Total pages in book: 76
Estimated words: 73035 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 365(@200wpm)___ 292(@250wpm)___ 243(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 73035 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 365(@200wpm)___ 292(@250wpm)___ 243(@300wpm)
“I’ll be very good, Daddy, and I’ll decorate it so pretty.” And hopefully it wouldn’t burn or stay too mushy. Oh, and hopefully it didn’t taste weird like the healthy pizza I’d accidentally bought one time.
It’d been yucky.
“I’m not sure I want to ask what’s going through your head.” Daddy gave me a funny look as he led us back to the kitchen.
He probably didn’t want to know, so I just smiled. “I’m your good boy, Daddy. Can I make more pictures after lunch? If we’re going to change my playroom pictures soon, I need more.”
“Soon, huh?” Daddy looked like he didn’t know if he was going to sigh or laugh, so I ignored it since he was confused.
“Yes, if the ladder pictures are once a month, the short pictures have to be more. That’s just logic rules, Daddy.” Yep, it made sense to me, so I needed more pictures.
“I think coloring will be fun.” His smile was back, so I knew I’d won. “But food first. I can hear your tummy growling. Did you eat breakfast?”
Oh, um, maybe?
“Does a cookie and a gummy vitamin count?” I thought it should, but the way he scrunched up his face said maybe not. “It was an oatmeal cookie and a good vitamin?”
Oatmeal was healthy.
I just wasn’t going to tell Daddy that it’d technically been a fluffy oatmeal cookie…with marshmallow stuff in the middle…and sometimes people were silly and called it a pie.
It was round and you ate it with your hand, so I was going to call it a cookie.
Pies needed forks or spoons. Everyone knew that.
“We’ll come up with some good ideas for breakfast, don’t worry.” Daddy was very sweet, but I wasn’t sure if he was talking to himself or me. I wasn’t worried. Cookies were really good with coffee.
And I took my gummy every day.
Rain or shine.
Big or little.
Grumpy or happy.
Lazy or working.
I was better than the post office.
“Yes, we’re not going to worry. I can help with that.” Daddy was still frowning and very serious, but he forgot to worry when we got to the kitchen. “But now it’s time to decorate.”
Yes…and we weren’t going to burn it.
“Do you want to have your own little pizza all to yourself or are we going to make one big one?” Daddy was smiling as he led me over to a big bowl that had something beige and squishy in it.
Oh, did I have to touch it?
It wasn’t even a pretty color.
Maybe next time we could make it prettier and then I’d touch it.
“One big one, Daddy.” Yep, then I wouldn’t have to touch it. “I want to share with you.”
Yes, he would do the yucky parts because he was Daddy and he’d be sad if he couldn’t take care of me. “I’ll make it pretty.”
I was a great artist.
I could make anything pretty.
Hopefully?
Chapter Seven
Gray
“Next Saturday, right, Daddy?” Camden held up his latest round of new pictures like they were pirate treasure and there was a gleam in his eyes that said he’d have me switch out the drawings every day if he could justify it.
I might’ve created a monster.
It hadn’t even been twenty-four hours since I’d put the pictures up and we were already renegotiating. His growing pile of artwork that he said needed to go up in his playroom wasn’t making me feel any more confident about the situation.
“I thought we said each space got changed out once a month?” Somehow that hadn’t lasted very long and now he was trying to figure out how many days had to pass before I would switch the pictures in the playroom.
I was going to put my foot down if we got to hours.
Rolling over onto his tummy, he nearly sprang off the floor and scrambled up into my lap, completely ignoring the movie we’d been watching. He was radiating sweet excitement and innocence. I knew I was being played, but he was so cute when he did it.
Kissing my cheek as he straddled my thighs, he seemed to make his eyes even wider as he cuddled closer and rested his head on my shoulder. “You have the best ideas, Daddy. I just love them so much.”
When I just groaned, afraid that somehow I was going to end up changing them every day at the rate we were going, he giggled.
“You’re pushing your luck, cutie.” My Daddy tone had him giggling again, but it was a less innocent sound than he’d let out before. “Being cute will only get you so far.”
Lifting his head up, I could see his eyes sparkling in a much more grown-up way than they’d been since I’d gotten there a few hours earlier. “How far?”
I scoffed, playing up the drama to see if I could get him to tell me if he was big or not. “I can’t tell if you’re itching for a spanking or just trying to be adorable and insane.”