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It maybe wasn’t his best laid plan, to be at the very place he’d been fantasizing about bringing her to for weeks, and without her. But after she left he’d found himself at loose ends.
While there was no way he’d be playing tonight, he did still want that feeling of community, of being a known entity, and—selfishly—of being among people who didn’t seem to think he was a horrible person. Little did they know…
When Vance entered the nursery, Twyla finished her turn at Chutes and Ladders and then skipped over to him, purple plaid schoolgirl skirt swinging around her thighs, braided pigtails bouncing.
“Where’s Lil?”
“Nice to see you too, Twy. Would your daddy be very happy with that greeting?”
“No, her daddy would not,” Gunnar said, making Twyla squeak and go up on her toes as he swatted her backside. But the little redhead’s squeal was surprise not pain; Vance knew a spank muffled by a diaper when he heard one.
“I think you owe Mr. Vance an apology, don’t you, sweetheart?”
“Yes, Daddy.”
“Go on then,” Gunnar urged, tipping his chin toward Vance.
Twyla blinked up at him, looking sincerely contrite. “I’m sorry I was rude. I was just really looking forward to seeing my friend and I didn’t think how it would make you feel if I asked where she was instead of saying hi to you first. I really am glad to see you.”
“That was a really nice apology, and I accept,” he told her, giving her shoulder a squeeze. “Lil is… Well, she’s back in Thistledon. We broke up.”
“Why would you do that?” Twyla demanded, eyes suddenly wide with outrage, hands curled into fists at her sides.
Vance looked to Gunnar to chastise his little girl for her outburst, but his friend shrugged.
“That’s just a legit question, man. Why’d you split up? You seemed super into each other.”
“Yeah, well. We’re just very different people, alright? It wasn’t going to work out.”
Which he damn well knew wasn’t the actual problem. It was just easier than explaining that he was a coward, especially to scrappy little Twyla. She might be softer-looking than Lil, but that woman was just as terrifying. He’d never had her wrath turned on him before and he hoped her clench-jawed fury would never be directed at him again.
“Are you kidding me? First of all, you’re supposed to be very different people. It wouldn’t work very well if you were both littles or both caregivers now would it?”
“It would not,” Vance conceded in the face of Twyla’s tsking and her furious little fists parked on her hips. “But it wasn’t about that.”
“If this is about her not having any money, I’ll…I’ll… I don’t know what. I’d punch you but that would get me in trouble. Might be worth it.”
“That’s not it,” he assured her. He had plenty of money for the both of them. Hell, more than that. “We just don’t…match. She’s got her whole goth chic going on, and I’m as prep school aesthetic as it gets.”
“So what?”
Twyla’s question smacked him upside the head. So what indeed? Was the relief of not having people saying shitty things about Lil worth the hole he had in his heart now? Was his pride and his J. Crew catalogue life really more important than Lilith’s smile, her laugh, the gorgeous way she handed herself over to him?
The violent twist of his stomach thinking about how sickeningly self-conscious he would’ve been to walk in here with her tonight in full goth regalia said maybe. And Jesus, what the hell was wrong with him? He didn’t deserve Lil, not if he let his past haunt him, have this stranglehold on his future. But for the moment, he couldn’t break down that wall. Truth be told, he was too fucked up to even try.
“Twy…”
Vance looked to Gunnar helplessly, asking him silentlyAren’t you going to do something about this?But his friend just shrugged again, telling him he was on his own.
“Maybe this will make me sound like an asshole, but—”
“Maybe it will make you sound like one because you’re being one?” she shot back.
Some of the other people in the nursery were looking at them now and god help him if Twyla got the other littles to gang up on him. They’d be the Lilliputians to his Gulliver and just like in the book, he’d go down hard.
“There are things at play here that you don’t understand,” he told her, shame prickling the back of his neck and making his stomach feel like molten lava. His voice had a sharp edge of defensiveness too, and he didn’t fail to notice the tears welling in Twyla’s eyes. He shouldn’t have come. “Hey, I apologize for my tone, that wasn’t cool. I’m not ready to talk about Lilith yet and I shouldn’t be here. I’m gonna head out.”
