I knew he was right, but I also didn’t want to move. And I didn’t have a choice. He was Daddy. His command had to be heard and followed, and I didn’t want to miss out on the opportunity to have my body scrubbed down by his tender hands.
22. LORENZO
I would’ve gnawed my arm off to let him stay in bed, snoring. I woke before him and just stared, watching him, my stomach growling for keeping it from eating breakfast. It took around ten minutes before I was able to pull my arm out from Jace, and even then, he woke, huffing and shuffling around on the bed.
“What time is it?” he asked in his cute hoarse voice.
“Time for some breakfast,” I whispered. “Go back to sleep, I’ll make some porridge oats.”
“I’m so tired.”
Well, we had both been having a lot of fun last night, it was no surprise he didn’t have the energy right now. “You take another ten minutes to sleep.”
Yesterday, Jace had been through a lot, so it made sense he needed a little extra time to sleep it off in bed. I was just glad he got to do that in my bed, making my sheets smell just like him. IT was that sweet musk from him that I wanted to bottle up and inhale whenever possible.
In a pair of long johns, I headed to the kitchen, and just as I reached for the porridge oats in the cupboard, I caught myself smiling. This is what my life looked like right now, with a cute guy, some fun play, and a ranch with so many animals, and not a single cow in sight. The smile faded slightly, I knew it wasn’t my ranch, or my dream coming true, but I could imagine, and I could play pretend about it.
Before I could finish breakfast, Jace came into the kitchen, yawning and looking all adorable dressed in his onesie again. “You have maple syrup, right?” he asked as he took a big stretch.
“Think so,” I said. “You sit down, and I’ll bring a bowl over once it’s thickened up a little more. Ok.”
He nodded, yawning again. “Last night took it out of me. I don’t think I’ve ever been so tired.”
“For what it’s worth, you looked adorable,” I told him. “And you still do now. Of course.”
“Lorenzo,” he said, sitting at the table against the side wall of the kitchen. “I was thinking, I—”
I looked at him, apprehension in his eyes as he bit the inside of his lip and just stared. “I think I know what you’re going to say.”
“I don’t think you do.”
“I do think I know.”
He shook his head. “Nuh huh,” he continued. “Like, I don’t think you do.”
“We should tell your parents about us.”
He giggled. “Ok, maybe you do know what I was thinking.” He sighed. “I know we were keeping this low key and secret, but I don’t want to keep this secret anymore. I want you to come over for family dinner, and that way, I don’t have to sneak out in the middle of the night, and you don’t have to stay awake for me, waiting.”
Those same points were being made in my own mind. “My argument against it is, maybe it’s too soon,” I said. “And maybe they’ll think I’m doing this like I’m a gold digger.”
He scoffed. “Ew, no. If anything, a relationship would make you stick around.”
“And what would this relationship look like?” I asked, nearly forgetting about the oats on the stove. I quickly turned it off. “Think on that for a second while I—” I didn’t stir the bottom as I knew I’d burned it a little. I poured the porridge into two bowls, and at the bottom, the darkened patch of oats I’d burned from a moment of distraction. “I hope this doesn’t alter the taste.”
“I’ll eat whatever you put in front of me,” he said. “As long as it’s covered in maple syrup, you know, just in case it needs a little help in hiding the burned taste.”
He had a point. The syrup would hide the burned taste, and I knew that from experience.
This was something I wanted to get comfortable with, something to feel. It wasn’t like one of my books where the hero would swoop the other off their feet, and they would escape the horrible situation they were in to live their best lives together on a small plot of land they’d saved and sold everything off to purchase. This was oddly deflating in the face of fiction.
“When did you want to bring this up to your folks?” I asked. “You know, so I can make sure I’m wearing one of my good shirts.” I had my day-to-day shirts, and then I had the stuff I would only wear for special occasions, like showing off my hard work at a livestock auction and events surrounding it, or meeting my new boss. I’d never had to think about what I’d wear to meet the parents, especially since we’d already met.
Jace had said something but in the moment I lost to thought, none of those words went in. I just stared at him with a blank expression, a spoon with oats sliding off the side nearing my lips. “You didn’t hear a word I said, did you?”
“Can you say that again?” I asked.
“I think we should announce it today, like around the afternoon over lunch, something I can prepare and invite you to,” he said.
