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CHAPTER SIX
Jack
“I’m just growing fucking crazy,” I say.
Naturally, Marcus looks at me like I’m an idiot. “Don’t screw this up, Jack,” he says. “For God’s sake, you’ve been with her for almost a year now.”
“Eleven months,” I say. The truth is these have been the best eleven months of my life. Tamara is everything I can imagine. She’s a perfect little girl. The problem is, I don’t feel like I’m being a good Daddy. “You remember what you told me when I moved here?” I ask.
“The part about you being a selfish idiot?” Marcus asks with a smile. I nod eagerly and he frowns when he can see I’m serious. “Okay,” he says. “I don’t get it.”
“Well, you were pretty damned adamant about my problem being that I was selfish.” He starts to say something but I lift up my hand, “No! No, it’s okay, man. I was selfish. Everything was about what the little girl was supposed to do for me, to be for me. Everything was about how she was supposed to submit to me, to do this for me or that for me.”
“All right. What’s different now?”
“That’s my point,” I say. The waiter arrives with our lunch and I stop talking. “Would you please give Kellie a hug for me?” she asks with a smile.
Marcus nods. “Sure thing, Chrissy.” The girl is lovely and bubbly and giggly. As she walks away, Marcus says, “She’s one of Kellie’s friends from the gym.”
“Is she a little girl?” His eyes flash and I shake my head. “No. No. I’m not in the market. I’m just thinking of playdates for Tami.”
“She’s just getting into the lifestyle,” he replies. “She hasn’t had a Daddy yet but she’s looking.”
I nod. The lifestyle appeals to a number of girls. “Do you think talking to her about a playdate will be okay?”
‘Why don’t we set one up with Kellie and Tami and her.”
“Great.”
“So why are going fucking crazy?”
I sigh. “Well, we had the big conversation and everything changed. I feel like a Daddy for the first time in my life, and I owe you a big thanks for that. It still feels like she’s holding back, though, like she’s hiding something from me. I just don’t know how to deal with that. I guess it kind of feels like a razor’s edge. Discipline is important but I think I’m hesitant because it… Yeah, hiding something from me is wrong. I think it’s more that she’s just terrified of disappointing me.”
“So, you think sometimes she’s dishonest because honesty would risk disappointing you.”
I nod. “That’s exactly what I mean.”
He says, “Sometimes that’s okay. A little bit, I mean. Like maybe she knows you love barbecuing steak and she’s not a big fan of steak but she doesn’t mind eating it a couple of times a month because you love it so much.”
“I don’t know. It doesn’t feel like that.”
“I’m not done yet,” Marcus says.
Chrissy arrives. “How is everything?” she asks.
Marcus smiles. “My lunch is great.”
“Me, too,” I say.
“Hey, our little girls are going to have a playdate,” Marcus says. “Would you like to come, too?”
The girl’s eyes light up and she smiles broadly as she says, “Sure! Yes!”
Marcus smiles and says, “I’ll tell Kellie to give you a call, okay.”
She nods happily and Marcus says, “Like I was saying. Steak a couple of times a month, no big deal. She enjoys the time with you and the steak isn’t traumatic or anything. But let’s assume she convinces you it’s her favorite meal in order to please you. Suddenly, you’re cooking steak on the barbecue for five or six days a week. She’s unhappy.”
“Yeah, that’s what I mean.”
