Chapter 1 #2
“Excuse me, Lane, that took a lot of work. It wasn’t an ‘All you had to do’ moment. It was life or death.”
“Was it?” I ask. “Was warming up shredded chicken comparable to life or death?”
“If you saw what I was eating before you came around, you’d agree that anything Felix makes could be life or death.”
“I would threaten you with never cooking again but I’m afraid that’d make you happy, so I’m going to threaten to cook every meal this week for you,” Felix declares.
Lane appears beyond concerned by this declaration. “I mean… do you really want to have to do that? You hate cooking. Think about how nice it’d be to just kick your feet up and watch Cal cook.”
I give them quite the look, but of course Felix doesn’t notice it.
Instead, he gets an expression of bliss on his face. “Ooh.”
“Right?”
“Ooooh.”
“Who the hell volunteered me? I never said I’d do anything of the sort!” I cry.
While I do have my own place now, I don’t have my own car yet, which means that when I get into Felix and Lane’s car, I’m forced in the back with a dog and a pig. The dog I don’t mind. Copper sits on the seat like a gentleman. But the pig?
He seems to think sprawling onto my lap is ideal, while I believe that I really would like blood to flow into my legs.
“He just loves you,” Felix coos, like he thinks that’ll distract me from the way he’s just locked the car doors. Like… is there a reason he locked the doors? Does he not realize that I can simply unlock them myself, push his pig off, and take a bus to my apartment?
“What the hell, why won’t the door open?” I ask.
“I didn’t want you getting any ideas, so I put the child safety locks on,” he explains.
“My idea involved going home and sleeping my life away,” I say.
“You must eat.”
“You say that like you’ll feed me!”
“I can feed you,” Lane says. “Are there any red foods you like?”
“Why are they red? So that if you bleed on them, I won’t notice?”
Lane shakes his head as Felix speeds off toward home. “I’m phenomenal with a knife. I’ve only cut myself one time, and that’s because Felix’s Bacon Bits slammed into me.”
“Don’t you dare call him Bacon Bits. What if he has nightmares because of you?” Felix hisses.
“Well, since he sleeps in our bed, I can reach over and smack him awake,” Lane says.
“You know he gets sad sleeping on the floor.”
“You cannot invite any more animals into our home, do you understand?”
“What if we solve this issue by simply getting a bigger bed? Presto. Perfect.”
“You’d just use it as an excuse to fill it with more stolen pets.”
“I haven’t stolen a single one of my pets. They all lovingly wanted to come with me. Brigs wouldn’t have hidden so quietly in my shirt if he hadn’t wanted to, would you, little Brigadier?” Felix asks while Brigs begins trying to get into my pockets as if it’s his life goal.
“Stop it! I don’t have anything for you!” I protest, but the pig is determined. He’s rooting like he’s expecting to find gold at the bottom of my pockets, and I’m just trying to shove the pig off. He’s surprisingly solid and the thing isn’t even fully grown yet.
“Let Briggy have whatever he wants,” Felix says.
“At this rate, he’s pushing against my body so hard I’m confident he wants my arteries.”
“Then you let him have them!”
“How about I don’t?”
“Lane, what should we order for dinner tonight?” Felix asks, like I’m running some diner they can pick and choose from. The kind of diner where I don’t get paid and my tips come in the form of animals begging me for attention and scraps.
“Do you even have food in the house?” I ask.
“We do,” Lane says. “Felix led me through the store going, ‘Ooh, Cal can make this! Oh! And I want him to make me tacos!”
Felix gasps. “Taaacooos.”
“I don’t get paid enough for this,” I mumble as Felix pulls into the driveway of their home.
Though I bitch about it, I’m well aware that if he didn’t drag me into his chaotic household, I would go back to my apartment where the quiet would creep in until I couldn’t stand it anymore.
It’s why I’ve ended up here more and more often.
Thankfully, they don’t seem to mind. If they did, I doubt they’d drag me here as often as they do.
It actually feels more like a loving hostage situation than anything.
