Total pages in book: 90
Estimated words: 87284 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 436(@200wpm)___ 349(@250wpm)___ 291(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 87284 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 436(@200wpm)___ 349(@250wpm)___ 291(@300wpm)
He was standing right here.
“Laaawd h’mercy, he runs a zoo upstairs, Sir.” Corey raised a brow at me. “You know my limits. I’m not going near baby mice, but other than that, I can help.”
I grinned, more than a little relieved. “No frozen pinkies, I promise. Noodle and Blue need a single meal while I’m away, and George and Niels need two. So I would feed the ringnecks before I leave, and I’ll prepare everything so you can give them their meal when you get back from New York. It takes a couple minutes, I swear. George and Niels need maybe twenty minutes of your time twice.”
“Refresh my memory, George and Niels are the turtles, right?”
I nodded. I was only fostering them temporarily. They’d have a new home at a university in Georgia next spring.
“But you have like a million snakes too.” He looked confused.
“Jesus,” Sloan muttered.
I rolled my eyes. “Five is not a million. Only Blue and Noodle eat more than once a week, though. Ghost hasn’t eaten all winter.” He never did. He’d been wild-caught and still went into a low-activity period after the summer. “I’ll feed Ziggy and Frank tomorrow, and then they’ll be good for at least ten days.”
“What about the fishies?” Corey pressed.
“I’ll drop a vacation feeder in the tank.” I shrugged. “I promise, it’s only the ringnecks and the spotteds.”
Sloan was beginning to look amused. “We will obviously help, Lane. And would you mind if I brought my eldest son? He loves reptiles.”
“No problem at all. Corey knows his way around.” I glanced at my cousin. “If you take one out for Sloan’s kid, go with Ziggy.”
With Ghost in hiding, Ziggy was the most docile one around strangers.
“Oh, I don’t see that happening,” Sloan assured. “Jason may love snakes, but his father isn’t a fan.”
I chuckled. Either way, now they knew which one to go with.
“Yeah—enough snake talk,” Corey declared and reached for a bowl of grapes on the table. “Who’s this friend, Lane? Is he your boyyyyfriend?”
I wasn’t gonna give him shit. “He’s just a friend. You don’t know him.”
He popped a grape into his mouth. “Uh-huh. Where are you going?”
Damn. He undoubtedly knew that some of his friends were going to Florida, but then again, so did a lot of people in the winter.
“Florida,” I admitted.
“Huh!” He perked up. “Is everyone going to Florida? Half our community is going too.”
Half was probably a stretch. I’d heard so many fucking names from their kink community, both from Corey and Macklin, that they were all a big blur. But I did know that not many of them would be in Florida.
“Macklin’s going, right?” I did my best to play the part of a cousin on the outside of their social circle. As far as Corey knew, Macklin and I were acquaintances at best.
“I think so.” Corey bobbed his head. “If you ask me, he should hop on a plane to Boston instead. He needs to work things out with his husband—but don’t tell him I said that if you see him. He swears he’s totally hooked on some new boyfriend.”
Well, hell. Extremely difficult not to smile now. Despite the mention of Walker fuckin’ McKenna.
“I wonder whatever happened to their date,” Sloan pondered out loud.
“What date?” I blurted out like a damn idiot.
I couldn’t help but get annoyed. The mention of Mack’s ex put me on edge, because I couldn’t shake the feeling that they still belonged together, something that Macklin kept denying.
“From the auction, obviously.” Corey gave me a duh look. “Mack gave up his booty at the charity auction, and Walker participated online and won.”
Oh, that one. I knew that much, but Mack told me he’d gotten out of it.
The Mclean House community had their own estate outside the city, a place where they had everything they needed, from nightclub and playrooms to guest rooms and a giant piece of property. And there’d been a fire at the house, so they’d hosted an auction to raise money for the rebuild.
“You can always ask him yourself,” I said. I trusted Macklin. If he told me he’d gotten out of the date, he’d gotten out of the date. “I’ll bring you back a T-shirt as a thank-you for feeding the boys, and I’ll leave instructions in the kitchen.”
“Can you bring me back a frog?” He grinned goofily.
I let out a laugh and felt the tension drain away. It felt good. “I’ll see what I can do. An invasive species that lays eggs all over the place, right?”
“That’s the one!” He beamed. “So, um, I guess I’ll see you next year?”
Groan.
That joke never got old, huh?
I chuckled dryly. “Guess you will. Have fun in New York.”
After a strongly worded phone call with the airline, Macklin managed to change his booking so we could get on the same flight. Around ten, we taxied out on the runway at National, and it felt so bizarre. I had luggage packed with tees, boardshorts, and sunscreen. I’d spend the next week in the sun.