5. Milo

Chapter 5

Milo

"Why are you here again?" It certainly wasn't to be helpful.

"I'm here so you actually go out on the date." Dally flopped down on my bed and spread out like he was making snow angels. "I'm pretty sure if I don't make you go, then you'll find a reason not to."

I hated it when his brain actually worked.

"You're being ridiculous." I managed to sound almost believable.

Almost.

Dally lifted his head and smiled at me…always a bad sign. "So you haven't already started texting him that something came up? Work? Tummy ache?"

He was evil.

"Stomachache." I wasn't little, so it wasn't my tummy. "But I stopped myself before I hit send."

He rolled his eyes as he lay back down. "I came in while you were trying to text him, didn't I?"

He seemed to pick and choose when his brain worked.

"Yes." My answer made Dally giggle. He liked being right. "But there are some valid reasons why this is a bad idea."

"Name me five." Dally sounded like he was up for a challenge but it was easy.

"Age gap. No experience with a little. He didn't talk about the lactating thing at all. Job gap. He's got his life together." When Dally lifted his head, I interrupted. "The last two are very different things, so you can't claim them as one. If you do, then I'm going to add finances because I woke up about three in the morning realizing where I'd seen his watch. It's worth at least ten fucking thousand dollars."

I loved window shopping online, but the only watch I'd ever had was from Walmart and it'd been a Mickey Mouse one that I'd gotten from one of my foster families. I still had it in my underwear drawer, but I'd never be able to buy a watch like his in a thousand years.

"At least they weren't ten-thousand-dollar shoes. There's stupider stuff he could've wasted money on." Dally frowned, stretching and wiggling again while he thought. "I'm pretty sure my grandpa said they were status symbols in the business world. That's one of those fields where you have to look like you don't need money to make money."

Okay, he might've had a point about that.

"And rich people give useless gifts too. If his family has money, his mom might've given it to him for his birthday." Lifting his head again, Dally shrugged. "Like my mother when she gives everyone clothes they don't need or won't wear."

She was thoughtful but kind of weird.

Every year for my birthday, I ended up with T-shirts for bands I'd never heard of. Dally said it was because of something she saw in a parenting book but it'd never made sense to me.

"Everything else is still valid." Finally giving up on him leaving, I headed over to the bed and flopped down beside him. Besides my kitchen table, it was the only place to sit in my studio apartment but I didn't care because I got to live on my own.

"Slightly valid under some circumstances." Holding up his hand, he started counting things off on his fingers. "You like the age gap. You like older men, and older men who are Daddies are at the top of your to be fucked by list. Besides, he's not that old."

Okay, maybe that was true.

But before I could find a way to tell him he was wrong, he put down another finger. "No experience means he doesn't have any bad habits like that Daddy who thought spankings should be punishments. He was weird."

Agreed.

Everyone knew spankings were fun and punishments should be boring or terrible, like writing lines or not getting to use my favorite sippy cups.

"Yeah, I'll give you that." Begrudgingly.

"Besides, he's curious about being a Daddy and Victor said he'd just run into wannabe brats and drama queens." Somehow Dally managed to say that without realizing he was a brat drama queen. "Victor said he was really frustrated the little thing hadn't worked out before."

He'd talked a lot about Victor…and to Victor.

"And a lot of the guys in there don't talk about lactating even though that's what they have in common. Some find it too sexual to talk about and some are still really shy about it." Dally made a thinking sound and tapped his chin. "I think your Daddy has a mix of both of those. And I did tell him that he couldn't have sex with you, so that might be my fault."

"Please don't remind me about what we said last night." I might die of embarrassment if he kept reminding me how comfortable I'd been with Elias.

Dally just giggled, not willing to save my sanity at all. "Having a Daddy or even boyfriend with a real job isn't something to hide from. Would you rather he was a bum who couch surfed instead?"

When he put it that way…

"Besides, it's some kind of ist or phobe to refuse to date someone because of their job." He scoffed like it was the dumbest thing he'd ever heard. "You're smarter than that and you're not jobist or workaphobic. And the having his life together thing? Don't lie to me or yourself. Just saying that about him made you hard."

Not that I was going to admit it.

"You're making up words and you know it." My comeback was weak but I told myself at least I'd tried.

"You're making up worries. That's even worse." Springing up like he had a hinge in his belly, Dally hopped off the bed. "But I'm amazing and knew you'd do this. So. Stand up and let me see what you're wearing. You need to leave in a few minutes if you're going to catch the bus."

He was a pain in the butt.

"But if you're willing to tell everyone about your date at the next family dinner, my dad said he'll pay for a cab. He said he needs a distraction and he's willing to pay big for it as long as we don't tell my mother." Dally didn't seem to think there was anything crazy about that, but he was the kid who'd only come out because his dad had needed to be saved because he'd bought a timeshare.

It was a really nice timeshare, though.

"Deal." I didn't want to have to take the bus. "And I'll even tell them we met at a work thing you dragged me to."

It wasn't a lie because Dally worked for the company who'd done the catering. They just couldn't put him out in a customer-facing position because he liked talking to customers.

"Perfect." Digging money out of his pocket, Dally handed over a couple of twenties. "And he said to make sure you had just in case money. He didn't like it when that asshole left you on the other side of town because you wouldn't suck his dick."

"You have to stop telling your parents about every bad date I go on." He only did it to save himself but they were starting to think I was a bigger trouble magnet than Dally.

