Chapter 20
Teddy
“Just stay calm and don’t act startled.” What else? “Back away slowly if you feel an attack is coming, and when in doubt say you need to use the bathroom to give yourself a chance to escape.”
“Your mother isn’t a wild animal and that bathroom one is weird.” Daddy had felt very Levi right up until he glared at me, then he was Daddy again. “She’s going to be happy to see you and ask nosy questions, it’ll be fine.”
I guess compared to his family it would, but I wasn’t sure he was prepared for the chaos he was walking into. “But—”
“No buts.” He looked sexy and slightly frustrated, like he was daring me to giggle.
But Daddy said butt.
“Chipmunk.” The way he dragged out the silly nickname had my little side deciding it was a good time to get attention, but he was very wrong.
“You can’t call me that here.” Had we not talked about that?
Oh, his expression said we hadn’t.
Shoot.
Oh, dear.
He was pulling over.
“The driveway is just around the corner.” Was it believable to pretend he didn’t know where we were going? “We’re almost there. It’s the next right.”
He put the car in park.
“Alright, let’s start again.” Levi turned in his seat, frowning and clearly taking whatever he thought I meant seriously. “Do you have a problem with the nickname?”
“No.” It was a good memory but that was kind of the point. “Um, but my parents heard me talk about it…a lot.”
And he got it.
That stupid smirk was too sexy.
“You can’t do that either.”
It was distracting and I’d end up looking stupid.
“I make no promises about how I look at you when you’re cute.” He leaned over and gave me a quick peck. “But I’ll try.”
He was cute right up until he winced. “The nickname, though.”
I was going to call him Daddy and he was going to call me Chipmunk.
“I’ll survive if you call me that.” I might’ve sounded a bit dramatic but it got me another kiss. “I just might die of embarrassment if they start teasing me about it.”
And the smirk was back.
“You really talked about it?” He chuckled as I groaned and sank lower in my seat, finally giving in to the urge to hide as I put my hands over my face. “That much, huh?”
“Yeah.” I hadn’t exactly been a subtle kid. “Um, you were this older guy and I was finally starting to understand why I was different.”
“You’re so cute.” Peeling my hands away from my face, he gave another soft laugh when he saw my eyes scrunched closed, but he didn’t let that stop him from kissing me again. “You were cute back then too. Just a bit too young.”
“We were in elementary school. Duh.” He’d been cute back then too, though. “You were really nice to me.”
We’d ended up at the same camp, and most of it was a blur because of how long ago it’d been, but I remembered him telling me I looked like a chipmunk and calling me that for the entire three weeks we were at camp.
To say I’d been obsessed with him after that would’ve been an understatement, but the age difference at that point had been too big to overcome. He was nice when he saw me but it wasn’t the same. I’d been crushed…for about five minutes and then I’d gone back to watching him.
“Alright, I will do my best but if it comes up, I will firmly tell your mother that no one is teasing my sub about things like that.” He managed to sound serious for about three seconds until I groaned and then he cracked up.
“No, seriously. I’ll try not to use the nickname and you’re not going to panic if they tease you. ”
They were definitely going to tease me but it would be the aww isn’t our little boy so cute kind of torture.
“I’ll…I’ll ignore it and you’ll change the subject?” I wasn’t sure if I could do it but it was at least a plan. “And if I die of embarrassment just know that the past two weeks have been amazing.”
“You’ve grown up to be just as dramatic as you were when we were kids.” His delight as he said that made me wonder if I could strangle him and claim justifiable homicide. “But I clearly think it’s just as cute as I did back then.”
He’d thought I was cute?
Finally opening my eyes, the first thing I saw was his grin. “You thought I was cute?”
“Yeah.” Kissing my cheek, his smile got wider. “You were so cute and short with those chubby cheeks and you had so many stories about your family and you had no idea they were so weird. It was awesome.”
No, the awesome part was how he hadn’t told anyone else.
I’d just wanted to impress the older boy who was so cool and I hadn’t realized telling everything I’d heard around the house wasn’t a good idea.
“I’ll try to keep how cute you were back then to myself, though.” His wince made me laugh. “We really don’t need that coming up every holiday going forward.”
Eventually he was going to realize that he had to explain he was keeping me, right?
“No, that would be…frustrating.” We could be boring, though. We could do it. “We just need to be a regular boring college couple for a couple of days.”
Then we could go back home and be ourselves.
For whatever reason, that had Levi rolling his eyes before he gave me a look like he thought I was a few crayons short of a box. “Your family is nuts. Nothing we do will seem normal to them.”
Oh, I forgot.
Levi hadn’t.
“Your mother thought us possibly wanting to sleep in separate rooms over Christmas was weird.” He sighed when I shrugged.
“We haven’t even been dating a month, Chipmunk.
She shouldn’t be thinking about us living together or that kind of stuff yet.
She should be wondering if we’ll last through the month because holidays are hard on new couples. ”
His family was hard on new couples, Christmas was not.
“You’re right.” I just grew up with it, so I didn’t always see how odd they were. “She likes you, though.”
I was pretty sure he needed that reminder and I knew I was right when he seemed to force himself to take a deep breath. “She does. She supports our relationship and she thinks we’re good together.”
Because our energies complemented each other…or something like that.
“We are.” Looking cute, I kissed his cheek. “And we’re going to be boring compared to them no matter what we do.”
Finally back to smiling, he nodded. “And then later after we’ve spent the afternoon being boring, we’re going to hide in your room and we’ll color or watch cartoons.”
