✔️The Greaser and the Skirtchaser [18+]

Just the Other Day...

"Daddy!"

"Vivi!" Blake kneels down, and the little fireball hits him right in the chest. "Agh! You're too strong. Or maybe I'm getting old. Do you think twenty-nine is old? It can't be, right?"

Viviana giggles. She has such bright eyes and cute little cheeks that Blake has to plant a kiss on one, and she squeals. "I think so. You're older than my teacher Miss Bloom."

That actually kind of stings.

"Daddy, come on, come on. The fair's starting! Babbo is over there getting ice cream!"

He laughs and shushes her. "Hey, you have to say zietto around others, okay? Zietto Vance."

"Ah!" She makes the same shushing sound, and they shush each other. "Zietto."

"There's so many adults here. How are we supposed to see anything? This blows." Blake looks around before grinning at her. "I have an idea."

"Balloon animals!" She points at a clown making a balloon cupcake.

"Oh, that's good, too." Blake strokes his jaw. "I guess we could do that instead of sit on my shoulders."

"Oh! Both! Do Both!" She squeals as Blake kneels down and lets her mount his shoulders. He stands up, and she's already pretty deep into a fantasy about riding a pony into... a volcano, for some reason... when a very handsome, strong man with the most gorgeous sky-blue eyes approaches them with a chocolate ice cream.

Blake grins. "Hi, sweetheart."

Vance smiles. He still blushes the same. "Hi."

Viviana gets the chocolate ice cream and informs, "Babbo, we have to get the balloon animal, too! We need it."

"We really do." Blake nods along and takes them over. He lets Viviana off to make a request for a cannoli to the poor, clueless clown, so he can talk to Vance. "Busy in the shop?"

"You have no idea." He chuckles. "Rita and Danny must be up to their necks by now."

"Good thing you called off to goof off with us. It was really so worth it to open a farmer's market in Resthaven, wasn't it? I wonder who came up with that idea." Well, he did get help when Jenny offered to play angel investor in return for a hefty percentage share in the company, but Blake isn't in it for money anyway. But money is pretty nice when Northfield Market Co. exclusively gets its ever-expanding fleet of delivery vehicles serviced by the Romano Auto-Shop. Not only did the company revive the shop, but it also flushed enough dough into Northfield's economy that the town has expanded over the last few years.

Vance laughs. "Sometimes I wonder how your head fits through doors."

"Same way it fits between your—"

Vance elbows him, blushing. "Not here, Blake."

"Right. Somewhere else." Blake winks.

"Posso vedere il flirt da qui," Danny loudly butts in. He's holding hands with Rita, who has a strawberry ice cream herself.

"Ah! Tía!" Vivi runs towards Rita who crouches down with a big smile at the sight of her niece. "Oh, look! Look at this!"

"Hiya, chiquita." She grins kind of confused at the brown clump of balloons. "That's a very nice stick you've got."

"Nooo!" she groans with an appropriate amount of drama. "It's a cannoli! See? There's the cream."

While Rita and Viviana are discussing the balloon cannoli, Vance aims at Danny, "Aren't you supposed to be at work?"