Chapter 24
24
DONNIE
Kitten? I totally thought when Matt explained the pet play thing to me a few weeks ago that it was referring to Toby as a pup. I did a bit of online research and saw that pups and ponies seem to be the most popular in the pet play subset of BDSM. And if there is any person I’ve ever met that embodies a puppy, it’s Toby.
“Did your boyfriend have a chance to explain before you jumped in your mini cooper to demand I rescind my offer of a place for Shiloh? Did you ask the man himself why he wants to move?”
Eric sniffs haughtily and lifts his chin while giving me the side eye. Yep. He didn’t even wait for explanations before coming over to read me the riot act.
“For your information,” I say with exaggerated slowness. “Lucky dropped into little space when he came in for their coffees. Before you ask, I don’t know if anything triggered it. Matt already gave me the third degree about it earlier. Toby rushed in, grabbed his coffee and almost killed himself tripping over nothing on his way out the door to get to class, so I couldn’t ask him about what to do. Lucky was content to keep coloring, so I sat with him until Matt and Shiloh came in.”
Thinking back on it, I relay the events of when the two men came in to the shop, obviously not on the same page about something.
“You can’t move out of the house!” Matt says in a hushed tone, visibly holding back from touching the smaller man.
“I might not be strong enough to protect my family by myself, but I need to be somewhere that the restraining order will keep him away completely.”
Restraining order? I get up from the table, surprising Lucky with the movement as he turns to the two men who just entered.
“You can’t live alone, Shiloh,” Matt says, not noticing the little who is actively paying attention to their argument. “The guys would never agree. Plus, where would you find the money to break your lease?”
“You’re leaving us?” Lucky cries out and rushes toward his friend. “You can’t leave me, Shy-Shy! You can even have my Daddy if you want, but please don’t leave me!”
Shiloh just holds onto Lucky while he sobs. I’m glad that the shop is relatively empty this morning, and the people who are here seem to be familiar with or don’t have the energy to care about this drama happening in front of them.
“Drama at Kink Manor. What else is new,” Jess mumbles sarcastically from behind the counter, and I have to fight back a sneer towards my head barista.
“I have to leave,” Shiloh says, pulling my attention back to the scene that has turned my shop into a telenovela. “The house is too far away for the cops to get there if Michael decides to show up. There’s too much opportunity for him to hurt someone with me being out there. I just need to find a place close enough to campus to where I only have a short walk to be protected.”
A short walk to campus? Protected?
“Excuse me,” I interrupt before Lucky can start wailing again. “Can someone please fill me in on what is going on in the middle of my shop?”
With a sigh, Matt explains the situation of Shiloh having a restraining order out against his stepbrother who was recently released from prison. The two of them had just come from a meeting with the head of campus security over what the school will be doing to protect him.
.”… and then this headstrong kitty decided that he needs to live away from everyone who cares about him, like we can’t keep him safe”
Before I can say anything, Lucky pulls back from his friend and stomps his feet in protest.
“My Daddy is the bestest at keeping people safe! Or… well…” I watch in wonder as I can see the man overtake the little. I can’t stop my mind from trying to decipher what it is that pulled him out of his little space. “Actually, counting on Spencer and Eli might lead THEM to get into trouble.”
Shiloh holds his hand out towards the smaller man and gives Matt a look as if to say, “See? ”
Matt sighs and looks to me for help, but Lucky bulldozes over me again.
“But you can’t get a lease or anything in your name or else el douchero step brother-o will be able to track you down. I’d say you could stay at Gramps’s place but that’s really far away from school and you’d be vulnerable with having to Uber it back and forth to school.”
Before anyone else can interrupt, I blurt out my solution with a little less tact than intended.
“There’s an empty room in my apartment upstairs!”