Daddy had brought my toys in his suitcase and he said they were all safe but it was a surprise.
“Yes, big and boring…then we’ll have fun.” It was going to be fine.
And I kept telling myself and him all the way to the house.
The last mile somehow felt the longest, but we made it in one piece and were both in fairly good spirits as he pulled in the driveway. “Remember, Daddy, our spirits are fine and we don’t need cleansing.”
“Right.” He chuckled as he finally parked the car beside my mother’s VW bus that she said would last forever. “We’re both feeling light and cleansed but maybe something for focus and clarity would set us up for next semester.”
Yes, I wasn’t allergic to those and they actually smelled nice.
“I might not be confident about everything, but I can bullshit my way through it.” Daddy slipped into his Levi the grad student look and suddenly he really did seem more confident.
“That’s kind of weird.” Cocking my head, I studied him. “What did you do?”
Laughing, he shrugged. “It’s how you stand…or sit in this case…and how you look…your expressions. My mother made me take a class about it a couple of years ago. It was framed as basically learning to look like a CEO before you were actually at that point, but it wasn’t complete bullshit.”
His mother was weird.
“Mine sent me to a psychic to make sure I had a clear picture of my future and to those manners classes where they show you all the fancy forks and stuff.” It’d been painful at the time because I was the definition of awkward when I was in high school, but he hadn’t been a bad idea.
“My father made her realize we didn’t do that kind of stuff enough and he wanted me to be prepared just in case I did something horrible like go into finance and become the Wolf of Wallstreet. ”
I was betting Levi wanted to roll his eyes again but he managed just a slightly dramatic sigh. “We need to monitor what your parents are watching on TV more.”
Agreed.
“They need a caretaker Dom too, so don’t be surprised if you end up exhausted by the end of the day.
” Levi couldn’t seem to decide if that was funny or weird and he ended up looking slightly constipated as he tried to behave.
“If you need a break, we’ll just go to bed early and make them think we’re having wild sex in my room. ”
His groan filled the car as he flopped back in his seat. “You’re not even fucking with me…I mean, yeah…you’re fucking with me, but that’s what they’re going to think.”
Yep.
“It’s a sign of a healthy relationship and a strong commitment.” I knew that because I’d been told about it a lot over the years.
For some reason my slow take on how I thought that kind of stuff should go drove them insane and actually worried them.
“We can have a healthy relationship and a strong commitment without my dick going in your ass.” His grumbling response had me trying not to laugh or blush, but thankfully he didn’t seem to need my thoughts on that idea. “I’m your Daddy. That’s more important. Oh.”
Opening his eyes, he looked like a lightbulb had just gone off over his head but it was a serious expression that had me wanting to sigh and get all dramatic.
“That’s why you don’t want us to talk about the more…
dynamic part of our relationship. You said they already know about the little stuff.
They’re going to start planning our fucking wedding the moment they realize I’m your Daddy. ”
Bingo.
“Um, probably a handfasting ceremony, but yeah, that’s basically a wedding.
” I was just hoping we could get through Christmas without that coming down on us.
“I think they’d have been a bit more relaxed about the whole thing if I’d dated around more but wanting to be in a serious relationship before I submitted and did…
that kind of stuff…kind of changed how they saw it. ”
And his eyes went round and round again.
“If we end up married without my mother at least getting the chance to pretend she cares, she’ll kill us both.” Levi didn’t seem to realize how weird his family was either, but since mine were more dangerous at the moment I let it slide.
“No ceremonies over the holidays. That’s a reasonable limit that will keep us out of trouble.” Hopefully. “If she suggests anything fishy just ask for books on the subject so you can read up on it. Play dumb but curious about how to grow as a person.”
She’d like that and it would hopefully keep us from ending up married.
I really didn’t want to have to go back to school and immediately start filling out paperwork and that kind of stuff.
“Play dumb. Act curious. Grow as a person.” Nodding to himself, he sat straighter. “And if it comes down to it, explain I need to be a bit further into the program before we can completely merge our lives and I’ll distract her by showing her some of the houses we like.”
He really was just as weird as my mother in his own unique way.
Maybe that was why I liked him so much?
“Don’t show her the pink one.” She’d like that one. “Tell her you like the energy of that one with the blue shutters.”
It had a great backyard and enough privacy for a hot tub.
“Got it.” He leaned over and kissed my head, confident look firmly in place. “I’m going to let you open the door but just know I’d rather do it.”
He was so cute.
“Thank you, Daddy.” Kissing his cheek, I looked down at my lap. “Will you unbuckle me?”
“I would love to.” He kept his hands in appropriate places, but lower parts of me still loved it when he took care of me. “We’re just going to be boring for a while and then we’ll have privacy later when they think we’re fucking like rabbits.”
Yep…it wasn’t conventional but neither was the way my mother was rushing out the door.
“What is she wearing?” Levi’s genuine confusion over the Christmas tree skirt and garland wreath made me laugh. “It’s like Christmas exploded on her.”
“Well, she’s not exactly Christian, so she’s just taken the parts of the holiday that align with her aura and energy.” My explanation had him nodding to himself.
“At least she’s not going to lecture me about Jesus’s birthday being turned into a commercial monstrosity.” Levi’s flashback to the religious guy made me smile. “This is much more relatable.”
Really?
I was starting to think all of his bad dating experience had been the universe’s way of making sure my family looked less scary than it should have been.
“It’s going to be fine.”
And we’d both believe it if he said it enough.