even supposed to call him.”

Dani sighed with him. “That sucks.”

“Yeah.” That was about all he had to say.

Sunday he invited the whole gaggle of nieces and nephews over to his house for a special Uncle Remi day. Their parents were all delighted, and for a while, his home was full of noise and love. He chased them around the backyard for a while, then brought them in for lunch, being very careful not to do anything with them that he’d done with Izzy. Or even thought about doing with Izzy. There wasn’t a lot left.

That afternoon he got back to working on the downstairs bathroom, taking great delight in bashing the monstrosity of a toilet into smithereens when he realized it had been cemented into the floor.

On Monday, he supposed he answered some emails at work. He knew he attended a faculty meeting, though he’d be damned if he could remember any of it.

When he came home, he felt like he’d pulled an all-nighter. But he still had to make dinner and do the laundry. He opened the dryer door… and there was Izzy’s dinosaur suit, the full-body one with the cute little teeth sewn into the hood.

He pulled it to his face, and hated that it smelled only like his detergent.

He rubbed it against his cheek anyway.

Inside the machine was a patch of blue that could only be the porcupine onesie. How had they missed both of these?

If it were just the onesie, he might have thought that Isaac didn’t want it. But the dino outfit was a gift from Tommy, and he knew that Isaac loved it dearly.

Most likely, Isaac had thought Remi had packed them, while he had assumed the opposite.

Remi laid out the two items over the laundry basket and snapped a picture. He’d been trying so hard not to contact Isaac, to leave him completely alone as requested. But now that he had an excuse, he was absolutely dying to text him.

He wrote and discarded a dozen texts, from “Looks like a cute little dino might be cold.” to “I found these in my dryer.” All of them sounded horrible. Too distant or too flirty. Too needy or too casual.

Finally, after sitting on the floor until his knees hurt, he just sent the photo. Isaac replied instantly.

Isaac: OMG. I can’t believe I forgot those!

Remi: I can’t either. I thought they were in your suitcase.

There. That sounded completely normal. Just like friends. Remi took a risk and tried out one of his lines.

Remi: I wouldn’t want your little paws to get cold. Do you want to send me your address so I can mail them to you?