Chapter 22
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Connor arrived at Fur-Ever Friends about ten minutes before closing on Thursday evening. He’d planned to get there earlier in the afternoon, but his flight had been delayed. They’d agreed to go to Littles’ night at Connections later, but he wasn’t excited about it this time, because he couldn’t wait to have Tessica to himself and in his bed. But if things went his way, they’d have enough time for a quickie before heading to the club, and then tomorrow he could spend most of his time with her.
He walked through the door and was greeted by a pretty young woman with olive skin standing by the front counter. “Welcome to Fur-Ever Friends. How can I help you?”
Connor scanned the room for Tessica, but didn’t see her. “Is Tessica here?”
“Sure, she’s in the restroom.”
“Great.” He stepped closer and held his hand out to the woman. “I’m Connor, Tessica’s boyfriend. You must be Kelly, the new employee.”
Kelly nodded and shook his hand. “That’s me. Nice to meet you.”
Tessica came out from the back and grinned when she saw Connor. “You made it.” She went over and leaned across the front counter to give him a quick kiss.
“Finally,” Connor agreed. He checked the clock on the wall. “Just in time to help close up.”
“Actually, I’d like to have Kelly do that by herself while I supervise, so she can do it alone for the first time tomorrow. But you should go check upstairs. Erin had some movers here yesterday, and it looks like they took it all.”
“Ah, wonderful. I’m glad my sister finally got that done,” Connor said. “I’ll go check while you guys close up.”
He went upstairs and walked through each of his mother’s rooms. He opened the bedroom closet, and several of the cupboards and drawers in the kitchen. It appeared as though they’d taken everything. On the one hand he was glad the task had finally been taken care of, but when he stood in the middle of the living room, a sense of loneliness pervaded his thoughts. His mother’s home was now nothing more than a few empty rooms.
Not wanting to dwell in his morose thoughts, he turned off the lights, and walked downstairs. He found Tessica holding the front door open and saying goodnight to Kelly as the young woman walked down the porch steps.
She closed the door and turned to Connor.
“How’s the new employee coming along?” Connor asked.
Tessica walked over to him and gave him a tight hug, resting her head on his shoulder. “Kelly is great. Thank you again for suggesting that I get an employee. Having her here has taken so much off my plate that I feel like I’ve got mountains of time, and it’s only been four days.”
Having Tessica in his arms helped alleviate his bad mood. He reluctantly admitted to himself that he’d missed her terribly. “Mountains of time, huh? And what have you been doing with your windfall?”
She picked her head up and made eye contact. “Well, I wasn’t going to tell you until after dinner, but I’m too excited.”
He smiled at her enthusiasm, and wondered what she’d been up to. But he’d learned long ago to temper his own enthusiasm when a Little was excited about something, because half the time they were excited to do something they absolutely shouldn’t be doing, and he had to firmly say no to their plans.
She pulled him over to her laptop, and opened a folder labeled Matchmaking for Littles .
Connor’s smile faded.
Tessica said, “Last week, when I was finishing up the adoption paperwork for Butch, Gwen made an offhanded comment about wishing a forever Daddy would take her home, and the idea of merging those two things suddenly popped into my brain. I’ve been matching and adopting out animals for years, and I love matching people up in real life. So, why not combine those things? Honestly, I haven’t been able to think of much else in my spare time, and I’ve been working on creating paperwork to put my plan in action.”
She clicked on the Matchmaking folder to open it, and Connor saw six documents in there.
She opened the first one. “This is a compatibility test. At first I had two versions of the test, one for Littles and the other for Daddies or Mommies, but eventually I realized they were the same questions, just worded differently. So I reworded all the questions to reflect both options and put it in one.”
Connor noticed the form was sixteen pages long, and his eyebrows furrowed. She’d been working on this behind his back for almost a week. She hadn’t mentioned one word about this in any of their text exchanges. Had she known he wouldn’t approve? Was that why she’d kept it to herself on purpose until it was all intricately planned out? He glanced at her profile, but didn’t see the usual guilt in her expression that most Littles had when they knew they’d done something wrong. If anything, she appeared to be excited and pleased.
Tessica closed that document and then hovered her curser over each of the next five documents as she explained them. “This one is an essay section that goes with the multiple- choice questionnaire so that people can give more in depth answers. This one is a standard waiver. This one is a list of dating rules. I think that’s essential to the process so that everyone involved knows what they should be expecting from the process. This one is an after-date summary so I can see how things are progressing. And the last form is kind of like an adoption certificate to signify that a Caregiver and Little are ready to make that commitment. I figured I could put up a flyer about my service at Connections once I finalize everything.”
As she spoke, Connor became more and more upset. She had put hours into this plan without once asking his opinion. They were just starting their own relationship, and she wanted to spend her free time matching other people up instead of spending it with him?
She clicked on the certificate and then turned to him with a grin. “What do you think?”
