Boss Daddy: A Secret Baby Romance by Black, L. (good books for high schoolers .TXT) 📕

“You don’t have to come,” she said. “Not that I’m trying to talk you out of it. I just don’t want you to feel obligated.”

“No obligation,” I said. “I want to come.”

“Seriously,” she said, her voice dropping a little and making me move my eyes away from the tomato slices I was cutting. “It’s a very public place. Ethan might be stupid, but I don’t think he’s that stupid. I would be fine if you wanted to stay home or something.”

I scanned her face, making sure that she wasn’t trying to subtly tell me not to go. If that was the case, I wouldn’t make a fuss of it, I would just change my mind and offer her the cooler for herself. But the look on her face was not one of someone telling a person they need space or freedom, but one of an almost pleading hope. She really did just not want me to feel obligated to go.

“Well, how about I come, and if I start to bug you, you just tell me to get the hell out of there and I’ll go find something else to do for a while?” I asked.

She smiled. “That’s not going to happen,” she said as she pulled me down to her for a kiss.

“I just feel better being near you, and I like watching you paint. So, if you don’t mind my company, I’d like to be there, but seriously, if you need space, just let me know.”

“No, I like the idea of you being there,” she said. “I just didn’t want you to feel like you had to.”

As we drove to the library a little later, I stole glances of her looking out her window. She seemed content, if a little on edge. I could understand why. Ethan was a dumbass and didn’t get the hint. It wouldn’t surprise me if he showed up at the library, ready for anything. Being there with her made me feel better about her being there, and also it gave me a chance to sit and relax and do nothing.

I was not good at doing nothing.

When I was in the desert, there were wide swaths of time to fill between the chaos. When the chaos hit, there was only survival and orders, but between those moments of pure, unadulterated insanity were huge stretches of boredom. I’d hated it then, too. I learned every card game in existence, picked up parts of several languages, enough to communicate basic needs with a number of points on the globe, and did a lot of push-ups. A metric crap-ton of push-ups. What I never got the hang of that some of my other brothers did was how to relax.

I found relaxing to be agitating. I needed to be moving, needed to be working. When on duty, it was about protection. I needed to be on my guard, just in case. When I was off duty, it was about how I wanted to be prepared to move out at a moment’s notice. Since I had been home, it had been about me being kind of a prick who just couldn’t sit still. This was going to be a test.

I was going to try to sit down, relax on a blanket in the grass, and literally watch paint dry.

We pulled in, finding a spot just across from the wall where the mural was going, and I helped her unload her large selection of buckets of paint and various brushes and other painting supplies. The building was white cement blocks, and I marveled at the process she had.

First, she set out all her paints in a line with the brushes nearby, a bucket of water, and several old towels. Then, she set up a projector and projected the image onto the wall. An easel stood next to the projector with a smaller version of the mural on it, painted on what looked like a sketch of the building. Then she took a large black pencil, the head of which was nearly the size of my fist and drew the outline of the mural design. Moving her ladder occasionally, I worried she was overexerting herself, but she seemed fine, and the one time I got up to help her, she held up her finger, then pointed back to the blanket. She wanted to do this completely on her own.

The wall had been cleaned and primed the day before, and it sparkled in the sunlight. I could see through the projector image how the final product would look and was in awe of how gorgeous it was. Hannah was incredibly talented, and I wasn’t surprised when small crowds gathered to watch her for a few minutes at a time. It was getting close to lunch when the librarian made her way out to check on her.

“Oh my, Hannah, this is looking incredible,” she said. Hannah was working on the mural in six sections, completing them before moving on to the next, and the first section was nearly finished.

“Thanks,” she said, wiping her forehead with the back of her hand and putting a yellow streak of paint across it. “I think it’s going to come together really nicely.”

“I am sure it will,” the librarian said, stepping closer. Their voices lowered and their conversation turned to artistic mumble, and I didn’t really catch most of it, but I got the gist. The librarian was extremely impressed, both with the concept and design, but also with her execution as it was thus far. The sparkle in her eyes as she talked about her look was uplifting, and I found myself grinning from ear to ear along with her.

Happiness looked good on her.

After the librarian stopped, we took a break and ate. The sandwiches I made were seemingly a big hit, even though I silently smacked myself for forgetting the bacon. It was still at home, on a plate next to the stove. I was in such a good mood that I guess I