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“You need to enjoy your child at every age,” he said. “Every stage. It’s the same with a relationship. From the initial, exciting getting-to-know-you stage. To when we’re old and gray, sitting on rocking chairs on our front porch.”
“You plan on owning a rocking chair?” she asked in surprise.
“Nah. I plan to be that crotchety old bastard still making music when I’m eighty-three.”
Now, that she could see.
“Just because I’m not looking doesn’t mean I’m not admiring. It doesn’t mean I don’t want you,” he whispered. “It just means I know you’re sick and I respect that now isn’t the right time to perv at you.”
“There’s a right time to perv at someone?”
“Course there is,” he said with clear humor in his voice. “Now, let’s get you into the bath.” He leaned around her to turn off the taps before picking her up and placing her in the hot water. He’d added bubble bath, so the bubbles covered her. Actually, they were almost suffocating her, and some spilled over the side of the bath.
“Hmm, think that might have been too much bubble bath.” He looked troubled by that, as though he didn’t like getting it wrong.
She giggled as bubbles covered her chin and cheeks, then smiled up at him. “I think it’s just the right amount of bubbles.”
“Oh, look, I’m dating Santa Claus,” he joked.
“Ho, ho, ho.”
“Or is it Rudolph?” He tapped her nose.
She wrinkled it. Not nice. It wasn’t her fault her nose was glowing.
Grabbing a cloth, he put some shower gel on it before he started washing her arm.
“Um, I can do that myself.”
“I assumed so since I’ve never thought of you as dirty or smelly.”
“So, um, you don’t have to do it now,” she explained.
“But I’m going to.” He moved to her other arm to wash it. “Oh, by the way. That’s five.” This time, he held up his entire hand, fingers splayed..
She gaped at him. “What for?”
“Well, if I go back over it in detail, I think you’re going to end up with more punishments, and I don’t think you want that. But basically, there was a lot of talking bad about yourself. Unacceptable. And against the rules.”
“What rule?”
“The rule about putting yourself down.”
“Wait. I have a rule about that?”
“You do now.”
“Well, should I be punished when I didn’t know the rule?”
Hello loophole.
“Do you think it’s acceptable to talk down about yourself whether it’s a rule or not?” he asked.
Loophole closed.
“Darn it. You speak too much sense. Who thought you’d be such a strict Daddy?”
He narrowed his gaze at her. “You really thought I’d be indulgent and let you speak badly about yourself?”