Connor crossed his arms, glared at her, and kept his voice as level as he could. “I think you’ve been doing this behind my back all week.”
Her grin fell, and her eyes opened wide with shock. She shook her head.
“I think you’ve purposely kept it from me, because you knew I wouldn’t approve, and you didn’t want me to shut it down before it had even gotten off the ground.”
“No,” she disagreed with a glare of her own. “I wasn’t hiding it from you. I just wanted to tell you about it in person, and this was my first opportunity.”
Connor shook his head. “I don’t buy that, Tessica. We’ve been texting every day, and you’ve put hours of time into this. It should have come up at some point.”
Instead of appearing contrite, Tessica put her hands on her hips. “It didn’t seem like the sort of thing that a text would cover. That’s why I waited to tell you in person. Not because I thought you’d disapprove. Quite the opposite, I thought you’d be excited about it, too. Or at the very least, happy for me.”
Frustrated by her lack of guilt or contrition, Connor raised his voice slightly. “Why would I be happy about this? You’re already putting in way too many hours at the two jobs you’re currently working. And now you want to add a third? Speaking of which, how many hours did you work over your ten per day to get all these forms done?”
She gestured to the computer. “ This isn’t work. I did this for fun .”
Feeling the urge to spank her for her attitude, Connor took a deep breath and reminded himself that they were equals when she wasn’t Little. “Fun? Maybe the rule shouldn’t be about how many hours of work you put in. Maybe it should be about how many hours of sleep you get per night, because I’m positive you stayed up working on this when you should have been sleeping.”
A flash of guilt crossed her face, and she broke eye contact. She snapped her laptop closed and focused back on him. “I don’t agree to a rule about sleep. I’m a full-grown adult and perfectly capable of deciding to stay up a bit late when I’m enjoying myself.”
Clenching his jaw, Connor said, “Fine. That’s a discussion for another time. Right now I want to focus on this.” He pointed to the closed laptop. “I am not okay with any of this, and if you were thinking rationally, you wouldn’t be okay with it either.”
“Rationally!” she repeated, clearly offended by his comment.
He continued, “You already work two jobs, Tessica. You don’t have time to start a new venture. Not to mention there’s no time for us. Between the club, your jobs, and my limited time here in Oregon, we already don’t spend that much time together.”
“Good point,” she said, “You’re here maybe two days a week. I’m not going to spend the other five days sitting around pining for you. Now that I’ve got Kelly working here Monday through Friday, I’m going to have plenty of free time for my new ‘venture’ as you put it. And now that I’ve already made the forms, my matchmaking isn’t going to take up that much time.”
“That’s completely naive of you! Of course it’s going to take up a huge chunk of your time, especially if you put up a flyer at Connections.” Connor shook his head. “No.”
“No?”
“That’s right, no. You’re not doing this,” he said with finality.
She scoffed. “That’s not your call.”
The urge to spank her was nearly overwhelming. He had to keep telling himself she wasn’t Little. They were equals. He had no way to force her compliance, and it was beyond frustrating. Usually when he told his partner ‘no’ there were either tears or tantrums, not a scoff and a declaration that he had no right to tell her what to do. Grasping at straws, Connor said, “If you’re not willing to listen to reason, maybe you’ll listen to this. If you continue with your matchmaking plans, I’ll sell this house.”
Her entire body stiffened, and shock crossed her features for a millisecond before her glare returned. She crossed her arms, and her voice became quietly angry. “I cannot believe you just said that to me.”
He knew it was extreme, but he couldn’t think of any other way to get her to listen. “Believe it.”
Tessica shook her head and shrugged, “Fine. Sell it. I own the business, all the equipment, and I’ll get half the money from the sale of the house. I’ll move Fur-Ever Friends somewhere else, and since we won’t be dating any longer, I’ll have plenty of time and energy to put into my new matchmaking business.”
Connor froze. Had she just broken up with him? That was the opposite of what he’d been trying to accomplish. He shook his head. “Are you seriously telling me that you’re breaking up with me over this ?”
“You heard me.” Tessica angrily walked behind the counter, pulled her jacket out, and put it on.
“That’s completely ridiculous!” He tossed his hands in the air in frustration.
“No, Connor. You’re the one being ridiculous, not me.” She grabbed her purse and her laptop, and headed toward the front door.
Her calm tone was infuriating. “You can’t leave, we’re in the middle of a discussion!”
She opened the door and turned back to say, “I’m not sure what else there is to discuss. You gave me two options, and I picked the one that I’m able to live with. Please lock up when you leave.”
Tessica walked out and shut the door behind her. The chilled air left in her wake gave Connor goosebumps. His stomach twisted, and he took one step forward before he stopped himself. The urge to go after her was almost too strong to deny, but he wasn’t sure what he could possibly say to change her mind that he hadn’t already said.
He’d forced her to choose, and she hadn’t chosen him.