I finished chewing a mouthful of bacon and eggs before responding. “I grew up in a neighborhood where most people speak Spanish, so it kind of became my second language quicker than Italian could.” I thought of Nicky and grinned a little. “My brother manages to butcher four languages on a daily basis. He mixes English with Spanish, Italian, and slang like no other.”

August smiled pensively at me but made no comment.

Camden wouldn’t be steered away from his topic and requested a “new, sexy pet name” for every day I was here in Nashville.

“But it has to be cute too,” he added. “Because I’m cute.”

Yeah, he was.

I racked my brain for a fitting term as I finished my coffee and landed on one of the more common nicknames for children. “Today you’ll be my topolino, then. It’s the name for Mickey Mouse in Italy and translates roughly to little mouse.”

He grinned goofily. “I can totally be a mouse. They’re cute.”

“That cute little mouse is going to clean his room today,” August interjected smoothly. “I’ve prepared a list for you.”

Camden’s look of horror was funny.

“It includes the little mouse’s arts and crafts supplies,” August added with a pointed look. “You’ve been putting that off for weeks.”

Camden sighed heavily and stared at his plate. “I don’t wanna be the little mouse no more.”

Precious boy. I didn’t know whether to laugh or hug him.

August was primarily amused, though there was an underlying current of severity that told me he could definitely be a disciplinarian.

This was one of the things that fascinated me the most about D/s and why it appealed to so many with cognitive differences. A lifestyle where structure and order were such significant factors. Music was similar, as was the way I worked with students who had autism or ADHD. Freedom and peace were sometimes found in the confines of something smaller, be it in the structure of a song or in a dynamic encased by rules. Maybe Camden’s mind was more at rest when Daddy held the leash.

Spending the next week with them was going to be interesting in many ways.

I’d been to food festivals before—in Brooklyn. Big fan. I loved food. But this couldn’t compare. This was something else.

Everything was bigger in the South, I’d heard.

August and I had come separately for obvious reasons; today was supposed to be the first time I met the man since I’d “missed” the barbecue last night. But as I walked through the actual field that was now a temporary parking area for festivalgoers—not to mention already three times bigger than the festivals I’d been to in New York—I wondered if the sneaking around was necessary. It was ten in the morning, and the area was packed with people. And trucks. Trucks everywhere.