was already planning dinners by the time I was five.”
“You’re joking? Not about your mom. That’s awful. Were you really making dinner at five?”
She smiled. “No, not usually. Every night my dad would ask me what I wanted for dinner. I started to pick up on the fact it stressed him out when he didn’t know what to make. I wanted to make things easier for him. I didn’t write, but I remembered I would spend my day with a babysitter or at school and think about what I wanted for dinner. When he asked, I would have an answer.”
I was amazed. “Wow. That’s young to pick up on that.”
She shrugged. “My dad worked hard, and I wanted to do my part. My mom used to let me help her in the kitchen a lot, so I had a pretty good understanding of meals and cooking.”
“I don’t know if I should feel proud and impressed or really sad for you,” I told her.
“Don’t be sad. We all have our little hardships. I had mine. I got through it by figuring out how to make things easier. As I got older, I began to see how much easier our lives were when I knew what was coming. I took over meal planning and made grocery lists until I was old enough to do it on my own. I liked being able to help ease the burden on my dad.”
I felt like an asshole for complaining about my childhood. She had it much worse. She had lived through the loss of her mother and endured a lot of struggles and was still a happy person. I really felt like a self-absorbed prick for being the way I was. In the grand scheme of things, I had it good. “You’re amazing.”
“What about you? Did your dad demand you be the man of the house and that kind of thing?”
I laughed. “Not really. He didn’t deploy often. He was always around. He made it very clear it was his house, his rules. We either fell in line or got out. My mom was kind and gentle. She always had a hot meal on the table and made sure we knew we were loved, even if my dad couldn’t say it or show it.”
That seemed to make her happy. I felt like I knew her so much better now, with one small conversation. We ate our breakfast, talking about the weather and different events happening around the city. The trip down Memory Lane to our past was enough. I wasn’t interested in reliving those days and I doubted she wanted to either.
“What kind of fun do you have planned for the day?” I asked her.
She wrinkled her nose. “I think I mismanaged our time.”
“How so? Do you need to postpone our day of fun?”
“No, I have grand plans to make you smile and laugh and maybe even yell.”
I leaned forward. “If you are talking about another trip out on the boat, I’m up for it. I will yell as loud as you want.”
Her cheeks stained red. “Not that,” she said with a smile. “Something wilder.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Really? I’m game.”
She rolled her eyes. “You are such a man.”
“I’m not going to take that as an insult.”
It was her turn to lean forward. “I want to hear you scream.”
“I thought you were the one who was supposed to scream.”
“Oh, I’ll scream all right. I usually do.”
I was growing harder by the second just thinking about getting her naked again. I didn’t plan on a day of sex, but in the grand scheme of things, it was probably about the best way to spend a day. “My place?”
“You are bad,” she said with a grin.
“I can be anything you want.”
“Stop, you are making me blush,” she hissed.
“You are making me hard.”
She closed her eyes and shook her head. “You are killing me.”
“Do you want to reach under the table and feel what you are doing to me?”
She waved a hand, as if she was swatting at me. “What has gotten into you?”
“It’s more like what I want to get into you.”
Her mouth fell open. “We better go, or we are going to end up embarrassing ourselves in the bathroom.”
“I wouldn’t be embarrassed,” I told her.
“Let’s go,” she said, and for a brief second, I thought she meant to the bathroom. When she headed for the door, I was more than happy to follow the woman wherever she led me. I quickly paid the bill and followed