Who’s Your Daddy (Secret santa daddy, season four)

Chapter 2

Enzo

“He still doesn’t know who his Secret Santa is.” Carlo stepped closer, watching Terrence out of the window as he paced the backyard. “I’m starting to think he’s just going to keep all of us.”

“He doesn’t get enough sleep. His brain isn’t working enough to figure anything out.” Which was why he was talking to himself and throwing his arms up in the air like he was losing the argument.

The people in his head weren’t always nice to him.

“He might be talking to someone on the phone. He has those pods things.” Sergio always talked about tech like he was eighty but he wasn’t wrong. “They always make people look insane.”

Well, he usually wasn’t wrong.

“He thinks he lost them in the laundry room, but I’m pretty sure he set them down near the pile of papers that tipped over.” Orlando pushed between us, not bothering to pretend he wasn’t watching Terrence. “He talks to himself more when he doesn’t have them in, though, so I haven’t reminded him about them yet.”

Rolling my eyes, I glared at the imp. Being the youngest cousin got him entirely too much leeway sometimes. “He likes music when he’s working and the over the ear kind gives him a headache and makes him look like a DJ. He doesn’t like either of those things.”

Orlando shrugged, not looking repentant at all. “I like hearing what he’s thinking.”

He was so fucking nosy.

“But no headphones mean no dancing.” Sergio couldn’t help putting his two cents in either. “He said I’m cuddly and he hasn’t tried to dance with me in days.”

For fuck’s sake.

“You guys would get more done if you remembered he was mine.” It wasn’t a hard concept to grasp but they were being pains in the asses about it.

“Finders keepers.” Sergio shrugged. “He thinks I’m cuddly.”

I’d rolled my eyes so much lately they were starting to develop muscle tone, but I couldn’t help doing it again. “No. He needs a Daddy and that’s me.”

He was a little who was about as subtle as those neon blue cabinets he’d tried to say were beautiful.

“I could learn.” Orlando was just being ridiculous, but it made everyone start coughing to cover their laughter. “It’s not rocket science. You make rules and glare.”

For fuck’s sake.

“Terrence said so, huh?” Carlo grinned when everyone else started nodding. “Well, I guess that just means Enzo gets to keep him. The rest of us don’t glare enough.”

One day I was going to kill them all, and the rest of the family would just have to understand.

“Since that’s settled, can someone magically help him remember where his headphones are so we can get back to work?” The house was older than dirt and every time we fixed one problem, another cropped up…and if they kept wandering around to see what he was doing, we’d never get the house finished. “Terrence is getting tired of cooking in the laundry room.”

He’d done an amazing job of working in the makeshift space, but his patience was starting to run thin.

“He said he can’t make Christmas cookies in the small kitchen because there isn’t room to lay out the dough.” Orlando’s helpful gossip had everyone going quiet. “So if we don’t get it done soon, we won’t get any.”

Judging by the silence, that was deemed unacceptable.

“He said he was going to make Christmas tree cookies.” Sergio seemed personally offended at having them snatched away from him. “He promised.”

Reminding myself that Terrence was supposed to be the little, I shrugged. “He makes the cookie rules, but…but if he ever figures out who his Secret Santa is, then I can let him use my kitchen.”

It’d be weird to just randomly offer, so I had to wait.

The patience it was taking was mind-blowing, though.

“He’ll get to that eventually, right?” Carlo raised one eyebrow as he glanced in my direction. “I think you’re going to need to up the incentive. Right now, he’s getting to smile and flirt with everyone and he’s getting presents.”

“You’re going to have to hide his toys.” Orlando didn’t seem to think there was anything wrong with talking about Terrence’s sex toys. “He doesn’t have enough incentive to figure out the Daddy thing.”

I wasn’t going to admit the ridiculous idea had merit.

“Yeah, he’s getting all the attention he wants and then he’s having fun attentioning himself all afternoon. He’s not in any hurry to figure out who wants to give him rules.” Sergio shrugged like the whole conversation was perfectly reasonable.

Which to me meant we’d spent entirely too much time together growing up.

“He works all morning and his brain slows down in the afternoon. It’s not his fault he’s loud.” At first, I thought he’d been doing it for attention, but he hadn’t seemed to realize any of us were bi until recently.

We’d all gotten variations of the you know men can date men, right question, so he’d finally pieced that together.

Clearly, Orlando telling Terrence that his ass looked great in his favorite jeans hadn’t been enough of a clue.

Yep, I was never going to get to be his Daddy.

The kitchen reno was interesting and Terrence was fascinating, though, so there were some upsides.

“I’m not going to take his toys.” Any of them.

I wouldn’t have to.

“I just need to figure out a way to get him to play along instead of trying to fuck with us for attention.” That had been my strategic mistake.

I’d forgotten that he was an attention whore.

“He might be grateful if his Secret Santa found his earbuds.” Orlando’s words were sweet but his smile was devious.

Yep, I wasn’t going to have to hide the toys.

“In the next note, it might be a good idea to include a promise that his Santa would let him use his kitchen to make Christmas cookies.” Carlo shrugged when we all turned to him. “What? He likes baking. It’s one of the only things outside of work he actually pays attention to.”

Okay, Carlo had a point.

Terrence was some kind of think tank rocket science smartie and he didn’t function well outside of work.

It was why we’d all decided fairly quickly that he needed a keeper and why I’d been glad when we’d figured out he was a little.

