by Sammi Cee
Davis glanced cautiously over his shoulder right as I was pulling up behind him. The glare of the headlights blinded him, and he squinted before picking up his pace. My growl in the quiet air of the truck was one of frustration, with myself for scaring him, and with him for not asking one of us for a ride home. I stopped the truck against the curb and jumped out, yelling, “Davis, get your little ass back here and get in the truck.”
He stopped, then turned slowly. “Sarge?” he asked hesitantly.
“You better hope it’s me since you stopped instead of running,” I grumbled.
He took two small steps back toward me. “Did I forget something?”
“Yeah, you forgot to get in my damn truck so I could drive you home. Now come on. You’ve got to be freezing.”
Instead of waiting on him, I got back in, slamming the door, and stretched across to the passenger side to crack the door open in invitation. As soon as he swung it open, I about bit through my own lip off to keep from yelling at him. The last thing I wanted was for him to fear me, but he was already freezing and he’d just left the bar. Davis didn’t get into the truck, but asked, “What are you doing here?”
“I thought I was pretty clear. I’m giving you a ride home.”
“Oh, you don’t have to do that.” His gaze darted back toward the sidewalk he’d been traveling to walk home.
“Boy,” I said harshly, a satisfying buzz humming through my body at the way his gaze quickly, yet earnestly, returned to my face. “Get in the car.”
“I don’t want to—”
“Now,” I said, cutting off his embarrassed reply.
He nodded and climbed up into the passenger seat. His smaller frame emanated so much cold that it caused the cab of the truck to get chilly by the time he’d shut his door. I cranked the heater and reached over to adjust the vents so that they’d blow right on him. It still wasn’t super-hot yet, but warmer than the outside.
We sat there in silence for a moment while I waited for the heat to blow hotter and calmed my boiling temper. It took me a minute to remember I had seat warmers—a feature I hadn’t cared about since I generally ran hot—but I flipped on the overhead light so I could see to switch it on for the passenger side and cranked it all the way up. Davis remained still as a statue, but when he set his hands, palms down, onto the seats beside him, there was a subtle upward twitch to his lips. “Better?” I asked.
“Yes, sir,” he said toward his lap.
“Hmm… care to tell me what you were doing out here?”
He side-eyed me. “Uh, walking home.”
“I know that, but why?”
“The bus doesn’t run down here this late,” he said. There was a hint of irritation in his tone that caught me off guard.
“I’m well aware there’s no bus. Correct me if I’m wrong, but doesn’t Billy usually take you home?”
Davis shrugged. “I told him he doesn’t have to,” he said defensively.
“Why the hell not? If you weren’t going to ask me or Bull, or even Ralph, someone has to get you home. We don’t spend all night making sure you guys are protected in the bar to send you out into the streets by yourself in the middle of the night.”
Davis crooked his head toward me. “I’m not your problem once I leave the bar.”
“If you’re leaving the bar after working for me until three am, it sure as hell is my responsibility.”
A question formed in his eyes, but he remained silent, finally turning to look back out the front windshield onto the road.
A sigh threatened to escape me, but I bit it back and turned to put the truck in gear and pulled back out onto the street. “Where do you live, little duckling?”
“Why do you call me that?” I glanced at him long enough to quirk a brow, and he huffed. “Do you know where the Pine Valley Apartments are?”
“I do.” It wasn’t my favorite complex in town, but I’d had friends who lived there, so I knew it was relatively safe.
“Right there,” he said.
“Good boy. See, that wasn’t so hard, was it?”
“You never call any of the other guys that. You call everyone by their names, so why do you call me duckling or boy?” he asked after I’d driven a mile down the road.
“You’re an inquisitive one tonight, aren’t ya?”
I more felt his shrug next to me, then saw it. Although, I wasn’t sure how since he was sitting so far away on the other side of the truck. I’d known my Ford was a bigger vehicle, but he was like a child being swallowed up in the upholstery he sat on.
