Chapter 15
fifteen
By the time Cynnie arrives, I’m pacing, my phone in hand, on a video call with Sammi’s daddy, Jack.
“Deep breath. You got this. Remember the plan. Get her settled. Give her a drink, not in a sippy cup. Comfortable place to sit, not in your lap. Let her talk first. Just listen if you can. Wrap it up in a half-hour at most, then take her to the park and let her be little. You can solve relationship problems tomorrow.”
“Right,” I say feverishly. “Little today. Big tomorrow.”
“That’s right. Go get your baby girl.”
“Going. Thanks, Jack.”
“De nada. You’ll be fine, man.”
I force myself to say goodbye to avoid alienating him when he’s been so generous with his time and daddy-wisdom. Then I thumb my phone over to set a timer and buzz Cynnie up.
I follow the plan. I take her overnight bag and the black tent, smiling at the sweet, floral dress she’s wearing underneath.
I give her a hug but don’t scoop her up and carry her up to the loft the way my balls demand.
I give her a drink in a regular glass and sit on my hands to keep from rushing back into the kitchen for her sippy cup when she pouts.
I sit on the futon while she sits on the couch and ruthlessly suppress the urge to pull her into my lap.
She ends up there in less than five minutes anyway.
She wraps her arms around my neck and sniffles into my shoulder. “Missed you.”
I rub her back and press her to me. “I missed you, too.”
I bite my tongue to keep from barraging her with questions and grip the slivers of my patience tighter than I grip her.
“Things all went wrong. I’z in trouble when I get home. Everyone mad at me. Everyone yellin’. I’z so sad.”
I cradle her, feeling discordant notes bubble in my gut like indigestion.
This is wrong. It’s not that she’s lying; she’s using littlespace to shield herself.
Not from her family and whoever else was angry with her when she got home, but from me.
She’s using how adorable she knows I find her lisp and how irresistible I find her cuddles to keep me from expressing any of my anger over her ghosting me.
Silently, still listening to her as she tells me about a project for her family business she failed to deliver on time because she was with me, I count backwards from a thousand. In prime numbers.
I smooth her silken hair back from her face and kiss her forehead. “I’m sorry you got in trouble when you got home. Are you caught up with work now?”
She nods and blinks her dark eyes at me. “But I can’t stay away three days again.”
“No, I wasn’t going to suggest that. Have you apologized to your family for ignoring them and not communicating where you were?”
Her eyes shift right and left before falling to rest somewhere near the collar of my T-shirt. “Yeth.”
“I didn’t know you were doing that, baby. I wouldn’t have been happy with you if I’d known.”
She hunches her shoulders. “Youz mad at me, too?”
“We can talk about my feelings later. I want to hear from you first.”
She hangs her head. “Gots nothin’ more to say.”
“No? Could I ask you a question, then?”
She nods, not meeting my eyes.
“Who is Jun?”
“My brother. Big brother. He’s the head of the company now Papa’s semi-retired.”
I breathe in and out slowly, letting go of that fear. She didn’t mention him by name when she was talking about her family, but she said she had two brothers.
“Are things patched up between you and Jun?”
She shakes her head. “He’s always mad at me.”
“Why’s that?”
She shrugs her shoulders.
I wait. Normally, I’d rush to fill the silence. But I’m coming to realize how powerful a tool silence is. I’ve been too worried about being awkward to use it.
She shifts in my lap several times before she looks up at me. “You’z always mad at me, too.”
I stroke her hair again. “No, I’m not. I was angry that you ghosted me, and we’ll talk about that later, but I’m not always mad at you.
” I take a deep breath and say what needs to be said, even though talking about my feelings sucks almighty ass.
“I was very, very happy with you for three days. I’m willing to bet that Jun is happy with you sometimes, too, because you make the people around you happy, Cynnie. ”
“I do?”
I smile into her eyes. “You do. Why do you think Jun’s always mad at you?”
“Nothing I do’z ever good enough. I finish a project and it’s really good, but it’s not on time. If it’s on time, he says I should have turned it in early. If it’s early, he says I could have worked on it more. It’s never good enough for him.”
A tear wells and trembles on the edge of her dark lashes. I brush it away with my thumb, remembering what she said about her little being emotional.
“Is that something you could talk to him about? Tell him you’re doing everything you can to meet his expectations and he still gives you the impression that it’s not good enough and that kind of unnecessary perfectionism hurts your feelings?”
