21. FALLON

For a moment, waking up in bed alone, I feared Daddy had left me. And then, I heard the bedroom door open, he was trying to be quiet. In his arms was a silver tray.

"Oh," he said, approaching in one of the comfy resort robes. "I ordered breakfast. I didn't want to wake you."

I shuffled in bed to sit up. A large yawn stretching out my mouth. "What did you get?"

"Scrambled eggs, sausage, toast," he said, pulling the metal dish from the plate. "Ta-da!" The smell wafting from the plate had my stomach immediately grumbling.

"I figured we'd share," he said. "Henry was up, hungover, so I made sure to order him something too."

"Good, good," I said. "I didn't even hear him come in."

"Me either, but he was on the sofa and I accidentally woke him up," he said. "So, I'm trying to think of how we can make the most of our time together. Not wanting to get in the way of any plans that you and Henry have, but I'd like to spend more time with you considering we're gonna be away from each other for a month."

My stomach was ticklish from all the future plans we were making with each other. "You're serious, right?"

"Deadly serious."

"Hopefully not deadly," I giggled.

"Serious serious ," he said, placing the plate on the bed. He pulled cutlery out of the robe pocket. "I'm thinking we go to the beach together, play in the same, and stuff like that."

"Henry won't mind," I told him. "In fact, if he's hungover, we might get more time alone together."

He prodded a fork into the scrambled egg and then did a little airplane noise, directing the scrambled egg into my mouth.

"Nom!"

"And one for me," he said, taking a bit himself.

We went back and forth eating from the breakfast plate.

"Ok, so today, we're going to the beach," I said. "But do you have time off work?"

He chuckled. "Carla's covering for me. She doesn't mind. I'm recommending her for my job."

Sterling's actions and words filled me with more giggles. I was desperately fighting them, otherwise I'd have to admit I'd fallen head over heels. I knew I was easy to romance because I didn't have a lot of demands that needed to be met.

After breakfast, I put on a fashion show for Sterling, showing off the onesies I'd brought with him. He mentioned being excited for seeing me put on a real show once we were both back in the States.

It was impossible for my stomach not to have butterflies. He made everything in our future plans seem effortless. It was nice to hear him talk like this was our vacation and we were together, even without officially stating we were together. And then he asked it, the question.

"When I'm back, I'd love to be your boyfriend," he said, sat on the bed and watching me, his eyes doing that delicate dance over my body.

Changing out of my onesie, I paused. "Are you—"

"If you want," he said.

"You got to ask it."

"Will you be my boyfriend?" he asked. "Once we're both back."

With the onesie fallen to my waist, I tilted my head and looked at him. "A future question then," I said.

"An eventual question," he said. "But one I'd like to ask now."

The air conditioning chill sent a goosepimple shiver through me. "Are you serious though?"

"Absolutely. Deadly serious. So completely serious that I would throw myself at your feet now just to show you."

My lips curved to smirk. "You're funny."

"You don't believe me," he said, throwing himself off the bed.

"Ok, that's not—" I began, staring at the position of him on his knees. "That's not the question you should be asking down there."

He pushed his fingers into the onesie at my waist and pulled it down. "Will you—" he said, kissing my stomach, "be my boyfriend?"

"Future boyfriend," I said, biting into my lip from the tickle of his mustache on my skin.

"Future, present, past," he added, each with a kiss going further up my body. "I want exclusivity on you." He slowly stood until his kisses reached my lips.

"Yes, I want you as my boyfriend." The giggles coming out of a nervous place. He was the first boyfriend I'd had in years. I wondered if he thought my life was so active back home and he wanted to claim me before I got caught up with someone else. I knew that wasn't the case at all. "But there are some rules."

He shook his head and tutted. "No, no," he said. "I'm Daddy, I make the rules." He cradled the back of my head with a hand, leaning over me and with the tip of his tongue, he touched my nose. "And I say, playtime is mandatory, cuddles are mandatory, sunblock is very mandatory, especially in this weather."

"What other rules?"

"Kisses are required," he said. "In fact, I consider kisses as payment."

"Paying for what?" I asked, pawing a hand at his chest. "Tell me."

"Payment for all the things I'm going to do with you once I'm settled," he said. "Don't want to put any pressure on you, but this is the most excited I've been about looking forward to the future for a while."

"Oh no, no pressure at all." I hugged him.

"With that being said, I want to go build sandcastles with you, and I'd like to do other cute stuff with you as well," he said. "But we'll start with the sandcastles."

I got dressed into a pair of short and an unbuttoned shirt. Daddy applied sunblock to me and I applied it to him. He made sure to get my face covered and then put the pink resort hat on me to double up on the protection.

Henry was still sleeping off his hangover. I thought it was funny how he'd been so adamant about being up every single day so that we could both do activities, but yesterday he'd had an emotional breakthrough so I could understand his want to be alone for a little while, especially while he figured things out in little space, it's how I liked to do it too.