“I’m not sure why I call you boy,” I answered honestly. There was no reason to admit to why I called him duckling. A man had his pride and didn’t anyone want to hear that the way they followed the people they trusted around—whether it be with their eyes or their body—resembled a baby duck with its mama.
“Hmm…”
“What’s that mean?” I asked.
He angled his body into the corner of the truck against the door so that he was facing me while I drove. “I just wondered if you were like, I don’t know, a Daddy or something.”
A sharp, surprised bark blasted out before I could stop it. With amusement, I asked, “And what do you know about Daddies, Davis?”
He tilted his head onto the glass. With the way he was sitting, his rubbing the tip of one shoe against the bottom of the other, and then switching off to do the other side, became visible. Given the shabby condition of the sneakers he wore, I guessed that his feet were hurting him. I didn’t say anything, but I added it to the list I was formulating in my head of things he needed: heavier coat, hat, gloves, scarf, and good, solid sneakers for the long hours we worked each night. “Well, I personally don't know anything about Daddies, but…”
My interest was piqued, so I prodded him. “But?”
“Well, I had an acquaintance,” he hesitated. Then he continued, “Or maybe he wanted to be my friend; I’m not sure. I worked at the college, like it said on my application, and there weren’t too many students who took any interest in the guy riding the lawnmower around campus. But yeah, there was this guy, Russell, and I had taken a few classes before I had to stop and he was in one of them, so he started to stop and talk to me if he ran into me, and eventually he, like, knew my schedule of where on campus I’d be on what days.”
“And was this Russell a Daddy?” I asked when he lapsed into silence.
Davis chuckled. “Gosh no. Billy reminds me of Russell—full of life and happy all the time. But anyway, if Russell had a class close to where I was mowing, he’d bring me a drink sometimes and tell me how I needed to let him have his Daddy find me one of my own. At first, I didn’t have a clue what he was talking about. He choked on his lemonade once when I told him that even though I looked young, I was twenty-three and didn’t need to be adopted. He told me I cracked him up.”
My lips quirked at the innocence and naivety of a twenty-three-year-old Davis. “So what happened? Did you let them look for a Daddy for you?”
I glanced over, and in the light of the dashboard, I saw that Davis's face had heated up red as a fresh ripened tomato and he shook his head firmly. “No way. Once he explained to me what a Daddy was, it kind of freaked me out.”
Huh. That surprised me a bit. It had been a long time since anyone struck me as a boy as much as Davis did. “What freaked you out exactly?”
“Well, he had a lot of rules, and he had specific punishments if he broke them. I asked Russell if he was okay, if he was being abused, and I assured him that one of the college counselors or the doctor in the clinic on campus would help him, but he’d rolled his eyes and told me he liked it. He said he had a loving Daddy; that he was kind and took good care of him.”
“You and Russell aren’t friends anymore?” I asked.
Davis shrugged. “His Daddy took him on vacation for the summer. They were going to some island. I guess his Daddy traveled a lot for work, so they were taking a long break together. It kind of sucked because the layoff
at work happened before the next semester started. He had one more year to go before he earned his master’s degree, and I was kinda looking forward to being there to congratulate him.”
“Do you have his number? Call him up.”
Davis scrunched his whole face up at me. “I’m sure he was just being nice. Why would he have really given a crap about an uneducated lawn boy?” He shrugged again, then said softly, “When I got laid off and it was so hard to find a job, I kind of wished I’d have let him try to find me a Daddy, though. Just so someone would...”
The complex Davis lived in didn’t have a lot of parking, so I pulled over outside the main entrance so that I could say a couple of things to him before he went in. His perception of himself bothered me more and more every day. Thankfully, he’d allowed Billy into his orbit, or Billy had blasted his way in, but at least I knew he had one solid friend his age that would encourage him. Davis sat up and already had his hand on the door handle before I said, “Davis, you need to know some things.” I flicked on the dome light so he’d be able to see the sincerity of what I was about to say on my face.
