A longing stare, I wanted to be held, even if this was all my fault. “Or someone could help me.”
“I’ll get Olivia,” she said.
Lorenzo bit the back of his lips together, seemingly hiding his laughter.
“Fine, I’ll do it myself.” I was already feeling better, although the smell of sick was right in front of me, and lingering in the back of my throat. “But I—” I proclaimed loudly and stopped myself. I was about to say something nobody, but Lorenzo should hear.
Fifteen minutes later, a bucket of warm water washed the sick away, and I’d cleared my nose and throat out of that vomit smell and feel. The one that cloyed in the senses. It wasn’t something I liked to experience.
“I know you’re going to be able to do this, in fact, I am so damn sure of it. And you know what’s at stake,” Lorenzo said when we were alone together on the way up to his place. He carried the big box in his arms, the one that he was still not going to let me peek at before I put in the work.
“Ok, but I want to be held as little spoon for so long tonight,” I told him.
“When do I not hold you all night as little spoon?”
“Even if it gets too warm.”
“Well, when it’s too warm, I’m not sure what I can do about that,” he said with a smirk. “I know one thing that can be done, but it’s mostly something that you can do.”
I glanced around as we got closer to the guesthouse. The road was empty, but that didn’t mean people weren’t watching. “You mean, you want me to get naked?” I asked in a whisper. “You know I like to sleep in my onesies.”
The urge to pounce on him when he gave me that look, raising his brows and winking at me. I was going to become feral if he did that again to me. I would’ve also flicked the back of his hat off, but I didn’t want to anger the cowboy gods by getting his Stetson dirty.
Inside the guesthouse, I waited until Lorenzo had put the wrapped box down before I jumped into his arms. My breath all minty fresh and my teeth brushed twice, he didn’t have to worry about it—except he did. Avoiding the kiss I tried to plant on his lips.
“Come on now,” he said. “You’ve got to save all that energy.”
“I don’t wanna.”
“And I’ll wait until after you’ve properly eaten something before kissing ya,” he said, kissing my neck instead. “Not to be rude or nothing, but I think you should be standing for a little while. At least until we know all that stuff is out of your system.”
I let my legs go limp from around his waist and stood straight, brushing my jeans off. “I wasn’t distracting you, Daddy,” I said, pouting up at him. “I pwomise.”
“Aw, a little baby talk, almost like it’ll solve everything.”
“Does it?” I asked with a couple big blinks.
“Almost.” He took the back of my hand and kissed it. “But if you wanted to impress me, you’d be sipping some more water, and let me get you that electrolyte stuff. It’s good at keeping you hydrated, which you know, is going to be very important when you’re out on that horse with a little flop sweat setting in from being so close to them horses.”
He read me like a book, which was nice, because I knew it was probably a picture book and not one of those big wordy ones with zero pictures, like absolutely none at all, who would do that? And I don’t mean those pictures you see in non-fiction manuals either, they were just as bad.
“What if I don’t want your electricity water?” I asked, giggling at him.
“That’s tough tiddies,” he said. “You’re getting it, one way or another. I’m not having you actually getting sick.”
“Fine.”
I sat on the sofa while he prepared me the electricity water. It was this orange fruity water thing that made my mouth pucker and my eyes screw slightly from the sourness. I drank the entire thing, and seconds later, I thought I was able to see sounds.
“You’re gonna get stomachache,” he said. “And you’re not going to get out of this. You’ve been so good with the horses so far, the natural next step is to actually get on the back of one of them and you know, actually ride. You’ll feel a lot better once you do.”
He sounded just like my mom when I was younger, before going to the dentist, telling me I had to see someone because of the toothache, and it would feel way better once I did, even if they had to remove it.
We sat on the sofa together for a moment. Lorenzo stroked my head and his hands travelling down my back with his gentle strokes and tickles, it was nice, although he was buttering me up for the eventual climax that was me climbing onto a horse and seeing whether fight or flight took place.
“You’re gonna love the present,” he said.
“How much will I love it?”
