Page 108 of Daddy's Pride
“Why are you huffing?” Henry glanced up from his book as he asked. “Don’t you want to color?”
“I do but I can’t find any sloths or koalas and they’re my favorite.” I wondered if my Daddy would buy me new coloring books with them in it? When I was done, the puppies were mostly colored inline. Daddy would like it, I was sure. Henry’s books had easy tear pages, and they were great. But before I tore it out, I wrote To Daddy, Love Jamie on it for him.
“There, all done.” I was proud of it and had to give it to Daddy.
“Daddy! Daddy! Daddy!” I sang out as I ran down the hall and straight into a wall and down on my bum. “Ouch.”
“Jamie!” Daddy crouched down beside me. “Are you okay? Why were you running?”
My bottom lip pushed out, my eyes filled with tears and there they went. “I. Made. You. Ah-ha. Picture.” I burst into tears as I shoved the picture at him. It was more embarrassing than anything but Daddy scooped me up and carried me to the couch and sat with me on his lap.
“Sweet boy, I love the picture but why were you running in the house?” At this point, Henry and both his Daddies stood nearby staring at us. You’re such an idiot, Jamie.
“I-I…” I wiped my face, kind of on his shirt but I didn’t mean to. “Sorry, Daddy.”
“That’s all right, shirts will wash but broken boys are hard to fix. Are you all right? Does anything hurt?”
Just my pride, but I left that out.
“No, Daddy, I’m okay.” Just as I was about to ask if he was mad, he cuddled me against his chest and rocked us back and forth.
“Please don’t do that again, Jamie. You shaved ten years off my life.”
Henry and his Daddies went in the other room and left us alone.
“You scared me to death. You hit that wall pretty hard.”
When I touched the top of my head where it hit, it hurt. “Ouch, that hurts.”
Daddy ran a finger over the spot. “Yes, you’ve got a knot. We need to ice it.”
“On it,” one of Henry’s Daddies called out. Mitchell came in with a towel and a bag of ice a couple minutes later.
“Thanks, Mitchell.”
He left us again. Daddy wrapped the bag in the towel and set it on my head.
“Ow. Ow. Ow.”
“I’m sorry, little one, but this is the best way to get the swelling down. Now, back to why you were running.”
“I was excited to give you the picture I made. For your fridge. Do you like it?”
Daddy picked it up with his free hand and looked it over. “I do, it’s perfect and you did such good job. It will go perfect on my fridge.” He kissed my forehead, away from the owie. “But what’s the rule about running in the house?”
I gave a heavy sigh. It was time to be a big boy and admit I’d been bad. “Not to do it. I was excited, Daddy, but I’m sorry.” Would he punish me? We hadn’t talked about punishments or limits.
Daddy was quiet for a long time. Too long. It worried me I’d already screwed this up.
“Sweetheart, you’re thinking too hard. Want to tell me what’s got you tensing up?”
“You’re gonna break up with me. I messed up again.” And back into tears.
“Jamie, I just got you and I have no intention of letting you go. You had an accident and while I’m not happy about you getting hurt, I’m not mad at you either. If we’re going to do this, be in a relationship that is, we have to communicate or there’s no hope.”
Daddy’s words sizzled in my brain before they sank in. “You want to keep me?”
“Yes, Jamie. I fully intend to keep you, though you’re making yourself sound like a pet.”