Atlas

ᴇᴘɪʟᴏɢᴜᴇ

𝚃𝚠𝚘 𝚈𝚎𝚊𝚛𝚜 𝙻𝚊𝚝𝚎𝚛

"Daddy!"

Sierra sighs right into my neck, groaning as my little cheeseball calls out for me again. "Just when I thought we could finally sleep."

I chuckle, pressing a kiss to Sierra's forehead. "I'm sure she just wants another donut before she's ready to compromise and go to sleep."

Unfortunately, I have to detangle myself from my wife to get up from the bed and make my way across the hall. The second she spots me walking out of my bedroom, her face lights up and her arms reach out.

For a second I ask myself whether or not Sierra and I really should have gotten her a night-light. It's always on, always. Not that I couldn't pay the bills, but god, I do think she keeps it lit twenty-four/seven.

"Is there a reason why you're not asleep yet, cheeseball?" I lean against the doorframe to her room, crossing my arms in front of my chest.

Allie scrunches up her nose, mimicking the way I hold my arms in front of me. "Don't call me that!"

Snickering, I take a few steps into her room, kneeling down in front of her bed. "I'm so sorry, cheeseball, but I can't stop."

"Daddy, the other kids on the playground make fun of me when you call me that," she says, letting her eyebrows fall into a mad frown. "And Johnny says it's em-bar-assing."

I have to swallow the chuckle that threatens to come out. Allie is only two years old, well, she will be tomorrow. She's still learning how to speak properly, and sometimes that requires her to speak words as multiple individual ones. Or whenever she tries to say the word "of" it's more of a "f", the "o" just completely disappears from her brain.

"Why do you care what Johnny thinks?" Johnny, the five-year-old from some woman Sierra met at the playground and instantly became friends with.

"Daddy, don't get mad, but I like him."

I think my heart just stopped beating. "I'm sorry, could you repeat that?" Allie shakes her head hysterically, slapping her tiny hands to her mouth. "Alison Rose Storm, we said no boyfriends before the age of forty-five, remember?"

She shakes her head again, this time giggling. "You said—" she holds up three fingers "—this old."

"With a zero behind it, yes."

Her eyebrows rise, mouth opening. She has no idea what number that is, yet she groans like it's the largest number there is to exist. "I will be dead be-fore that year comes." She falls back on her bed, sighing deeply.

I'm about to tell her that this is definitely not going to happen, when I spot a big lump under her blanket. One that I am sure shouldn't be there. "Did you get Taco from his room?"

Allie giggles again, quickly grabbing her blanket to cover herself with it, in hopes that would stop me from being able to snatch it from her. What I've learned so far, not only does Taco love Allie, Allie loves him even more. Every single morning, Sierra and I find him in Allie's bed, even though we told her to stop getting him from his room.