Chapter 8
Grizzly
The guest room at Jake's house was the perfect place to use for my escape.
Soft cream curtains hung over a window that looked out onto the backyard.
A big, enticing bed took up most of the space, with its shimmery curtain drapes and intricate carvings.
Two nightstands, a dresser, and a few odd pieces rounded out most of the space.
There was a chair in the corner with a throw blanket draped over the arm that I felt immediately drawn to. I pulled said blanket around my shoulders the moment I sat down, because my body had decided that shaking was the appropriate response to everything happening inside me.
I wasn’t cold. The shaking had nothing to do with any of that.
It was the terror of being seen. Knowing someone looked at me and wanted to know even more. I’d never experienced something like it. Not to the level Paxton brought to the table.
I sat in the chair with the blanket as my shield, staring at the soft glow of other houses in the distance as I tried to understand what had just happened downstairs.
Paxton Wells had knelt down beside me on the floor of a playroom full of people. He’d looked at me the way I had spent the better part of my adult years telling myself no one ever would. And when he spoke about a future together, I nearly came undone.
I've pictured being your Daddy more times than I can explain.
The memory of those words went through me like a shock of electricity. I pulled the throw blanket tighter and pressed my lips together as I tried very hard not to make any noise.
Because the noise that wanted to come out wasn’t a composed, professional sports agent kind of noise. It was much more like a Little who’d been giving a pound of sugar and a free pass to a water park.
The problem was that I didn’t know what came next. I didn’t know what to do with being wanted this way or how to accept the truth in Paxton’s words.
I had run from it before my brain had even finished processing it as real. Truthfully, some part of me was still operating under the assumption that this wasn’t a thing that happened to me.
Aside from not being a typical Little, I also had other differences about me now.
My vision loss had to be considered by whoever wanted to be with me. While it wasn’t as bad as it would get yet, I could already note a few big changes I needed to make in my life. Things that would take time to get sorted before I was no longer able to.
That last part was what kept circling back around no matter how many times I tried to set it aside. I was going blind. It was a fact of my life.
It wouldn’t be all at once. Dr. Whipell had been clear that it was a gradual process with room for management and adaptation. I remembered that much before I passed out in her office.
I’d begun, reluctantly, to consider how this would affect me, my clients, and my future. Handling it the way I handled most things that frightened me, I focused on managing the practical side of it while the emotional side sat in a corner gathering dust until I had to address it.
But sitting in this chair, in this room, with Paxton's words still fresh in the air, the emotional side wasn’t staying in its corner anymore. It was insisting on coming out and taking over.
It forced me to think of the questions I didn’t want to. Things like, what kind of man would look at a Little who was slowly losing his central vision and think, yes, this is who I want to care for? What kind of Daddy signed up for that burden?
I had spent enough time in the lifestyle to understand what the dynamic asked of a Daddy. It asked for presence, patience, and attentiveness. It was about being a person that created a safe place for their partners.
That alone was a generous and demanding thing to be for someone else. And those asks only got more complicated when the Little in question was going to need an above average amount of support as time went on.
More accommodation. More patience. More of everything.
The idea of watching someone decide, partway through, they hadn’t bargained for all of that was the kind of thought I was terrified of.
I had to approach the idea carefully, in small pieces as I weighed my pros and cons of trying to find a Daddy.
Even then, it made my chest tighten so much I found it difficult to breathe.
Which was precisely why running had felt like the only sensible option in the moment.
I wasn’t proud of it. I’d registered the look on Paxton's face in the half-second before I bolted. Even in the middle of my own spiraling, I’d felt bad about leaving. He hadn’t deserved that response.
Paxton had been honest with me. He’d been kind about finding the man who might handle his career dreams dressed in Little clothes at a kink party.
And I had responded by scrambling to my feet and leaving the room as quickly as my body would carry me. Great choice, Grizzly.
A soft knock at the door pulled me out of my own head. I considered not answering, but the knock came again. I had no doubt the person on the other side was prepared to wait as long as it took.
"Come in," I called out.
The door opened and Monty stepped through, his hair disheveled like he’d been tugging at it. He was carrying two small cups that I recognized as the kind Jake kept in the playroom for juice. They had thick bases that were harder to tip over and attachable sippy cups or bottle lids.
Monty crossed the room without making a production of it and held one of the cups out to me. I took it, drinking the cool liquid down immediately. Orange juice, cold and sweet, hit my tongue.
I was absurdly grateful for him coming up. Especially now that my Big mind had taken the reins from Little me. I wouldn’t have been able to explain to someone who wasn’t into our lifestyle how much small, thoughtful things could mean when your Little side was overwhelmed.
Monty settled onto the edge of the bed across from me and held his own cup between both hands. He looked at me without saying anything right away. It was such an odd moment given he was always in a hurry to fill silences.
"I'm not going to tell you that was fine," he said eventually, "because it wasn't. But I’ll tell you it was understandable."
I took another sip of the juice. "I ran away from a man who was being nothing but kind to me. I know it wasn’t fine."
"You did," Monty agreed. He wasn’t going to sugarcoat it, which was another thing I appreciated. "You also just had a significant thing happen that you were not prepared for, on top of everything else you've been managing. Your reaction made sense, even if the execution wasn't ideal."
"I’ve never done that before," I said.
He grinned. "There’s a first time for everything."
"That isn’t the comfort you think it is."
"No, probably not." He worked to suppress his smile, though he did a piss-poor job. "How are you doing, actually? And don’t lie. I want the truth."
