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when I’d have time for messin’ around is beyond me.
    Wouldn’t hurt to look and imagine, though. Jody hadn’t had a lot of actual experience other than what he and Frankie had done together. He’d learned to use his imagination to the full extent of his abilities.
    After he’d buckled Prissy into her car seat—a feat that Jody doubted he’d ever learn to do with any kind of speed—he got in and buckled himself in. A few minutes on the road, and Prissy was singing to herself. Jody’s thoughts returned to Noel. Jody was fascinated by him. It had to be because Noel was so different from him. It was no wonder that Noel kept popping into his thoughts.
    And to fantasise about touching a smooth-skinned man like Noel had to be… Well, that was something Jody would put every effort he could into doing right. Frankie was cute and all, but he was as rough as a cob cowboy at heart. The only slick thing about him was his tongue and that was only in certain situations. Noel exuded an envious level of coolness, a polished worldliness that Jody had seen in his favourite actors or other people he viewed as being smarter and more talented than he’d ever be.
    Noel was sleekly handsome, too, with his brown hair in a kind of mohawk, the tips of which were bleached a white-blond. He had the biggest, prettiest green eyes Jody had ever seen. They were darker than the leaves of the pines on the ranch, and they were rimmed in a grey-blue colour. His nose was a little long for his face, his lips just plump enough to make a man think dirty thoughts. There was a slight divot in his chin that Jody would love to lick.
    “Stop it,” Jody said to himself.
    “Stop it,” Prissy repeated. “Stop it, stop it, stop it.”
    Jody chuckled and started singing a song about a mean bunny. For the rest of the drive, he kept his attention where it should have been, on his driving and Prissy. Once he walked into the daycare with her on his hip, though, he saw Noel.
    The man looked edible, fuckable, all the things Jody shouldn’t have been thinking about but even as a father, he was still also twenty years old and had a libido that he couldn’t quite squash down.
    “Hey, Jody, Prissy.” Noel came out from behind the little desk tucked into an alcove that served as a check-in and God only knew what else. “Are you excited to start daycare?”
    Jody assumed that Noel was asking Prissy. Much to Jody’s surprise, Prissy tucked her chin to her chest and clung to him like she hadn’t done before. “Daddy.”
    Oh, damn, his heart was going to break if she started crying, especially since she’d just called him daddy in that shaky voice.
    “Let me get Seana,” Noel murmured, picking up the handset.
    “Hey, baby girl, you’re going to have so much fun,” Jody assured Prissy, hoping that he wasn’t lying to her. “There’s kids here to play with, and Ms Seana will be coming out to say hi and show you everything again. You get to see that pretty blue and green room, the one with the jungle painted on the walls. You liked that, remember?”
    Jody had got a tour of the place yesterday and Prissy had babbled on and on about that jungle. She particularly liked the tigers. “You want to go see those tigers again?”
    “Tigers?” Prissy repeated, sniffling loudly. Jody wondered how parents survived all the little pains they experienced when their children were unhappy.
    “Yeah, Prissy. They have the tigers, with the green eyes—” Eyes very much like Noel’s in colour. “Maybe you can count the monkeys, too.”
    “I like monkeys,” Prissy said in a perkier tone. Her bottom lip quivered, though, and her eyes were glistening.
    “Look who’s here! It’s Prissy!” Seana had such an upbeat tone going on that Jody immediately felt a little less like a jerk for putting Prissy in daycare. “Oh, I have been waiting for you to get here all morning. You just wait and see the fun we’re going to be having. It’s Friday, so that means paint day! Do