chapter 3

Moving throughout the room, she noticed an enormous

dollhouse. It was even bigger than the one she had at

home, which was really saying something. Sinking down to

her knees, she leaned forward and studied all the rooms in

the house before looking in the basket next to it that held

dozens of dolls that went with the house.

Pulling out one doll at a time, she made a little family

and then added a dog, a cat, and a chicken to the group.

Picking up the figurines, she started placing them inside

the house in various rooms.

Every now and then, she would look up and watch other

Littles or couples interact but would go right back to

playing by herself. The noise of the Littles behind her made

her feel as though she was in daycare, waiting to be picked

up by her perfect Daddy.

Yeah, right. Like that would ever happen.

She imagined that perfect Daddy would watch her from

outside the door with a smile on his face before he came in

to take her home. It was probably weird that she liked the

idea of a Daddy watching her but whatever. She was weird.

All her life, her parents had made her feel weird. They even

told her she was weird once. It had hurt her feelings, but it

wasn’t like they were around enough for her to have a close

relationship with them anyway.

“Can I play with you?”

Ruby looked over to find another Little sitting next to

her with a hopeful look in her eye. But she wasn’t falling

for it. Nope. No friends.

“No,” she said before turning back to the dollhouse.

“Why not? The house is big enough for both of us to play

with. We could play together,” the Little replied.

Ruby ignored her and continued to play with the toys.

After a short moment, the Little next to her started pulling

toys out of the basket and moved over to the side of the

house a bit further from Ruby, and started playing in the

rooms on that side.

Furrowing her eyebrows, she glared at the woman. “I

said you couldn’t play!”

The woman looked up with wide, green eyes.

“The rules say we all have to share the toys here,” the

woman said softly.

“No! I’m not sharing. I said no. Go away!” she said

loudly.

The room went almost silent and within seconds, a tall

man and a matronly-looking woman were standing beside

them.

“What’s going on here, Maddie?” the man asked.

The woman looked up at the man with tears in her eyes.

“I asked if I could play with her and she said no, so I moved

over to this side of the house to play and now she’s mad

because she doesn’t want me to play with the house.”

The man, who was quite handsome, looked over at Ruby

and studied her for a moment before looking back at the

woman.

“Young lady, you must share all of the toys in here,” the

matronly woman said firmly.

Ruby was pretty sure the woman was a Mommy, but she

was wearing a button on her blouse that said ‘Room

Monitor’.

Glaring up at the woman and the man, Ruby crossed her

arms over her chest and huffed.

“I don’t want to share. I was here first,” she replied.

“Come on, sweetie, let’s go find something else to play

with for right now. You can come back to the dollhouse

later,” the man said to the Little.

“Yeah, go away,” Ruby muttered.

“Excuse me?” a deep voice interrupted.

Her head snapped back, and her gaze landed on a pair

of stern gray eyes staring back at her. His eyes were

mesmerizing but the expression on his face made her

bottom tingle.

Uh-oh.

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