Total pages in book: 64
Estimated words: 63601 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 318(@200wpm)___ 254(@250wpm)___ 212(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 63601 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 318(@200wpm)___ 254(@250wpm)___ 212(@300wpm)
“Yeah, you’re sneaky.” I should’ve taken my phone with me when I’d gone to piss earlier. “I’m going to have to watch you closer.”
Nodding, he didn’t seem to find that threatening. “Closer. Closer. Closer.”
We needed to work on his self-preservation instincts.
“Brownies. Brownies. Brownies.” My ridiculous response got a snicker from him and he nodded excitedly. “Alright, dinner and dessert.”
It was slightly early for dinner, but I wasn’t sure when he’d eaten more than the soup in the fridge. His lack of real food was weird, though, because I knew he had the money to eat because he had enough to fuck with me, and his parents were beyond generous. He’d also gone over the menus for every takeout place in town so that wasn’t a problem either.
But from what I could tell, it was a severe lack of interest in actually cooking food and definitely wanting a Daddy to take care of him.
“Movie?” Doing a full-body wiggle that reminded me of a pup, he gave me his I’m going to manipulate you smile. “Toys?”
I wasn’t sure if that meant more coloring or not, but I shrugged. “If you want to.”
I didn’t have anywhere else to be…and he was funny in a bratty way.
“But eventually you’re going to get bored of me and send me home.” For some reason he found that to be so funny he landed back on the table as I took the last of the food out of the bag. Thankfully, I caught the crayons before the box went flying but I really wasn’t sure why that was hilarious. “You’re so silly, you need food or a nap.”
He kept snickering but his head popped up and grinned again as I went back to putting away the groceries. “Brownies.”
He was ridiculous.
“Which part is best, the corner or the middles?” His answer would help me decide which pan to use, because surprisingly enough, they had a ridiculous amount of cookware no one seemed to use.
Or at least Teddy hadn’t known who any of it belonged to…and most had so much dust on it we were going to have to scrub it before we used it.
Who was I kidding? I was going to have to scrub it.
When he didn’t answer right away, I turned back to him rubbing his tummy. “All the brownies.”
Clearly that hadn’t been a smart question.
“Then you can have the middle ones and I’ll get the edges.” I grabbed a pan at random since it didn’t seem to matter to him and found a cookie sheet to put the nuggets and potatoes on. “You have to share or I’ll pitch a fit. I can be very dramatic.”
That wasn’t nearly as funny as he thought it was, but between his giggles and snorts he dug into his crayons again and I got to actually start getting dinner ready.
As I moved around the kitchen, part of me had a what the fuck moment but a bigger part of me just didn’t care how weird it was. I was self-aware enough to know that having someone else to take care of had always been good for me, but I was also a big enough dick not to want to think about any of it.
So I didn’t.
I turned off my brain and just operated on Daddy autopilot, checking on Chipmunk and tinkering in the kitchen once the food was in the oven. “Why do you have a pasta maker?”
He had the strangest things in his kitchen.
Teddy looked confused, head cocked to the side as he went still. “Noodles?”
Dragging out the ridiculously heavy machine from underneath the counter, I showed it to him. “This is a pasta maker, Chipmunk.”
“Oh.” He shrugged, more interested in his coloring book and the smells coming from the kitchen. “Big.”
So it’d been heavy and clunky and they’d just left it alone?
Had he and his roommates actually bought anything in that kitchen?
That question gave me a few others.
“Where are your sippy cups and fun plates?” Nothing in the cabinets said little and Teddy was a little who was too comfortable in his own skin to not have at least a few fun plates and a sippy cup somewhere.
He pointed to the ceiling.
Ah.
Was that private?
He’d brought his coloring stuff down from upstairs, so his roommates being gone might’ve made him more open?
“Once you finish my picture, we’ll go upstairs and get anything we need for dinner.” He couldn’t eat on the weird mismatched plates that were all chipped.
Had his mother seen the condition he was living in?
Teddy’s nod said he was on the same page, but whatever he was going to say was cut off as someone started knocking on his back door.
For fuck’s sake.
Thankfully it was in his laundry room, so the angry-looking girl couldn’t see him or the crayons but she could see me.
“Teddy? Did you steal soup guy?”