Total pages in book: 80
Estimated words: 77812 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 389(@200wpm)___ 311(@250wpm)___ 259(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77812 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 389(@200wpm)___ 311(@250wpm)___ 259(@300wpm)
“Did your mother get back alright?” I don’t think I’d ever learned her name but a woman who seemed older than the pyramids had been worried about her mom. “Was the airport crowded?”
“No, but you’ll never guess what happened.” Nope. I would not have guessed but hearing about it was fun.
And I liked hearing about the twins that’d just been born and even chipped in for the second crib because evidently we hadn’t been expecting two and that’d been a surprise.
“I agree. Someone should’ve done a less human exam on her.” I wasn’t sure how that would’ve worked but it seemed better to just agree and let someone else figure it out.
But by the time I made it out of the diner, I had an invitation to go visit the babies later in the week and a coupon for the candle shop because Miss Nancy wasn’t going to use it and she liked me because I didn’t talk about buttholes in the diner and ate all my food.
Best. Town. Ever.
And it was at least a thousand miles away from my mother…but unfortunately, phones were the electronic version of those backpack leashes some parents loved.
Like my mother.
“Hello, mother.” I’d managed to get almost twenty-four hours between calls, so I knew she’d call out the National Guard if I didn’t answer the phone.
“Don’t hello, mother me.” She’d already worked herself up in a tizzy, so I put the car in park and left the AC on while I relaxed and waited for her to tell me what I’d done to scare her. “Did you know that Mason boy thinks you’re going to take him whitewater rafting?”
I had plans to do a lot more with that Mason boy who was actually nearly forty and one of the only Doms in a hundred miles of my hometown that I wasn’t related to by blood or marriage. I was smart enough not to point that out, though, because he’d just come out of a fucked-up marriage to a woman and I wasn’t sure if he was obviously out or not.
He was the one foot in and one foot out of the closet kind of bi and everyone kept forgetting about the liking dudes part of bi even though he’d taken a guy to the senior prom.
“He’s still thinking it over and wanted to do more research. Were you going to help him with that or was his mother helping?” His mother was nearly as insane as mine, which was one of the ways we’d bonded when I’d saved him from her in the grocery store a few weeks ago. “She’s not as helpful as you are, though.”
And we were off.
Twenty minutes and several long conversational detours later and she finally let out a deep breath. “I knew he was trouble but no one would listen.”
Jacob wasn’t a mass murderer…he’d joined the rodeo.
“Some people just need to learn their own lessons.” Hopefully before he broke any bones or knocked anyone up because women were that boy’s biggest problem…not that my mother would want to hear that part. “I’m sure you did your best to help.”
She was the definition of pushy, so I knew she’d at least tried to make him do what she wanted. I’d hoped telling her what she wanted to hear would’ve been helpful to myself, but she sighed. “Please tell me you’ve met some good people there, Wren. This is your chance to network into finding a real job and maybe even finding a nice person to settle down with.”
She wasn’t exactly homophobic but she really couldn’t seem to understand why I’d decided to be the gay kind of queer and not nice and bisexual. I’d given up explaining and had decided to take a different tactic.
“I have.” It was time to scare her into leaving me alone for a while. “I met this nice, young-twenties-aged dragon and he’s got two fated mates. Mates. They’ve got a strong bond and he wears so much glitter.”
Her dramatic groan had me fighting to sound normal and not laugh. “It’s not as bad as you think and it doesn’t get everywhere. I think it’s the body paint kind, though. You know, the stuff the girls down at the Happy Shack wear on special occasions.”
As she started to sputter, I pretended not to notice and kept barreling over her like she’d taught me to do. “I don’t think I’d manage with two…that just takes so much…stamina, but he’s very energetic and likes to tell everyone about them.”
That wasn’t a lie either, which made it even better. “He’s kind of odd, though. He keeps saying human forms are crunchy but I don’t think I believe that. Well, the eating part at least. Would that be cannibalism? There was a debate about that but I wasn’t sure what side I was on. What would you have said?”