A Daddy for Damian by Joe Satoria

24. KRISTOPHER

MONDAY

After all the family drama was done, I had a great time in Berlin. It usually took me the entire weekend to decompress and gather my thoughts after everything, but it didn’t take long after the family dinner that I was back to normal and spending time with Damian, Theo, and Emile.

Theo and Emile got along, and that gave me and Damian time to explore the new idea of dating each other. It was still something I was coming to terms with. Seeing him in my bed, not stressing about getting up and putting on a suit like I’d asked him to wear as my assistant.

I think the suit he preferred was the onesie he’d slept in. The one I’d taken off him, but he’d put back on in the middle of the night while I was asleep.

“What are you doing today?” I asked him he watched me from the side of the bed. He stared at me through the mirror, catching my eye.

“I need to email college, or go in,” he said.

“You said you were studying geography, history, and—” I couldn’t recall the other subjects he’d mentioned, but I knew he wanted to go into studying dinosaurs. It was a fitting career choice for him.

“Biology,” he said. “I skipped a year because of resits. It’s all more difficult than high school.”

I knew that much was true, but it was also pushed into me from a young age that I had to study hard, and I couldn’t afford to waste time resitting exams. I had to do it right the first time, or don’t do it at all. “I believe in you,” I said.

“And what are you doing today?”

“I need to find a new assistant,” I told him. I sat on the edge of the bed, careful not to wrinkle my suit. “Because someone left me high and dry.”

“Oh.” He didn’t sound excited about the idea.

“Nina,” I began, “Theo’s assistant, she’s got connections and friends, so I’m hiring one of her recommendations.”

“That’s cool.”

I leaned over and kissed his forehead. “Don’t worry,” I told him. “I haven’t been on any dating sites scouting out new ones.”

“You—you haven’t been on any dating sites,” he picked from the conversation.

“No, I’ve not had a use for it.”

He smiled, blushing a rosy, pink colour on his cheeks. “Does—that mean we’re exclusive?”

We hadn’t talked about it, but he knew I was a one-guy type of man. “If you’re asking me about anyone else, you’re the only one,” I said. “I never wanted to go beyond sleeping with ten people.”

“I suppose that keeps your stock in check,” he said.

I gave him a funny look, feeling my forehead begin to crease. That was a sign I needed to get back to the clinic and have more Botox. “You’re right,” I said. “Ten tickets. Ten guys. You’re the last ticket holder.” I gave his forehead another kiss, squeezing my lips hard against his skin. “Don’t destroy it, I don’t do refunds.”

Damian wrapped his arms around my neck and pulled me close to him on the bed. “But do you do morning cuddles?” he asked.

By now my suit had wrinkled and I was on top of him, rolling over in the duvet. “Sometimes I do morning cuddles, and other times I do morning bites.” I pretended to fake gnaw at his check before smattering it with little kisses.

He let out a tiny roar.

“Oh, what kind of dinosaur makes that sound?” I asked.

His roar grew. “Raaagh!”

“Now tell me, cute-o-saurus-rex, what do you want to do tonight?”

He continued to pull me tight, pulling me on his body. He squeezed me on him, his fingers grabbing at my suit. “But do I have to wait until tonight?” he asked.

Wiggling my brows at him, I nodded. “Unfortunately it does. Apparently, I need to get a new assistant before I can say, well I have an assistant who can deal with work, and I can mess around in bed.”

Damian pouted his bottom lip. “And I should really go home,” he said, “my mum wants to know how Berlin was.”

“But we only got back last night,” I said. “And where does she think you stayed?” I wondered if he’d told his mother about us, and I wanted to know what she said, because I was significantly older than him. It was always something I feared, having people think of me as someone who was robbing a cradle. He was nineteen, he was old enough to make his own decisions.

He shook his head. “I told her I was staying at a friend’s house,” he said. “I still have to tell her I quit, and then I—I have to tell her I’m going back to college.” His eyes rolled as he let out a giant sigh.

“You’ll have to let me know how the college thing goes,” I told him. “And if you need anything, like textbooks, or whatever, help paying for trips to dig sites,” I listed off, I didn’t know what I was going. “I’m here, I can help you.”

Damian rolled away from me, spinning out from the side of the bed. He landed on the floor. “No, no,” he mumbled. “I can sort it all out.”

Laying back on the bed in my already wrinkled suit, I watched him. “I’m not saying ask me for things,” I told him. I didn’t know how to navigate what it was I wanted to say. “But you know I’m not some dragon sitting on wealth. If I can help you somehow, then I will.”

He looked away; I could see he was still going red inside the onesie. “Just being in this bed is enough.”

I knew that much was true. The number of times I woke in the middle of the night because he was stretching his limbs out across the way the sheets and duvet wrapped around his body. He was almost like a cat in that way, stretching out.

“Fine,” I said. “Maybe we can meet for lunch later.”

“Only if it’s not sushi, or that other thing.” He let out in a shudder.

“That restaurant we went to?”

He nodded. “Yeah, I have simple tastes.”

At least he admitted that. “Well, we can do burgers,” I told him. “You can’t go wrong with a burger.”

Looking at me, he didn’t seem convinced about the idea that you couldn’t go wrong with burgers. He shook his head. “But it has to be cooked all the way through,” he said.

I nodded. “All the way through.”

“We’re not going too quick, are we?” he asked.

I’d moved faster. I’d invited guys to live with me after a weekend together. This was on the slower end of the spectrum for me. I didn’t know if I wanted to admit that to him, but it was true. “Not unless you want to bring more of those teddies over?” I asked, patting my hand on the bed. “In this big bed, I think we could have—well—at least fifteen of them.”

“Fifteen,” he gasped.

“Fifteen,” I reiterated. I pulled up my sleeve to see my wristwatch.

Damian climbed back onto the bed. “I don’t have fifteen of them,” he said. “But if you want to buy me some.”

That was one thing I was sure he didn’t mind me spending my money on. “Deal.” I extended myself to him. Giving him a kiss. “Now, I have to go. I’ll see you for lunch later.”

He kissed me back, wrapping his arms around me once more. “That’s if I don’t just stay in this bed until you get back.”

A promise or a threat, either way, I didn’t mind.

It was just a nice feeling to know that there was someone in my bed.