She swallows. “Can’t talk to Jun.”
“No?”
“He doesn’t listen to me. He only talks to Papa and Baachan.”
“Baachan’s your grandmother?” I ask, remembering Cynnie mentioning her and also remembering the word from shore-leave in Japan.
Cynnie nods. “She mad at me, too. Took my phone for two days to remind me to respect the family.”
That goes toward explaining some of the ghosting, although I know Cynnie has access to her social media accounts from her work computer, so she probably could have gotten me a message if she tried. Still, it modulates my anger.
“I’m sorry everyone was mad at you, baby.
Can you look at it another way? See their anger as a sign of how much they care about you?
It’s frightening when someone you care about disappears because you don’t know if they’re safe or if something bad is happening to them. Do you understand why they’d be upset?”
She nods and blinks up at me through her lashes. “That why you’z mad at me?”
“Yes,” I say without elaborating, trying to stick to Jack’s plan.
“Cause you care about me?”
More Lolita-ish blinks. Is any of this real? I didn’t get the sense that Cynnie was playing me the last time she was here, but it feels like it now. Why?
Everyone’s been telling me that kink is about honesty and communication. Nothing about this feels honest. It feels manipulative.
“Yes, baby, I care about you. I care enough to be upset that you’ve been ignoring me. And I care enough to say that I don’t like what’s happening right now. This feels wrong. Let’s stop before it turns into a fight and do something fun together. Would you like that?”
Her head lifts and she gives me a real blink of surprise. “You’re not going to punish me?”
“Is that what you’re angling for?”
Her shoulders draw up, but she holds my eyes. “I been bad.”
“Are you sorry?”
“Kinda,” she whispers.
“Kinda not?”
“Kinda not,” she admits, her eyes search mine.
“I think that’s something we need to talk about. But not right now. Would you be up for going to Central Park? We could visit the animals and then rent a boat and row around the lake. Sound good?”
“Could I be little?”
A smile creeps across my lips. “You could.”
She traces my smile with her fingertips. “You be my big?”
“I’d like that.”
“You growl at me like last time?”
“Is that what you want?”
She nods. “And chase me?”
“As long as you don’t go out of my sight. Central Park’s a big place.”
“I’z stay close. Can I have a hug?”
I slide my arms around her. She tucks into me, her soft curves locking into mine. This is right. All the pretense has melted away. The air’s not clear; there are things we need to talk about. But she’s being open and honest with me again and for the moment, that’s what matters.
By the time we’ve visited the otters and monkeys and are heading toward Central Lake, we’ve graduated from a twosome to a sixsome.
When I text Jack to say we’re following the plan and heading to the park, he offers to join us after he gets off work. His boy, being Sammi, posts in some group chat the littles have. Aggie responds into the chat with a thousand heart-eyed smileys that Cynnie shows me, laughing.
Surprisingly, Emily also responds to ask if she and Logan can join us. I guess she took what I said about Logan needing his people around him to heart.
We meet up at the Loeb Boathouse. Even though Logan and Emily only left my place a few hours ago, I’m genuinely relieved to see them when I spot them standing near the boat rentals.
Logan’s still looking a little drawn from his bender, but his smile’s back as he stands with his arms wrapped around Emily.
She’s talking to Aggie and Sammi animatedly.
When Cynnie sees them, she squeals and breaks away from me.
She runs to them with her arms outstretched.
There’s an immediate pile-on of excited littles.
I’m sure the same indulgent smile painting Logan, Warrin, and Jack’s faces is stretching my cheeks. I greet the three daddies before I check the availability of boats.
“Warrin got here first and got us all rentals,” Logan tells me. “Ready to race?”
I lift my eyebrows at him. “Are you ready to race?”
He rubs the incision scar on his forehead ruefully. “Probably not as ready as you are, but at least I know I’ll beat Jack.”
“In your dreams,” Jack says. “I rowed for Cornell.”
Logan rolls his eyes to the sky. “Divine intervention here. Oh, look, there’s a thundercloud.”
We all look up at the cloudless sky and snigger.
Emily breaks out of the circle of littles to hug her daddy. “Not everything has to be a competition, Daddy.”
“Yeah, tell these bastards that,” Logan grumbles.
He loses, but he’s a good sport about it and takes the ribbing we give him well.