Chapter 9 Gilly
GILLY
Daddy took me to the park again on Saturday, but this time he had bubbles!
Yay! Just like the Ellie book I asked him to read to me every night.
He said he could get another one, but I liked this one even though I had it memorized already.
It was all about Ellie and her friends at the park playing with bubbles, and today I got to play too just like they did.
Daddy had a three-pronged giant wand, and when he pulled it out of the big soap container, he held it up and turned in a circle, sending all sizes of bubbles flying out over the grass.
I yelled and jumped and chased them. After a few minutes, I was joined by a little dog and his two teenage owners.
I guess seeing me play encouraged them too, and all four of us had a great time chasing Daddy’s bubbles.
I spun around in the sun with my arms stretched out.
Daddy Nate made me so happy. I hoped I could use my Daddy as a binky when we got to his house today.
I’d been so stressed out at work all week and really needed a brain break and knew Daddy could provide that.
There was a lot going on and not enough new clients, to the point we barely made payroll on Friday despite the hours I put in.
I’d spent too much time trying to hustle up new business with not enough results.
I wished Grandpa were still alive. If he couldn’t help me, he’d at least understand.
He’d been a great consolation in my life when I needed it.
So had my uncle, but it seemed my uncle had been checking out and ignoring work, leaving it to me to do.
I understood why, but it felt a lot like my high school years with my parents ignoring me, preferring to do their own things.
But no thinking about all that. I was going to have a fun weekend with Daddy. Now that I had him, I didn’t want to let him go.
After the park, we stopped for fast food on the way home. “Gilly? What do you want?”
“A burger, no cheese, and fries, please. Do they have apple slices, Daddy?”
“Yes. Do you want the kids’ meal then?”
“Nah…” I didn’t want to push my luck.
“You can still have both fries and apples.” Guess Daddy read my mind.
“Really?”
He reached over and grabbed my knee, giving it a gentle squeeze. “Of course.”
“Okay, then. I’ll have that.”
The kids’ meal came with a toy too. It wasn’t Ellie, but it was still cute and fun to play with. It was one of those racecars that you pulled backwards on the ground, and when you let go, it flew off really fast. I held it up to look at it. Red and blue. “I don’t have many toys…”
“Why not?”
“It’s difficult to hide the few I have. Plus, Mom and Dad packed everything I had in boxes after I moved out.
” That had been super hard. Sometimes, I still couldn’t believe my parents let me move when I did.
After Grandpa passed, I was all alone in that big house that needed way more attention than I could give it.
“Broke my heart to sell Grandpa’s house. ”
“I can only imagine.” The rest of the drive home was quiet, and as we pulled into the driveway, Daddy Nate squeezed my knee again. “Gilly, you know you can have toys at my house, if you want to.”
“Really?”
“Why do you sound so surprised? I’m kind of mad that no one has treated you well.”
I shrugged. “I don’t usually let people treat me well. I got that from my dad probably. He’s a fixer. Wants to be the man to solve all the problems, even when people don’t want him to, which is most of the time. If he’s not trying to fix everything, he’s ignoring you.”
“Mmm…I understand that some because I tend to do the same thing. I’m a Daddy by nature, a caretaker. I feel good when I’m helping others or making them happy. But being a natural fixer doesn’t mean people can treat you poorly. He shouldn’t have ignored you, Gilly.”
“You make me happy all the time, and you don’t push me. I may play Little, but I’m still an adult. It feels like you understand and respect that.” It didn’t feel like he was trying to run my whole life at all but was more like what Rob had originally said, he was trying to make it better for me.
“Of course I do.” Daddy Nate turned off the car and stared at his cute house. “Well, come on. Let’s go inside and eat. Then we can talk about more toys for good boys.” He winked at me.
“Daddy?”
“Yes?” he asked, unlocking the front door.
“Thank you for liking me.”
He grabbed me and hugged me tightly, squeezing until it was hard to breathe. “You are so, so easy to like.” When he let me go and kissed the top of my head, all the swirlies spiraled around in my tummy again. I was so happy and so terribly afraid I was going to lose this at the same time.
The lactating sitch had been eye-opening and ended up being something I liked a lot.
Probably because of my oral fixation. I’d thought that was only because of the Little in me, but maybe it was something more.
The good thing was that I didn’t have to figure it out.
Not with Daddy Nate. I didn’t worry about my binky or having a bottle, because he was right there offering up his milk or grabbing my binky for me.
When dinner was over, we cuddled on the couch, but it didn’t take long for him to pull off his shirt and his pad thingies, wiping off with a wet wipe to get it all clean—no more sweaty Daddy—and letting me latch on like I’d been doing it forever and with zero shame.
Guess I was a natural just like Daddy said.
Daddy held me and ran his fingers through my crazy hair. The soothing motion calmed my brain, and I drifted off.