I took a moment before answering, because I was genuinely trying to figure it out.
"I'm overwhelmed. I'm scared. And part of me keeps insisting that I shouldn’t be here at all—like I told you before.
That negative voice is saying that coming tonight was a mistake, and that I have no business entertaining the idea of any of this. "
"The idea of having a Daddy is what you mean."
"Yes, but also the idea of having a Daddy who is my client, and who is much younger than me, and who is going to have a very busy professional life that is only going to get busier, and who doesn’t know that the person he's apparently been picturing as his Little is going to go blind.
" The words poured out like a tsunami, crashing into the room all at once.
Monty was quiet for a beat. "You haven't told him."
"I haven't told anyone. I’ve been moping at home on bedrest until today. You were the first person I texted when I thought of leaving my house. I told you when I got here because you wouldn’t let it go.”
“Awww. I feel so special.”
Rolling my eyes, I continued talking as I gripped the cup in my hands tighter. "I haven't figured out how to say it yet. Not in a way that doesn't make it the only thing about me."
"It's not the only thing about you. There’s so much more to Grizzly than a diagnosis. Please tell me you get that."
"I know that. Of course I do. But this news has a way of becoming the focal the moment it enters a conversation, and I would rather people know me before they know that." I paused. "Or I would rather someone want me before they find out, because then at least I know the wanting was real."
The words sat between us. I realized how much truth was in them, along with how much fear was packed underneath.
Monty set his cup down on the nightstand. "Can I say something, and will you actually hear it instead of immediately finding reasons why it doesn't apply to you?"
"I’ll try."
"That man downstairs didn’t come to this party to network.
He came because he wanted to find you… Well, to find out about the scene here so he could one day bring you.
He told Jake that much before he even saw you.
When he found you already here, that was it for him.
I know ‘cause I was watching." He gave me a moment for the words to sink it.
"And I have been around long enough to know the difference between a Daddy looking for fun and the way Paxton Wells was looking at you. "
I thought about how Paxton had come and sat on the floor across from me. The way he had lowered himself down and folded his hands in an almost submissive state. The way he had said Paxi and how he lit up talking about his friends.
"He's very young," I said, though it sounded unconvincing even to my ears.
"He's an adult who knows what he wants. You’re not doing anything wrong."
"And if he finds out about my vision and changes his mind?"
"Then he wouldn’t have been the right person," Monty said, voice hard. "But I don't think that’s going to happen. I think you know that too, or you wouldn't have been so scared tonight. You would have just been uninterested."
Well, shit. He could have smacked me in the head, and it would’ve hurt less than that truth.
"He's still down there?" I asked.
"He is. Bellamy has been talking to him.
I don't think anyone has told him to leave or that he overstepped.
If anything, the consensus seems to be that the man is exactly where he needs to be.
You don't have to go back down if you're not ready.
No one is going to think less of you for needing a few minutes.
But if you are ready, I think seeing him might be less frightening than you're building it up to be in your head right now. "
Monty stood from the bed and finally drank some of his own juice.
"I should apologize.”
"You can. Though I don't think he needs one as much as you think he does. He seems like the kind of person who already understood why you left. I bet he might even feel a bit guilty."
That was the part that was somehow the most difficult to sit with. The idea that Paxton had watched me run and had understood it anyway, without taking it as a rejection or a statement about him specifically. The generosity of that was foreign to me.
I unfolded myself from the chair, letting the throw blanket fall back over the arm where I had found it. My legs were steady, even if the rest of me was still a bit wobbly.
Monty led the way back down the stairs holding both of our cups since my hands wouldn’t stop shaking, and he worried I’d drop mine.
I followed at his pace while trying to do the thing he had asked—to actually hear what he had told me rather than spend the whole walk back building new arguments against it.
Easier said than done.
When we reached the doorway to the playroom, I paused. The energy inside had settled since I’d left. The Littles had moved back toward their various activities, and the Daddies were clustered in a few loose groups talking. Someone had put on a movie at low volume too.
I found Paxton without having to look very hard for him. That told me a lot about where my attention went when he was in the room.
He was standing with Bellamy near the far wall, listening to whatever the other man was saying with an intense focus. I bet he had that same look when he was gearing up for a game.
As if he felt my eyes on him, Paxton turned gradually, like he didn’t want to spook me or something.
When his gaze found mine, he didn’t do anything dramatic.
He didn’t rush over or smile too brightly or make any gesture that would have drawn attention from the others.
He only looked at me for a moment, the expression on his face warm and patient.
I felt the tension in my shoulders ease. Dipping my head, I wiggled my fingers in a subtle wave. He returned the motion, the corners of his lips tipping into a gentle smile.
That was the whole of it, and somehow it was enough to make my insides feel like I’d just laid in my pile of stuffies back home. I was warm and mushy and happy.
Monty stepped close and said quietly, near my ear, "See?"
I didn’t answer him out loud, but I thought to myself, yes, I did see. I wasn’t sure yet what I was supposed to do with what I saw, or how to be the kind of person who could receive that kind of attention without finding a way to talk myself out of deserving it.
Those were problems for future me.
But standing there with Paxton's gaze carrying none of the judgment I had expected, I thought that maybe working through my issues was actually possible. That maybe running tonight hadn’t broken us before we’d truly gotten started, and that the man across the room was, in fact, willing to be patient while I figured things out.
"Trust him," Monty said softly. "Your instincts are good. His are too."
I let out a slow breath. We would see.