When he finally felt like his life was back under control, he put the phone on the nightstand, stripped, and crawled into bed. Minutes later, he fell asleep with the vision of Lacy curled up on the bed with her polar bear carrying him off to dreamland.
Drake woke up hours later, rested but was disoriented after sleeping so deep. Reaching for his phone, he gasped when he noted the time. He had not set an alarm to wake up because he never expected to sleep for almost six hours.
He and Lacy had a date to talk at eight and he was surprised to see it was eight-twenty. Opening the phone app, he saw there were several missed calls from Lacy, two with messages. Instead of listening to them, he called her.
“Hello?” she answered, her voice soft and sounding so sad.
“I’m sorry, Lacy-girl. I overslept,” he said as he rolled out of bed.
“It’s okay.”
“No, it’s not okay, but I don’t know how to make it up to you, so we’ll just move on.”
“Can I spank you the next time I see you?” she asked with a little giggle.
“No, you cannot spank me the next time you see me. The only one getting spanks in this relationship is my Little girl.”
“Well, phooey.”
Drake could not help chuckle at her response. Instead of dwelling on his screwup, he decided to change the subject. “How was your trip home?”
Chapter 23
Over the next few weeks, they stayed in near constant contact. Phone or video calls first thing in the morning, last thing in the evening, and most days at lunch as well. In between calls were texts. Lots of texts. Though the long-distance relationship was a challenge, Lacy grew to love Drake even more than she thought possible.
She also grew more worried about how they were going to maintain the relationship until they could be together, whenever that might be. Especially when Drake grew distracted during their calls and became slow to respond to texts.
She could feel him pulling away, but was so infatuated with the man she could not confront him or just cut things off. She planned her days, her life around his calls, and wondered how she could go back to living without a man, a Daddy in her life making sure she drank her water and ate her lunch and got enough sleep at night.
“I’ll be out of touch for the next couple of days,” Drake announced one Thursday morning. “I want you to keep up with everything and be a good girl. Okay?”
“What’s going on?” Lacy asked though she had a feeling he would not tell her.
“It’s a surprise.”
“Good surprise or bad surprise?”
Drake winked at her with a grin. “I suppose that depends on how you react when you find out what it is. Now, promise me you’re going to be my good girl and keep up with your water drinking and sleeping and eating. And I want you to keep texting me with what mischief you’re getting into.”
Though she wanted to grump and whine and demand to know what the surprise was, Lacy took a deep breath and huffed a sigh. “All right, Daddy. I promise.”
“That’s my Lacy-girl. I’ll talk to you as soon as I can.”
“Bye, Daddy,” Lacy said, but found he’d already hung up. “I love you.”
Standing up, she laid the phone on the table and ran to her bed. She threw herself across the mattress and grabbed for Snowball, hugging her so tight that he began complaining.
Rolling into a ball, she allowed the tears to fall. Her Daddy didn’t love her anymore. This was just his way of cutting ties so she wouldn’t cause a scene. She listened to the crackle as her heart shattered into a zillion pieces.
“Well, screw him,” she whispered. “If he doesn’t want me anymore then I don’t want him either. Or his dumb old surprise. It’s probablya get fucked, I’m doneparty or something equally stupid.”
Snowball just looked at her with her soft black eyes. And then she couldn’t see her through the tears as she began to sob.
“We’ll be okay, Snowball. We’ll be just fine. We don’t need no stinky Daddy,” she whispered, not sure if she was trying to convince herself or her stuffie.
At least her photography business was going well. She’d sold nearly all of the pictures of Drake, alone and with Bobby. The ones with Candace weren’t quite as popular. But even better than that, several other popular cover models and a numberof authors had been in touch, asking to work with her. Even with Drake around, she could make a name for herself as a photographer.
When she’d finally had coffee with Rebecca and confessed what she was doing, her cousin surprised her by being supportive and not jealous as she’d expected. She’d even offered to let Lacy use her backdrops and other props if she ever needed them. But Lacy preferred to use natural light and backgrounds instead of a studio setup.