On the beach, we sat near the water lapping the shore. It was the perfect sand for building with, wet and clumping. I'd also taken a couple of the plastic toys out with us as well. If I was building a castle, it needed inhabitants.

The beach outside the villas was never full of people, which meant I had the freedom to do what I wanted and feel however I liked. I wasn't going to jump Daddy's bones though, the idea was exciting to do out in the open, but it wasn't anything I would do.

After a little while of playing, he had to leave. It felt like a sign of emotions to come. I didn't want him to leave my side, or stop listening to all the stories I was making up about how the Queen of the castle had been attacked by someone trying to steal her land. The story didn't end tragically because she had superhero magic which meant she could throw magic punches and then she ruled over the castle in peace.

Henry came outside and threw himself into the sand beside my castle.

"I drank so much," he said, burrowing his hands into the sand.

"What happened?"

"When you left, I started drinking with this gay couple from Germany, I don't know how it happened but I got so drunk," he groaned, nearly planting his face into the sand. "I also saw I'd drafted a text to my dad. I didn't send it, thankfully, but holy shit he would've probably been on the next flight out."

"What did it say?" I asked, digging a small moat around my sandcastle for the water which rose closer.

He groaned. "I only looked at it for a second, saw some of it, then deleted it from the little message box," he said, this time planting his face into the sand. "It's actually kinda nice and cool."

"The water's been on it," I said.

Picking his head up and looking at me, his face was covered in little bits of darkened wet sand clumps. "How do I look?"

"Let me get a pic!" I grabbed my phone from my shorts pocket. "Don't wipe it!"

The whole purpose of the vacation had been to have fun and be silly. We'd done a lot of that. I didn't want to leave. I didn't want to stop feeling the sand between my fingers or under my toes, and I definitely didn't want to out of the sun. But all of those things were made all the better because Sterling would be moving and he we were going to give being boyfriends a go.

"I have something to tell you," I said.

"Is it about the sand?" he asked, spitting it off his lips.

"Sterling asked me if I'd be his boyfriend, well, in the future, his boyfriend," I giggled. "And I told him that I would."

Henry screamed. "No freaking way." He placed a hand to his head. "Oh my god. That's amazing. I think I just gave myself a headache again."

"Yeah, he's moving back as well."

"What?!" he threw his hands into the sand. "I'm happy for you."

I quickly explained to him that he wouldn't be moving back for another month, and alongside that, he would be living in New Jersey, which was just across the river, but it was another state completely.

"Does he want to come to my mom's end of summer party?" he asked.

"Are you just asking because it's when you're telling your dad about leaving the firm?"

Henry pounded his fists into the sand a little more. "I just need people on my side," he said. "So, yeah. But only if you want him there."

"Yeah, obviously. As long as he wants to," I said, now imagining the future. Sterling was going to be part of my life now. It was still strange to think considering how it all started, and even more so because we were only a couple days into being together. But there was nothing like a vacationship to speed the process along.

"Do you L-word him though?" Henry asked.

"Lick," I giggled.

He grabbed at a plastic animal embedded in the sandcastle and threw it to me. "You know the word."

"We're not saying that," I told him. "I'm not saying it. Not for a while."

Henry teased me.

In the past, we'd teased each other about the men we'd slept with and how we got dickmatized so quickly. The L-word was thrown around a lot in our apartment, because it was fun, but Sterling was more than just a one-night stand. He was serious.

"He's inspired me," I told him. "I can't wait to get home, I'm going to try hard to find a job in a toy store. I'm going to really put effort and work in to doing something I love."

"I've always told you to do that."

"And I've always—"

"Don't you dare lie," he said. "You used to say you'd hate to work those long shifts and be around customers and force a fake smile."

"That was the old me," I said. "The me who said silly things. The me now, the one changed by this amazing vacation. He wants to play, and I know I can do that if I work at a toy store."

"You'll get discounts too," Henry said.

"What type of toys? That's the real question."

"I'm assuming you're talking about actual toys and not sex ones."

We both burst out into giggly laughter. I had definitely meant the toys we could play with together instead of the ones we used in private. I definitely didn't want to be involved in that with him, but the idea was funny.

"Ok," I said, dumping sand on top of the castle to make it bigger. "What do you wanna do today?"

"Nothing," he said, putting his head in the sand again. He picked his head up seconds later, spitting it out and laughing. "We only have a few days left. Today is a designated sleepy day, like I just want to sleep on this comfy bed of sand."

I let out a wicked laugh. "Welcome to the dark side. My favorite thing!"

Henry placed his head in the sand again, this time the wave came up and soaked his head.

"That's what you get," I said. "Are you gonna help me build this sandcastle then?"

He crawled in the sand away from the water. "I'm gonna build a better one."

"A better one?"

"Yes," he said, sitting up, his entire body now coated in sand. "Right after I take a dip in the water. It might help my hangover."

"Oh yay, I wanna swim too!"I placed my phone inside the bucket, keeping it from getting hit by the incoming water. "I'll race ya!"