The Truth

But despite my raging headache and concern for my staff, mostly what I’m thinking about is waking up in Daniel’s lap, his bigger-than-I-would’ve-thought cock right in front of me.

In that moment, I’d been sure I was dreaming, since I’ve certainly had that dream before. But this time, it wasn’t a dream. It was a nightmare, especially as snippets slowly start to come back to me.

I threw up in his car.

Daniel holding my hair while I puked again in his bathroom. Another gut twister, and probably why my stomach still feels like I did a full hour of crunches yesterday.

A bath where he covered me, protecting whatever modesty I’d had left. I sort of remember calling him . . . oh, fuck. Nope, I’m going to let that one just drift off into the black abyss of drunken mistakes.

And then waking up in his lap. A long-deferred fantasy, a dream that I don’t even let myself actively have any longer.

But I fucked it up.

My head falls, and despite Miss Havisham’s snooty sniff of disapproval, an overactive puppy named Kitten—and no, I didn’t ask why—comes up and licks my nose comfortingly. “That’s sweet, Kitty, but I don’t think anything could save my pride at this point.”

As if she understands my rebuff, Kitten bounces off looking more like a frog doing parkour than a cat.

I don’t want to do anything but hide, or maybe run as far away from this mess as possible. But I’ve never been one to hide from shit, so I pull up my big girl panties and handle it.

Wait . . . I wiggle a bit, the floor hard beneath my ass, and not feeling anything, I pull out the waistband of my sweats only to realize I’m not even wearing panties.

My head falls again in mortification, and the memory comes back. He washed my stuff. My Friday panties are in Daniel’s washing machine, or maybe his dryer right now. My panties are at . . . Daniel’s place.

So I guess it’s only metaphorically that I pull them up and handle it.

Chickening out a little bit, instead of calling Daniel, I call Ricky. ‘Rocksteady’ Ricky was there this morning, so it’s not like I’m causing more damage by talking to him. And if anything, I can usually handle Ricky in my sleep.

“Yo.”

“Hey, Ricky. Uhm . . . about this morning . . .” I start, wondering if I should just hang up and call Door Dash for an emergency delivery of undies. They can do that, right?

But Ricky grunts, which is pretty much to be expected. I’m not sure what he thinks of what he walked in on this morning. Not that he walked in on anything wrong.

Just . . . weird?

But it didn’t feel weird. It felt . . . something else I can’t label, and I love my DYMO Label Maker like it’s an extension of my arm.

Fuck it. Might as well jump in with both feet. “Hey, I wanted to let you know that I’m going to call a car detailer for Daniel’s car and—”

“Don’t.”

“What?”

“He already called. It’ll be done today.”

“Oh. Well, good.” Not sure what else to say, I stammer for a moment before quickly saying goodbye and hanging up.

Okay, well that’s that. I guess it’s just me and the dogs today then.

It’s actually helpful, spending the afternoon with the dogs, letting their needs fill my mind. It’s simple but all-encompassing, water, food, treats, pats, and my favorite, running around the outside play yard with them where Ace has plastic slides and small pools set up for the dogs to play in.

Come six o’clock, I check the last pup out, still not asking why Kitten the dog is named after a cat, and close up after triple-checking that I did everything on Ace’s list. It’s nice to be on even footing again, both of us at points in our lives to be friends and take care of each other. I lock the door with a pat, and though he’s not here, I tell Ace that I hope I did a good enough job for him today while promising that I’ll do better next time.

I swear I’ll be on time, wearing my own clothes, including underwear, and appropriate footwear. Or you can shave my head.

I won’t actually let him chop my hair, but it won’t be an issue. One, because he doesn’t know about the deal, and two, because I will never have a repeat of this morning’s craziness.

I grab another Uber, this time home. After this long, it really does feel like home, even if for years, it was Elle’s apartment. Of course, when Elle lived here, it was vastly different. I love the woman, but her idea of folding her clean laundry usually consisted of a basketball-sized lump in a basket, and asking for a clean plate was usually met with an answer of ‘check the dishwasher . . . maybe.’