Chapter 5
Chapter Five
OWEN
I expected that being done with finals would feel like a huge relief. It had been for the last two years, and I mean… I guessed it was. I’d definitely felt relieved, along with an almost giddy sense of freedom, when Tyler and I had gone out for pizza after our last test today.
But then I’d sent Daddy that picture of my salad, and I couldn’t even be embarrassed about how much I’d looked forward to him telling me he was proud of me, or that I was a “good boy,” just like he always did when I showed him that I was following one of his “rules” and taking care of myself, because…
Ugh.
I tossed my phone aside, giving up on scrolling through cute cat videos on TikTok since it wasn’t helping me turn my brain off, and grabbed my pillow, hugging it to my chest.
“What is wrong with me?” I whispered, feeling stupid for saying it out loud, because who was I asking? The air?
No, I felt stupid because what I really wanted was to ask Daddy these types of things.
It was crazy how he’d become the person I wanted to tell everything to lately, and the one I trusted to have the answers when I needed them. Because I didn’t really know him, did I?
This morning, I would have said I did, but now I could see that my, um, friendship with him had just sort of existed in a bubble. One I’d never poked at all that much, because…
Well, I didn’t really know why.
I just knew that him offering to come in person to look at the hot water heater was freaking me out.
It was almost like I’d never really let myself think too much about how he was a real, live, flesh-and-blood person.
Which sounded dumb, but I mean, I didn’t even know what he looked like, and I’d sort-of-on-purpose-without-letting-myself-think-about-it-too-much also made sure to never include selfies when I sent him my daily proof of eating vegetables pictures.
“Oh my God, I don’t even know his name,” I said… out loud again like a big dork, but holy shit. How? How had he become the most important person in my life and I didn’t even know him?
It wasn’t like we even chatted on an app where I could, like, look at his profile or anything.
We texted. With phone numbers. Like I did with my parents.
My stomach did a weird squirming thing. I didn’t like thinking of the idea of Daddy and my actual dad having anything in common. I mean, they didn’t, other than their names.
Ugh. Not their names. But calling Daddy Daddy didn’t feel like calling my dad “Dad,” not at all. Daddy may have been super, like, supportive and wonderful and kind, which I supposed could have been parental? Except my parents weren’t always like that, and Daddy didn’t feel like a parent, and…
And just…
“Ugh,” I screamed, mashing the pillow over my face.
I had to stop obsessing over this, because honestly, I didn’t even know what it was that I was obsessing about.
It wasn’t like anything had changed just because suddenly I might actually meet Daddy in real life someday if there was ever an emergency, or the water heater started to leak again or something.
A heavy, ugly feeling settled over my chest, making it hard to breathe, and I blinked away a sudden hot sting in my eyes.
Maybe that was it. Daddy could have met me at any time if he’d wanted to, if he’d just said so.
And sure, it would have felt weird right in the beginning when we didn’t know each other well, but I talked to him every single day.
I told him pretty much everything. I felt, well, things.
Almost like he was my best friend, except maybe something a little different than that, too.
I’d never had anyone who I actually felt like I could tell everything to before, or who would always be there when I needed him. And, like, obviously, it wasn’t a bad thing that he’d offered to come over to help if stuff around the house broke again. It was… great.
I just didn’t understand why, if he was willing to do that, he didn’t want to just, like, meet up for coffee, or maybe meet up in the dog park or go to a movie or come out with us to pizza or something.
“God, probably because he’s an entire grown-ass man who doesn’t want to hang out with college kids, Owen. Jesus,” I hissed to myself, needing a reality check.
Nothing had changed.
We were fine.
He was still the nicest person I knew and obviously cared enough about me to want to help me out, and that was… it was fine.
I was lucky.
How many people had someone like that in their lives, who was so great all the time and made every day feel hopeful and the bad stuff not so bad and who also seemed to like me, too? No one I knew.
“Owen.”
I jumped, letting out an embarrassing squeak when Jacob suddenly started pounding on my bedroom door.
“Uh, yeah?” I asked, scrambling off the bed and rushing over to open it.
His hair was dripping into his face, and he was wearing nothing but a towel. “Were you doing something with the water?”
“What?”
“Like, I don’t know, fucking with it?”
“Um, no?”
He grunted, gave me one more cranky look, then turned to walk away.