Not that he’d made it difficult to figure out.

Subtle was not Terrence’s middle name.

Hot mess was.

“Fine. Santa will promise him time in the good kitchen and will offer up cookie decorating treats.” Terrence was a sucker for stuff like that.

Nearly giggling, Sergio nodded. “The little balls too. He wants to decorate the trees so they look real.”

“Fine.” They were all ridiculous. “But go back to work. We’re getting this kitchen done before Christmas come hell or high water.”

I wanted Christmas off before we got started on our next big reno in January. They’d all been in full agreement for a long break over the holidays until they’d realized how much fun they’d have fixing Terrence’s kitchen.

So I was basically herding cats trying to get anything done.

“He’ll love having his kitchen done so much he might do a lot of baking.” Tempting the slowpokes, I shrugged as they perked up. “And once we’re finished, I can work on actually romancing him.”

Because at the moment, we were easing into the mixing business with pleasure thing and it could backfire spectacularly.

“As long as you put some effort into sexy glares and stop dancing around what you want.” Carlo wasn’t worried when I aimed a pissed-off glare in his direction. “I’m right and you know it. Heat things up or he’ll go back to talking about climbing me like a monkey.”

Asshole.

“You know, monkeys hide in trees and pee on them, so I’m not sure that’s the compliment you think it is.” Wandering back toward the kitchen and frowning, Orlando was giving the ridiculous comment entirely too much attention. “Maybe it’s a compliment if he’s saying he could use Carlo to hide from Enzo?”

I did not scare Terrence enough to make him want to hide from me.

Confusing him was a possibility, but the troublemaker saw things his own way.

“Hey.” Carlo was trying to decide if he was offended or not as he followed Orlando, and Sergio was just trying not to laugh.

“What? No opinions on trees?” Or trying to drive me crazy.

“Nope.” Rocking back and forth on his toes as he grinned, Sergio shrugged. “I’m all for finishing the kitchen and having a bit of time off.”

And he didn’t seem to have any desire to seduce my cutie away from me.

“Then let’s work on that goal.” Because I had a smart drama queen to seduce.

****

I was never going to get to seduce my drama queen if I had to keep telling him to put real clothes on.

“No. We’ve got several subcontractors coming over this afternoon and we’ve talked about this. You have to put real clothes on and stay in your office.” He’d scared off the last one we’d tried to work with and I wasn’t going to go through that again. “Do you remember what happened?”

Terrence froze mid-step then sighed defeatedly. “Fine. But it wasn’t my fault he was wandering around unescorted. How was I supposed to know that he was so delicate?”

Ignoring the snickers coming from the kitchen, I stayed focused on Terrence. “You were wearing pajamas that said Fuck the Cook while you wandered around with cookies shaped like penises and those funky hot dogs.”

They’d tasted great but it’d looked like we were all eating dicks.

“The cookies were supposed to be Christmas trees but somehow they just went wrong.” Shrugging, Terrence turned around and slowly started making his way upstairs. “That wasn’t my fault. The dough spread a lot further than I expected.”

“I’m not even going to respond to that.” Because everything I could think of sounded inappropriate or like a sexual innuendo at the very least. “Those pajamas look like that mouth is doing…things. Real clothes on and then come right back down.”

Or he’d get distracted.

It was entirely too close to his afternoon orgasm break to let him wander around without a purpose and a real grown-up in charge.

“Aww.” Glaring at me, Terrence managed not to say I was cockblocking him, but it was close. “I need to relax.”

We had very different definitions of that word.

“It’s almost nap time.” He sounded reasonable but the bulge in his too-thin pajamas gave the game away.

“Five minutes to put real clothes on or I’ll bring salads to work for the rest of the week.” The first ones had only been because my mother had unloaded a stupid amount of groceries on me before my parents had gone on a cruise, but it was a good threat and a wonderful way to get more vegetables in Terrence.

“You’re going to push me too far one of these days.” Mumbling something that sounded like a question, Terrence grumbled about Daddies and rules as he stomped toward the stairs, but he didn’t call me out on being his Secret Santa.

“Excuse me?” I let my voice drop to a full Daddy voice and got a sexy shiver from Terrence. “Did you have something we need to talk about?”

Groaning, Terrence shook his head. “No…at least I don’t think so…maybe later. Eventually.”

He was definitely dragging out the situation for attention.

“That’s what I thought.” Because he was a drama queen but he wasn’t stupid. “If you need a break, I’m sure you can find something relaxing or fun to do in your office for a little while.”

I happened to know he had a new coloring book and crayons as well as a new dump truck that would haul around a lot of random shit.

“ Those aren’t the toys I wanted to play with .” He seemed to think he’d muttered that to himself, so I didn’t have the heart to tell him he was a lot louder than he’d thought. “Thank you for your suggestion.”

He had inside thoughts and outside thoughts and they didn’t always stay where they were supposed to, but he tried to be polite, so I took that into consideration. “You’re welcome.”

The sigh he let out as he got to the top of the stairs was filled with drama and frustration…which I’d learned would lead to him making questionable decisions. “Four minutes left.”

“ Damn it .”

Another inside thought escaped, but since it seemed to indicate he knew he wasn’t getting the playtime he wanted at the moment, I let it go.

We were on the home stretch and as long as nothing else ridiculous popped up in his house, we were close enough that I could push Terrence toward actually talking about his Secret Santa.