Page 108 of Daddy’s Fortitude

“Pfft. It’s fine, Silly Billy. Or should I call you Silly Willy?”

“Silly Willy?” he asked in a strangled voice.

What the hell kind of name was Silly Willy?

“Yeah, like short for Silly Wilbur. And Willy is also a word used for a diddle so it kind of suits, ya know? Yep, I think I like the name Silly Willy.”

“Have you been drinking?” he asked.

There was something going on. It was like her barriers had completely come down.

She moved, peering down over the edge at him and he braced himself, ready to catch her if she fell.

Fuck, he couldn’t stand this.

And his indigestion was out of control. Maybe he should go to the pharmacy and get something for this.

Because he wasn’t sure he could live with it.

“No, of course not. Why would you say that? You really do look like a Willy, don’t you?”

“What the hell does a Willy look like?” he asked.

“Well, if you don’t know, then I can’t tell you.” She giggled hysterically.

What the heck was so funny about that?

He couldn’t keep up with her right now.

And then she suddenly slid down the roof, letting out a cry of shock.

Okay, enough. His heart was practically thumping its way out of his burning chest. Maybe he was on his way toward a heart attack.

“Stay where you are,” he ordered.

She giggled again. There was definitely something going on with her.

“Stay here? But you were the one that wanted me to move.” She sounded like she was breathing heavily.

“Yes, I want you to get down safely, but you’re not to move until I get up there and help you down.”

“You don’t need to come up here. If you think this roof is unsafe for me, then it’s going to definitely be unsafe for you. You weigh like three times more than I do. You might go straight through it.”

He wasn’t quite sure he weighed that much, but he did weigh a lot more than she did. However, if he went through the roof, then it was in a bad way.

There was no way was he letting her come down on her own.

“I can get down just fine on my own. I’ve done it heaps of times before. But I told you, I’m still having a think up here.”

“And what are you thinking about?”

“Life. My future. The purpose of it all.”

“So just small things then,” he said dryly.

She stared down at him for a moment, then she giggled. “Yeah, just the little things, right? I’ll leave the bigger things, like what to have for breakfast tomorrow, until another day, I think. I don’t want to think about too much at once, you know?”

“Well, you might want to think of an explanation about why you didn’t eat any dinner,” he said to her sternly. “Because that’s going to get you into trouble, as well as the fact that you left the house without telling me and climbed up on a roof all by yourself.” Yeah, the sooner he got her back to the compound where she’d be unable to wander off, the better. The rules would be more easily enforced as well.