7. EVERETT

I regretted showing off a little with the fancy restaurant and all of the lavishness it brought. In the moment, still on the high of not having slept, I'd thought it was the greatest idea. Bryce was a princess and a princess deserved to be treated to the best wines and food the city had to offer, but Bryce was visibly uncomfortable in the constriction of the clothes and the tight shoes he'd had on his feet had done a number on him too.

Once our starters and glasses of red taster wines were introduced into the mix, conversation flowed, loosening the idea that everything had to be perfect. Bryce unbuckled his belt and untucked his shirt. The jackets had already been taken off and hooked to the exterior of the booth.

"This food is amazing," he said, licking his spoon clean. "I've never been a soup person, well, except for tomato soup and that's usually served with grilled cheese. In fact, my diet consists mostly of grilled cheeses."

"Mine is mostly pasta," I told him. "I don't make it from scratch, but I do buy fresh. I tried a cooking class once but I'm the type of person who makes their entire personality whatever it is they're doing. So, I nearly quit working on this facial scanning software to just make pasta in my apartment full-time."

"What?" I laughed and snorted. "Serious?"

"Semi-serious," I said. "It's my company, I could take as much time off, and some people wish I would."

"You work a lot then?"

"My friends say I need to work on my social life," I admitted under the influence of the champagne and red wine.

"Is that why you were eager to go on a date with me?"

"Honestly, I hadn't even thought about what they had to say about my lack of social life until just now." It was partly true. Sophie had mentioned it to me yesterday. "When I saw you DJ-ing on Friday, I knew I needed to know more. You were on stage in a dress with a tiara, and the crowd love you, sprinkling glitter at them. I lied to the venue manager about needed to be on the stage area to scope the place. I just wanted to see what it all looked like from your eyes. The people. I bet your social calendar is busy."

He took his glass of champagne, not quite a fan of the red wine I'd noticed. "It is a high on stage being in the zone, the only issue is when people come into my space and stand on my dress. Was that to get my attention?"

"No, well, not on purpose," I told him.

Bryce tapped the rim of his glass to mine, forcing me to drink. It was bad luck not to drink when that happened. "As for my social calendar, I work Friday and Saturday night, and some weekdays. Well, that's actually a work calendar. I have a small friendship group. We hang every Friday and Wednesday. Friday is our games night which is an amalgamation of Dungeons and Dragons and some other RPGs, we're all princesses, so we fight monsters and things depending on the campaign. Then, Wednesdays are tea parties, which is less intensive, and more of a fun play."

I reached out to hold his hand. "Like age regression play?"

He nodded. "Sometimes. We don't label it. It's just a place of make believe and pretend, so whatever that would be classified as, littles, or boys, perhaps."

There was a shared sigh of relief between our bodies. "I wanted to ask that since I saw you, sometimes I don't know if someone is dressing up to get eyes on them, or if it's a part of who they are."

Bryce shuffled up closer to me, his leg overlapping mine. "And what's the verdict."

I placed a hand on his face, caressing the defined curvature of his jaw. "You're a princess, and you're searching for your King, or perhaps a Daddy."

Immediately his lips locked with mine. "Daddy," he whispered, pushing his leg between mine and then hooking the back of it. "I knew you were."

We exchanged a couple kisses. Both my hands on his head, I stared at him."I thought I was being obvious about it," I said. "The Playhouse Club. I thought that was going to be the giveaway in all of it."

"You're a businessman," he said. "I don't know what you invest in."

I suppose that was true. I had invested in a lot of companies that weren't my typical thing, but only because I had Mark who recommended regularly business that he thought were good investments. He was the one that went to business school after all.

Jeannie came back and cleaned the plates from our starters away. "I know I recommended a red wine, but if you'd like to choose between any of the ones I recommended, I can get those sorted for you with your next course."

"Your recommendation was great," I said, lowering my hands from Bryce's face, but desperate to touch his cute blond stubbly face again.

"I actually think I preferred the sweeter one," he said, his confidence growing. "If that's ok."

"A bottle of both," I said.

"You don't—" Bryce started.

"Please," I continued. "We'll take one of each."

She left with the plates and a smile. "Of course, sir."

"I can't let you pay for a bottle of wine I'm not going to finish," he said. "How much is it?"

"Firstly, I enjoyed it, and secondly, I don't think we should talk about that." I knew how much it was, ballpark figure at least, and I knew money was a sore spot for many people. The last thing I wanted was to turn this situation into an uncomfortable one. As a good Daddy, it was my responsibility to protect and provide.

"Pretty please, just tell me," he said, pouting. Already putting that princess card to use. "Or I'll search for it online and I can find out that way."

"Restaurants add a premium to their bottles, so you wouldn't see an accurate figure," I told him. "And I wouldn't let you pay for it. In fact, give me your wallet, I won't let you even attempt it."

He looked at me, his eyes blinking slowly as he continued to pout. "I'm curious."

"Upwards of ten thousand a bottle," I said, unable to resist his charm.

Bryce's immediate response was to burst out into a fit of giggles. "Oh god. Well, I don't even have that available in credit, so don't you worry about me trying to pay any of it."

"And this is why I don't mention money." I wanted to tell him that once you had a certain amount, it didn't feel real. I'd been told I was out of touch with reality once before, and that threw me back into place. My relationship was money had been strange. There were periods of time I didn't dare spend a penny of it in case someone said, we've made a mistake, that money wasn't meant for you .

"Thank you for being honest about it," he said. "I have to keep reminding myself that people come here basically to throw money at the experience, right?"

