His Little Sunshine by Della Cain

Chapter Seventeen

Brad

When Quinn said we were going shopping, I’d been so focused on all that had happened in the short period of time since I arrived that I didn’t think about the big picture. Not really. After I’d arrived, he asked me to spend the entire filming season living with him, and I showed him all the things I had bought.

He didn’t get to see all of my purchases. I discarded a few when I saw they were very much not for me. Like bottles. I liked sucking on things as much as the next guy, but the taste of the nipple was a hard pass. Which also explained why there was no pacifier.

“Speaking of sucking on things...” I said as we drove down the highway.

“We weren’t.” He settled his hand on my thigh. “But if you catch me up, I’d be glad to know.”

Not once had he made me feel bad for disappearing into my head like that or having half the conversation in my mind first. I wasn’t sure if he understood what was happening or if he just fully accepted that it was a part of me. Either way, I loved it.

I placed my hand on his. “I was thinking about how I didn’t like the taste of the nipples on the bottle and pacifier I bought and that jumped to condoms in my thought train.”

“I’m fine using them for oral,” he reassured me. Most men weren’t, taking a personal offense to it. At least the assholes I’d been with.

“No. That’s not… I don’t want to use them.” There. I said it. “I had to go to the doctor for my yearly physical last week, and he suggested I do all the tests because that’s their job, and I have results you can see or not. I don’t want to push.”

He put his hand back on the steering wheel and, at first, I thought it might be his discomfort. It wasn’t. We were at our exit, and he needed both hands. “My physical was about two months ago. But I can go again if you want.” He pulled to a stop at the end of the off-ramp. “There has been no one but you since well before then.”

“Is that a yes?” I asked. It sounded like one, but maybe he was just stating the facts. “No condoms?”

“I would love to be inside you with nothing between us.”

“I’d like that, too.”

A few minutes later, we turned into the superstore parking lot. “We need to get some food for the house, especially with you staying with me.” I loved the sweet tone in his voice as he mentioned my sort of moving in. “But also, I thought we could get some little food, and possibly a toy and some wipes?”

I froze as he spoke. I’d thought about all those things but hadn’t wanted to buy them. It was one thing to order from a discreet place online and quite another to just wander into a store and put things in my cart.

“What will people…they will…I don’t—”

“Shhh.” He parked the truck and shut off the engine. “Sunshine, take a deep breath.” I did as he said, his voice a balm over my nerves. “Many people buy things like mac and cheese and dinosaur nuggets and toys. Not one person will think anything of our purchases.”

I hadn’t thought of it that way.

“And I’ll be by your side. You don’t even have to be the one to put it in the cart. Or, if you want, we don’t have to get anything. This is for you.”

“We can say it’s for Hue,” I said. “It’s my middle name. Not a lie or anything.”

He unclipped his belt. “Do you like to be called Hue?”

“Not particularly.” I unclipped mine. “But it works.” I reached for the door handle. “We’re doing this?”

“We’re doing this.”

Shopping with a partner had a domestic feel to it, one I enjoyed. I’d been so nervous, basically asking him to move in. When I opened those envelopes, all was right. Funny thing was that I’d been sort of sad not to be getting mail anymore. I looked forward to those almost as much as I did our phone calls. And then they were waiting for me.

“Anything you like, throw it in the cart. I don’t know if you guys pack a lunch or not.”

“I often bring one.” We didn’t have to. They did have options, but I preferred to bring my own.

We started at the produce section. This part was easy. I liked bananas, so I put them in the cart. Done.

It wasn’t until we hit the cereal aisle that I got a twinge of nerves. There were so many options, from boring ones advertising all the fiber to bright-colored ones filled with marshmallows.

“I love these.” Quinn grabbed a box of brightly colored, sugar-coated rings. “They say they’re fruit flavored, but they’re just sugar.”

I reached for Cheerios and saw a box of chocolate cereal with a gorilla on the front. I was torn. Cheerios were good and little, but also everyone ate them, making them safe. But gorillas eating chocolate balls of sugary goodness that would turn your milk chocolate? That was the opposite of safe but also delicious looking.

“I think these will do.” He grabbed the box.

I’d need to ask him later how he knew. But, for that moment, I just let out a breath of relief and said, “Thanks.”

From there, it got so much easier. Fish-shaped crackers, cookies shaped like animals, dinosaur nuggets…all of it went in the cart. They even had mac and cheese shaped like dogs. There was an unintentional theme brewing in the cart.

“I need to get Hue a few more things.” Quinn pushed the cart toward the overhead sign announcing the baby section. “He might not need them, but it’ll be nice to have them on hand.”

“You would know better than me.” Because the food portion of our shopping had wiped out my ability to make decisions.

He put a pack of wipes, diaper cream, and bubble bath in the cart.

“I also want to go to the toy section.” He was lifting all of the responsibility off me and placing it on himself. He was getting a before-dinner blow job.

The toy aisle was in shambles with a huge clearance event in progress. It was a challenge for me to process it all, but I didn’t need to. Quinn was taking over. Daddy was taking over.

By the time we reached the checkout, he had added a couple puzzles, blocks, a set of animals, and coloring toys.

We were doing this.

I was doing this.

And there was no one I’d rather do it with.

“Thank you.” Back in the car, I clicked my seat belt. “That wasn’t as scary as I’d built it up in my head. I wanted to go so many times.”

“Answer me this, Sunshine.” He turned on the ignition. “If you were here and not in the city, would you have asked me to bring you?”

Would I? I wasn’t so sure. “I might’ve asked you to go for me,” I confessed. “I don’t know.”

He picked up my hand and kissed it gently.

“But you wouldn’t have kept it all inside.”

“No. Isn’t that what a daddy is for?” I’d been dancing around that term. It fit, but also it felt like a huge step. Then again, wasn’t all of this one huge step?

“I love it when you call me that.” He slowly backed out of his spot.

“It feels right.”

“It does, my little Sunshine. It does.”