"It was either that or tell them that I got left in Vegas." Dally shrugged. "Yours was a story that wouldn't have them trying to make me move home again."

They only kept making him move home because he did stupid shit.

"Fine. But no more." Glaring, I managed to look stern as I went over and put my shoes on. "Or I'll tell them about the Disney guy."

Dally sucked in a breath. "That's so mean."

"I'll do it. I don't want your mother to think I'm searching for every loser in the city." It felt like that some days, but I wasn't doing it deliberately.

"She thinks you're an attention whore, not that you're looking for losers." Dally said that so reasonably I couldn't decide if he was fucking with me or being serious. "But happy thoughts for your date tonight, so since we have at least ten minutes before you have to leave now, what underwear do you have on?"

For fuck's sake.

"Dally." He had no boundaries. "I'm not telling you that."

I should've told him that.

He reached out and tugged on the waistband of my pants. "Oh, those?"

I wasn't sure what to bitch about first, so I went with the stupidest. "They're clean and they look very grown-up."

Dally looked like someone had shoved a lemon in his mouth again. "You can look cute and little or you can look sexy, but I'm not letting you leave the house in grandpa undies."

How he managed to say that sounding like his mother I'd never know. "They're not grandpa undies . They're not boxers or anything like that."

"It's worse. They're basically tighty-whities." Shaking his head, he marched over to my dresser, a purple Goodwill monstrosity that was built to withstand the apocalypse. "You don't need pouch and thong levels of sexy here but you have to look good when he fucks you later. What will he think of my parenting if you go over there like that?"

There would never be a logical response to something that ridiculous, so I just took the small blue bikini briefs from his outstretched hand and marched to the bathroom. "He'll think you're a nosy as fuck parent."

But considering how Dally had been raised, he might've made better decisions raising me than his parents had done for him.

Thank God.

He was outside waiting for me.

I must not have hidden that thought very well because as I got closer, his head cocked. "Are you okay? If we need to change plans for tonight?—"

"No. I'm fine." I was an idiot but I didn't want to stop our date before I could find a new way to fuck it up.

"Do you understand why I'm going to question you again?" Elias finally smiled when I sighed. "Perfect. Now how about you save us from that repetition and just tell me what you were upset about."

"Feeling stupid." His raised eyebrow made me want to pout, but I managed not to. "Um, I remembered your first name and I'm pretty sure you put in your last name too when you added yourself to my contacts but by the time I made it home, Dally changed it in my phone, so I was worried I wouldn't know how to find you in the restaurant if you'd already sat down."

Elias's lips were barely curling up on the sides, which made me feel better and ridiculous at the same time. "I didn't realize it until I was almost here and then I couldn't figure out how to get your last name without it looking like I wasn't paying attention, but it wasn't my fault."

Dally did it.

"Dally did it." Elias repeating what I was thinking popped the last of my probably irrational worries.

"Yeah." But he'd thought he was being cute, not giving me a heart attack, so I couldn't complain too much. "Um, hi. It's good to see you again."

Maybe if I pretended everything was fine, we could start over?

Elias turned into Daddy Elias in the blink of an eye. "Would you like to try that again?"

No.

Shoving my hands in my pockets and making sure my feet were planted firmly on the ground so I wouldn't rock or wiggle, I did my best to channel Dally as I widened my eyes. "I've been looking forward to our date. But I'm not nervous anymore."

He snorted.

"I'm a good boy?" It was a last-ditch effort but it made him laugh. "Um, how about if I explain that I just want to pretend I haven't already made this weird?"

"You haven't made it weird." He sounded like he actually believed that, which either meant he was a really good liar or his dates had been worse than mine. "You had a very rational worry that got a bit out of hand, but you were honest when I asked what the problem was."

Letting out a slow breath had him almost smiling at me again. "You did a very good job and now that we've handled it, we're going to have a nice dinner. We're going to chat and have a delicious meal, and then we're going to find some things we have in common so I can quiet my irrational fears."

"I panicked over that this morning." I couldn't let him think he was alone with that one. "Dally said we could find some new things to have in common if we couldn't think of ones we have already."

Elias's eyes widened and it was good to see he hadn't figured that one out either. "Um, he suggested hiking if you don't already do that. I haven't done it much but I'm kind of a dork about birds, but we don't have a lot of them in the city. Well, we've got hawks and pigeons near my apartment but they're living out World War III in front of my building and it's kind of bloody some days. So I'd like less homicidal birds?"

Elias cocked his head but he didn't look like the idea was stupid. "I think that's a very good idea. There are a lot of things we could try if we don't already have enough in common. Oh, and do you know that we domesticated pigeons so long ago that's why they don't have any natural instincts any longer?"

"Yeah." I couldn't decide if it was fascinating or creepy. "One day they were important to us and the next we discarded them like a bad relationship."

Huffing, he shook his head. "We treat exes that cheated better."

He knew his pigeons.

"Do you like birds?" I managed not to sound little when I asked, but I had to work at pushing that side of me back.

Shaking his head, Elias didn't make me guess at the real answer as he reached out and put a hand on my back. "No, but I like documentaries. I'm not big on war ones, so I end up watching a lot of animal ones and general history stuff."

"Me too." Mostly the animal ones, though. "What kind of history ones do you like?"

If we had the area where birds and documentaries overlapped, then we had to have other things in common too. But even if it was just the bird documentaries and the age play stuff, that was a really good start.