“Yeah? Did you want gas money?” His hand dove into his pocket.
“Are you kidding me?” Frustration colored the tone of my voice. “You don’t live that far from the bar, and I practically had to force you to accept a ride.” When his hand stayed submerged in his pocket, I snapped, “Get your hand out of your pocket. I absolutely do NOT want your money.”
“Geesh, okay,” he said with a hint of that brattiness I’d heard earlier when I’d annoyed him. There were obviously layers to Davis underneath his skittish demeanor that I hadn’t seen yet. It made me wonder if he even knew they were there.
“Okay, first, let me reassure you that Russell wasn’t just being nice. He was definitely your friend.”
“You can’t know that,” he said.
“I can and I do.” He opened his mouth, and I raised my hand to stop him. “Listen, Russell gave you the barebone facts about a Daddy/boy relationship. There’s a lot more to it, and every relationship is different based on the needs of the couple involved. What I can tell you is that if Russell really adored his Daddy so much—”
“He loved him. I can tell you that one hundred percent.”
I smiled. “It sounds like it, and that makes my case even stronger. If Russell didn’t like you, he wouldn’t have wanted you near his Daddy or any of his Daddy’s friends. Those relationships are built on trust and mutual respect, and he wouldn’t have purposefully exposed anyone in their circle to someone he didn’t consider worthy.”
“Huh.” He bit the inside of his left cheek again. It was always the same side and a habit of his that I wanted to break. The poor tissue on the inside of his mouth had to be all chewed up with how he gnawed on it when he was thinking, or panicking. “Thanks, Sarge. That’s actually good to know.” A real, genuine smile bloomed on his face as he said it, and my heart softened even more toward this infuriating boy who didn’t take care of himself properly. After a moment, it deflated a little, and he asked nervously, “What else? You said some things, right?”
I cleared my throat. Shit. It was my turn to be nervous. “Yeah, uh… I thought maybe you should know that I agree with Russell.”
Davis's head cocked to the side. “About what?”
“You’d make a good boy,” I said simply and to the point.
Davis blinked. Once. Twice. And then he was across the cab of the truck, pecking me on the lips. It happened so quickly I almost missed my opportunity, but this wasn’t my first rodeo. Before he could pull back across the seat and dive out of the truck, I clasped his head between my hands and held him still. When his eyes drifted closed, it was the only cue I needed to lean forward and meld my lips to his. Those sweet, pink lips were as pillowy-soft as I’d anticipated. I’d been dying to feel them pressed against mine since the first time his owlish gaze had searched me out across the bar for reassurance.
I wanted to ravage his mouth, suck his tongue into my mouth, and taste every bit of him, but this wasn’t the time or the place. I had a past I wasn’t sure I could overcome. He had hit hard times and needed job security, and I was his boss. Instinctively, I knew that if I rushed something between us and it didn’t work out that he would disappear; he’d be worried that he was a bother and that he only still had a job out of pity. Breaking Davis down more than he already was wasn’t an option—I only wanted to help build him up. Reluctantly, I pulled away enough to rub my lips back and forth gently across his. When his sweet lips started to tilt up happily, I pushed my lips against his one last time before letting my hands fall from his face. “Thank you.”
“I think I’m the one who should be thanking you, Sarge.”
I snorted. “Oh no, little duckling. It was my pleasure. Now sit back and I’ll pull up to your building for ya.”
Davis ignored me and reached for the handle on the door and shoved it open. “You’re good. It’s such a tight spot to turn around in there, and I’m right here. I’ll be fine.” He jumped down and turned to smile up at me.
“I’d feel better seeing you to your door.”
He rolled his eyes at me. “Twenty-five, remember?” He giggled, more like he was thirteen sneaking porn under his covers for the first time, before slamming the door shut and trotting toward the first building. The lighting in the complex left a lot to be desired with all the spots it left hidden in shadows, but I saw him wave before he rounded the corner of the building and disappeared out of sight.
