Page 215 of Daddy's Pride

The Daddy He Needs

A MM Dirty Daddies Story

Chara Croft

Chapter 1

Owen

My roommates were all out on the dance floor, but thankfully, it seemed like they hadn’t noticed that I wasn’t following. Or that, instead of just grabbing another drink first, like I’d told them I was going to, I’d awkwardly set up camp on a bar stool and planned to stay for a while.

Not that it had been a total lie.

I did order myself another drink.

My second of the night.

And I wasn’t actually trying to dodge them, or the dancing, it was just that I was a total lightweight who didn’t normally drink much, and I actually wasn’t sure if I could stand up without swaying at the moment.

Well, okay. Maybe I was dodging the dancing.

And the whole, you know, socializing with strangers part, too.

“But tipsy or not, I’m really not drunk enough for all that yet,” I murmured under my breath, feeling a little guilty that I wasn’t having a good time when that was what my roommates had dragged me out here for.

Well, even though they hadn’t exactly said so, I figured they’d really dragged me out to cheer me up after getting dumped by Hannah, which had happened weeks ago. I was actually over it, but I guess they didn’t see it that way.

But it wasn’t her that had me down lately. It was everything else. Regular stuff that felt too pathetic to whine to anyone about, but that still felt like a lot.

I gulped down the rest of my drink—all of it, all at once—then immediately choked a little because wow, that was a lot, too.

“Oh God, I’m pathetic,” I mumbled once I could breathe again.

The bartender leaned over the bar, cupping his ear. “What was that? Another?”

“No, but thank you,” I shouted back, embarrassed that he’d caught me talking to myself. “It’s just that this isn’t really my scene, and I was feeling a little…”

I trailed off, blushing hard.

He’d given me a curt nod as soon as I said no to the drink, and was already walking away. I guessed that meant that the whole pour your heart out to the bartender and get some good advice thing in shows wasn’t real?

Or at least, not in a place like this.

I nibbled on my lip. That was fine. What would I have told him, anyway? That adulting was hard? So I was falling behind in my classes at college. Having second thoughts about whether I was actually cut out for my major, despite being only a year away from graduation and having known I wanted to be a vet since I was a kid?

And yeah, the stuff with the house was pretty stressful and it sucked having to collect rent from my roommates, especially when they were always late with it, but who could I complain to about that since they’d become my friends, too?

So, okay, it might have been a little bit nice to talk to someone about some of that, but I was pretty sure none of it fell under the category of the kind of advice bartenders generally gave out, anyway.

As if my gloomy thoughts were some kind of parental bat signal, my phone vibrated with an incoming message.

I pulled it out, then grimaced when I read it.

I’d texted them earlier today asking them to front some money to the house maintenance account so I could get someone to come check out the weird noises coming from the water heater. I wasn’t really surprised that their answer was no, but it still made my stomach clench tight with anxiety.

So maybe I should get another drink? It might help?

Or maybe I should just go.