Page 8 of Daddy's Little Drummer Boy
I took a sip of my drink, savoring the smooth bourbon, spices, and a citrus finish. “That’s delicious.”
“Mine, too.” He held up his glass. “So, about the ghosting? You should ask him out instead.”
Of course, put that way, I couldn’t leave. I didn’t even want to. “No, I…” At that moment, it became moot because I found myself looking at the person we were discussing. “Bobby, nice to see you again.”
“I’d better get back to the little room.” Bridger finished his drink and set the glass on the table. “Enjoy the rest of the evening, you two.” He disappeared in the direction of the little room, while Bobby still remained standing at attention in front of me. Or at least his Drummer Boy outfit gave that impression.
“Thank you for waiting,” he said in a quiet voice. “I’m sorry I was so emotional before.”
“You have nothing to be sorry for. I didn’t mean to bring up something so private when I’d known you five minutes.” I hadn’t exactly, but without meaning to, I’d led the conversation that way. “Can I do anything to make you feel better?”
“No, I’m all right now. Usually I am, but every now and then something or someone will make me miss him all over again. I don’t know if that makes any sense.”
“I think that’s how it works when you’ve cared deeply for someone. It’s an entirely different thing, but my father has been gone for ten years, and sometimes something will just open that pain up again.”
“He must have been a very good man.”
“Thank you. Will you sit? I’m getting a crick in my neck.” I scooted over a little to make more room, in case he didn’t want to sit right up against me.
“All right.” He sat, keeping that space there, a little reserved.
“Did you have fun being the Little Drummer Boy this evening? I heard a lot of buzz. People loved you.”
“Oh, that’s great! I enjoy making people smile.” The server passed by again, and he asked for a soft drink.
“So, how did you end up doing this, anyway?”
As the server returned in a very short time, he was telling me all about how Miss Lily got him to be the Drummer Boy at the party. “I got paid, but even better, I got a pass to come another night. I’m looking forward to that.”
“Maybe I’ll see you here, or, if you have a free evening in the holiday season, we could go out for a nice meal?”
An odd expression crossed his face, and he shifted uncomfortably in his set. “Oh, I don’t know about that…”
Some boys preferred to do little activities on dates with daddies rather than big things. “Or, I have an idea. There’s a tree lighting ceremony coming up. There will be music and all kinds of fun. Could I convince you to join me for that?”
The shadow disappeared from his features, and his eyes lit up. “Oh, I’ve heard about that. I’d love to come.”
We made our plans and sipped our drinks together, chatting about this and that until he had to go again. I was fairly sure I had no trips planned around the lighting ceremony night, but if I did, I’d change them. It was time I had a life, and this adorable Drummer Boy was a great reminder of that fact.
Chapter Seven
Bobby
“I’m going on a date, Rooney. What do you think?” I twirled around in front of my stuffie. I was wearing jeans and a sweater—nothing fancy. It was an outside date, so my coat and scarf were going to be over it anyway.
It wasn’t the first time I’d gone on a date since Daddy, but it was the first time I did it because I wanted to. A year after he passed, I’d been pressured by people at work to “take a step out there.” When someone in my apartment building asked me to dinner, I agreed. It was fine—or as fine as it could be. We’d barely started talking before I realized we were complete opposites.
And not in the “opposites attract” kind of way. He liked to go hunting and was looking for someone who wanted to do that with him. That was never going to be me. He thought of home as a place to sleep, which was also never going to be me. It was really easy for us to say goodbye that night and move along.
The second date I went on was an accident. I wasn’t even sure it counted as a date. Someone at work mentioned happy hour, and I thought everybody was going. It turned out, it wasn’t everybody. It was just my coworker and me. Embarrassingly, it took me at least an hour to realize they thought it was a date and another half hour to think to tell them I didn’t. What a disaster that had been.
In a lot of ways, tonight felt like my first real date. Even before I left the house, it was already a thousand times better than the others. For one, I knew we had one thing in common that mattered a lot to me: He didn’t look down on me for being little. If anything, he liked it.
I’d thought a lot about it over the years, even before Daddy—thinking about whether a person not being into the lifestyle was a deal breaker for me or not. I decided long ago that it wasn’t about whether someone could or would be my daddy. That didn’t really matter. What did matter was if they minded me being little. Did I prefer having someone to take care of me? Absolutely. But parallel play was okay too.
In theory, at least. I hadn’t tried it yet, but I’d been playing alone for a long time and it hadn’t been awful. Parallel play could work…probably.
I gave Rooney a hug and put him on the bed. Then I pulled on my coat, zipped and buttoned it, and wrapped my scarf around my neck. It wasn’t the warmest outfit ever, but it would have to do.