I checked the side mirrors, then pulled my truck out onto the road. As tired as I’d been only an hour ago, tonight it felt like a long drive with the tunes playing kinda night, while I attempted to sort out the mess Davis Prescott had made of my head. And why did he ask if I was a Daddy?
Chapter Seven
Davis
My lips were tingling when I went to bed, and when I awoke the next morning, I wondered if everything had been a dream. No way had I acted impulsively and given Sarge a quick peck on the lips as a way to tell him thank you for the ride home and for reassuring me that Russell had been my friend all along. And it wasn’t possible that he’d grasped my head in those big, strong hands of his and pressed his lips more firmly against mine. It was all a dream, and I was still asleep in my bed.
But when I bit down on the inside of my left cheek, I felt the pain as my teeth sank into the sensitive tissue of my mouth. And as I rubbed my finger against my lips, they tingled while I recalled the memory of pressure from his mouth and the friction of his beard against my smooth cheek.
My body shivered as I rolled on my side and closed my eyes to play that scene over again in my head. Damn, why couldn’t it have been longer? That little tease didn’t do anything but leave me yearning for more.
A myriad of questions ran through my mind. Why did he pick me up? Why did I kiss him? Why did he respond and kiss me? And what was all that Daddy talk about? He seemed to know quite a bit about the subject, and even though I wanted the floorboards to open up and swallow me whole, I was intrigued by the conversation.
But the biggest question of all was, how in the hell was I going to face him at work without tripping over myself or blushing as soon as I saw him? It sounded like an impossible task, but the fact I was able to put food in my belly and pay bills without playing roulette to see which one would get paid first before it got shut off had me anxious to attack that task head-on. I wouldn’t allow one tiny, delicious kiss to ruin things for me. Not when they were looking up.
But that kiss…
With a sigh, I tossed back my blanket and heaved myself out of bed. It was time I got up and started my day before I got ready for work. I had laundry I needed to do, and since a washer and dryer were a luxury I couldn’t afford, I had to heft a trash bag of dirty clothes across the complex and hope someone wasn’t using it before I got there.
After using the bathroom, and devouring a bowl of cereal, I gathered up my pile of laundry, and then grabbed the small stack of
quarters I had set aside from my tips. I hated sitting in that laundry room while I waited for my clothes, but I didn’t trust leaving them in there. Not after someone removed my soaking wet clothes and set them on the floor in a sopping blob while they used the machines.
The chair was uncomfortable and hurt my tailbone as I waited, but I killed time by talking to Billy to see how he was feeling.
“Much better,” he said with a sniffle. “I think it’s pretty much run its course. Now I just have a runny nose.”
“Oh, that’s good.”
“So, I’ll be at work tonight. Did everything go okay at the bar?”
“It went fine. I think I handled myself okay.”
“See? I knew you could do it, sugar. How about getting home?”
I froze. Did I tell him Sarge took me home? I wasn’t sure if I should. Sarge didn’t say whether I could or couldn’t, and I didn’t think catching a lift from my boss was a big thing, but something had me wanting to keep it a secret. At least for a little while.
“I did,” was my vague response. “I’m doing laundry right now.”
“Oh shit, don’t remind me of the pile I have in my room. I don’t want to reach sniff test status, but doing laundry is such a boring chore.”
I chuckled lightly. “If you need to sniff it before you wear it, it might be time to throw it in the wash.”
A loud sigh sounded in my ear. “I guess you’re right. Fine. I’m going to start a load rather than blow one, and I’ll see you this afternoon when I pick you up.”
“You don’t—” I immediately started to say as a reflex reaction.
“I do. Bye!”
Billy disconnected the call, and the quieting of the washing machine let me know it was time to toss my clothes in the dryer. At least the conversation with him kept me occupied. And even though the machines with the coin slots were probably older than me, they didn’t take too long.