"You can't see it, but it's a hot bed for celebrities and politicians too," I told him. "They're also paying for the privacy."

"My friends are going to be so jealous," he said. "When she brings out the next bottle, I'm going to take a picture to send to them."

I took his hand. "They tell people not to take pictures in here."

And in return, he offered up his adorable pout. "I won't use a flash. But also, are you saying we can't take a picture together?"

"Together?"

"I mean, my friends will want an update," he said. "And they've really only got your headshots online to go off. I like the way you look in this light. You're really hot."

His words had started to get me a little hot under the collar. "I am?"

With his leg still hooked around mine, he tugged on it."But a hot Daddy would let me take a picture of us together," he said. "And since I am a princess, you should let me."

I leaned in and gave him a kiss. "You'd already convinced me when you said you thought I was hot," I said. "And I'm a little nervous about all your friends."

"You only have to worry if you try and take me away from our Wednesday or Friday princess parties," he said, pulling his phone out of his slacks. "If you're not going to do either of those things, then they'll like you, as long as I like you. And I do."

"Then make it quick," I whispered, my face close to his as I pressed my lips into his stubble. It was like applying a sugar scrub to my lips. It made me desperate to keep doing it for the textural sensation.

Bryce took the picture, without flash as I was kissing his cheek. He showed me it, we were mostly in darkness with two candles framing our faces and the glint of rainbow from the chandelier prism above our heads. It might've been the wine brain, but I was ready to have it framed and hung in my living room.

"You can just about make both of our faces out," he said.

"Send me it," I told him. "I have friends I wanna show I can do things outside of work to as well."

"Oh, you sound so determined," he giggled. "I liked it when you sound like that."

Bryce's phone buzzed a couple times after his text was sent to his friends.

"Popular," I said. I'd sent it to Mark and Daniel, telling them I was on that date. Mark was telling me to enjoy myself and take tomorrow off. Daniel was telling me not to drink too much and make sure I was still in work tomorrow, he didn't want to deal with Mark.

As things stood, I didn't know where this was going, but if it was going through the night, I could be sure that I'd be late to work. I could've probably been sure of that now since we were getting two bottles of wine to the table.

"My friends reminded me to keep drinking water," he said. "I told them about the expensive bottle of wine."

"Oh no, don't tell me what they said." I could already imagine their comments. It was what I'd told myself. This could've paid for a year of rent, or something along those lines.

"They asked when they were getting a bottle," he said.

"If we don't finish it, we can take it for them," I said, feeling myself getting carried away. "I mean, you can take it. I don't want to assume anything about where—"

He placed his cool hand at my face under my chin, his fingers pinched at my mouth, making me pout. "My friend does this to me when I'm speaking myself in circles," he said. "Except, I really wanna kiss you like this."

"Oh, do I look attractive like this?" I asked through the limited movement of my lips.

"Or I'm just searching for a reason to kiss you again. And try discover what that scent is on you." He leaned in and kissed me. "I can't place it." He removed his hand.

"It's my moisturizer," I told him. "It's scented with a spice that helps stimulate the skin. It keeps it from getting dry and red in the colder months. One of the wonders of aging. An absolute pain in the ass."

Bryce's big eyes grew wider at the word, but before either of us could hoke about the word ass , Jeannie was back at the table with wine, not long before arriving with our main course.

It had felt like having a first date all over again, there were moments when that wasn't the case, like wrapping his ankles with napkins, and taking control over the menu, but making sure to order what he'd wanted. I wasn't going to force any of the fancy food on him. I didn't force it on myself either. But the wagyu was basically steak and mashed potatoes, with some extras and it tasted unlike the meal my mom would make, most notably because of where the beef came from.

Bryce moaned from his first bite. "Fuck," he let out.

"It's that good?"

"It has to be illegal," he said, holding another slice of wagyu on a fork. "I wanna marry it."

"Wow. Our first date and you're proposing to a piece of meat," I joked. "I'd say I was hurt, but I feel the same way. It's delicious."

"And what's in these potatoes?"

"Truffle, I think."

"I wanna marry that as well."

"Hold on, princess, you've got to save room for dessert," I reminded him.

"We're sharing that. A threesome," he giggled.

I wasn't sure if he was making a comment about himself. "I'm a monogamous man myself," I said, throwing it out there. "I can only handle one princess at a time."

"Oh yeah, me too. But if you don't want to share dessert with me, that's fine."

"No, I do." Although I couldn't think of that right now. My tongue was still dissecting all the flavors of the meal, washing it down with wine and overwhelming my palette. If my tongue could orgasm, it would have done so.

By the time we finished, we'd each drank a glass and a half of our respective bottles of red wine. It was the most fun I'd had in a long time. I had been worried this would go awfully, considering the music offering was smooth jazz in the background and formal clothes.

"I'm stuffed," Bryce said. "You might have to roll me home."

"I live closer," I said.

He perked up slightly. "But all my things are at home."

"Are you—" I paused. I was clearly the king of mixed signals. "We still have dessert yet before we think about that. But I'd be happy to continue this."

He nodded. "As long as you're happy coming to Bushwick."

"If it's for you, then absolutely."

"I can show you my other dresses," he said, grabbing his glass of water. "But warning. I live in a fairly open plan apartment and it's kinda industrial, so it might be very different to what you're used to."

I didn't mind what his place looked like, as long as we got to continue this somewhere else. And somewhere he felt comfortable was a massive bonus all-around. I wanted my princess to be comfortable.