I leaned out of my doorway. “Hey! Wait! What happened?”
He shrugged. “The temperature kept jumping around when I was in the shower even though I wasn’t touching it. And the water was looking orange again. Tyler and Ryan are out, so I figured it was you.”
“Oh. Okay. Um, but no? Sorry about that, though.”
He waved away my apology and shut the door on his bedroom.
I hesitated for a second, but then headed down to the basement. I didn’t want to find another leak in there, but I really didn’t think rusty pipes or whatever it was were enough to justify me bothering Daddy to come over.
And there was no leak. Not that I could see. So… okay. No reason to call him. And I wasn’t disappointed, because obviously it was better if things were actually working instead of breaking down.
Even though I really, really thought the whole, like, system needed to be checked and maybe upgraded?
That was what all my Googling plus some of the things Daddy had said seemed to point to, anyway. But even though I had the guys paying their rent mostly on time now, there were still a bunch of other expenses to keep on top of, and there never seemed to be enough money left over to hire a plumber.
I’d tried telling my parents that they should just put some extra money into the house account, but they’d said figuring out how to cover it all out of the rental funds was basically, like, my job. A “learning experience” or something, to prepare me for the real world. More sink or swim stuff.
And so far, I guessed I was swimming?
Or at least… treading water.
But I was pretty sure that if I hadn’t had Daddy to lean on these last few months, I’d have been sinking for sure.
I still wasn’t entirely sure why he was willing to take so much time with me. I knew what I got out of our, um, friendship, but he didn’t seem to get much for himself. Nothing, really, other than having to put up with all my clinginess.
Clearly, he wasn’t interested in anything more than…
than helping me out, since he didn’t even want to meet up unless something breaks or goes wrong over here.
And why anyone would volunteer to do more work on top of all the work he had to do all the time just for his job was a total mystery. Unless maybe it was a “Daddy” thing?
Back when we’d first started messaging each other, I’d done about ten seconds of Googling the term “gay daddy.” I’d wanted to, um, well, I wasn’t sure what.
Make sure it was okay? Because at the time, it had still felt weird to call him Daddy, even though now I can’t really imagine calling him anything else even if I did know his real name.
Bob?
Jared?
Monty?
Harlow?
“Ugh,” I whispered to myself, heading back up to my room. “Just… no.”
Obviously, he must have a name, but nothing seemed to fit him except “Daddy.” Even though maybe it was weird to feel that way, because when I’d looked it up, all I’d found was a bunch of porn—which I’d shut down fast because wow, um, yikes?
—and a few other things that had seemed a little too weird for me.
But before I’d bleached my internet search history, I had seen some stuff about how “Daddies” often get off on “caretaking,” and I guessed that was what he must like about being friends with me?
Because he did take care of me.
Um, not that he was getting off to it, of course.
I mean, was he?
“God, of course not,” I mumbled, shutting my bedroom door and then staring at myself in the full-length mirror I’d hung on the back of it.
Like, what did gay Daddies who were into their “boys” like that even look for? Because it probably wasn’t me.
Which was obviously fine. I wasn’t even gay. Plus, I may not have the art of adulting down perfectly, but I was an actual man now—even if I was probably on the less-than-impressive end of the manly scale with my scrawny body and inability to grow facial hair to save my life.
But still… man. Not boy.
Not that I particularly minded it when Daddy called me “baby boy” or “sweet boy” or “good boy” sometimes. And by “not particularly minding it,” I kind of meant that I really liked it.
Was that normal?
God. Maybe something really was wrong with me.
I ruffled my hair, staring at it hard. It was so blah. Brown, but not like, an amazing brown. Not really dark, but not light either. And not straight, but also not curly? It was just… there. Like dirt. But boring dirt, not grow-country-fair-sized-zucchinis dirt.
And my eyes were brown, too. Sort of too pale to be properly brown, though. Almost yellow, but not? Khaki. That was what they reminded me of. Could a person have khaki-colored eyes?
I leaned in close, staring into them.
Pretty? Mysterious? Soulful?
No. At least, I was pretty sure they were none of those things. They were just sort of… eye-shaped. Not really impressive at all. And my eyebrows were sort of unruly, which wasn’t something I’d ever even known to look out for before Hannah had complained about it a few times.