“I invited Antonio for tacos too,” Felix says.
“When? And how did you even know I was going to willingly make you tacos?”
“Because you love me. End of story,” Felix decides as he gets out and opens the back door where all of his creatures trample over my lap to get out. Like would it have been that hard to have gone around my legs or waited?
I have to wonder what his neighbors think.
Following him inside, I head right for the kitchen, feeling a bit hungry as I start pulling out the supplies while Felix beams at me.
I side-eye him while scavenging through his supplies. “Your smile creeps me out.”
“My smile is magnificent.”
“Magnificently creepy,” I grumble.
There’s a knock on the door, so he happily runs off to collect either Antonio or some random person who is here to abduct us and drag us off to make us do their bidding like the last time Felix got wound up in something.
Thankfully, it’s Antonio, who comes in and warily looks around.
“What?” I ask.
“Nothing, nothing. I was just sure this was a setup. Felix was like, ‘Come for food,’ and I was unsure if that was code for something. The last time he was like, ‘Oh, come over for a fun time,’ and he ended up making me paint the entire inside of his new office. Like… is that fun ?”
“Felix’s definition of fun is swindling a casino, stealing an expensive watch, getting held at gunpoint by the watch’s owners, breaking into a charity event, trying to murder me with a projectile safe and somehow not dying, so yeah…
I think painting a wall sounds significantly more fun,” I say as I put the ground beef into the pan to cook.
“You know… you’re right.”
“Cal is smart, isn’t he?” Felix interrupts. “Like, when you look at him molding himself to my furniture, you go, ‘He really seems to be lacking in the intelligence tree,’ but then you realize it’s secret intelligence that only comes out when you least expect it. Must be a skill he’s acquired.”
“I’m not a video game character,” I mutter.
Felix raises his hand, then lowers it to about knee height. “Yet he’s like this high in lethargy and this low in stamina.”
“Says the man I could run circles around,” I say.
Felix tsks, like that might not be true.
I pause cutting up tomatoes and turn to him because I’m not going to let him win this conversation. “Let’s do one lap around the house. Loser has to finish making dinner.”
Felix jerks out his phone. “Hold that thought, I’m getting a call,” he says, even though his phone’s screen is obviously blank. “Hello? Oh! Mr. Hemsworth… you know you’re not supposed to call when Lane is home.”
“Is… Is he pretending Chris Hemsworth is calling him to get out of running?” Antonio asks.
“He told me the other day he wants to dress Lane up as Thor… for sex purposes… and he wants to dress as Loki.”
“Oh no. Aren’t they brothers? Like maybe not biologically, but?—”
“Don’t question it. At least his fake phone call got rid of him,” I say. “Do you like tacos? I guess I should have asked.”
“I do! My grandma would make tacos, and she’d make them so hot we’d be crying. I’m confident she just liked our tears. It was the only time I ever saw her smile at her grandchildren.”
I laugh before questioning if he’s not joking. “I hope you’re joking.”
“I’m not! She was evil. It was impressive, honestly. Do you need help? I suppose I could do more than just stand here and watch.”
“It’d be great if you could put the shells in the oven.”
“I can do that,” Antonio says as he begins arranging the prepackaged shells Felix got.
I feel a nudge at my leg and look down as Brigs stares up at me with his beady eyes, evidently confident I should start shoveling the food into his mouth.
I grab a piece of tomato and hand it to him, which he eagerly eats.
And then suddenly Copper is there, confident that he should get something too.
“Do you actually want a piece of tomato?” I ask as I hand him a small piece, feeling certain he’ll spit it out and Brigs will get that too. But nope, he swallows it.
Brigs is now rooting around for more so I toss him a piece of lettuce, but because he can’t catch like a dog, Copper grabs it.
Copper is less than impressed, but he’s determined to chew it all up and spit it out on the floor, maybe hoping it will grow flavor the longer he chews.
Brigs looks horrified that the dog would choose to take his treat and when he finally gets it, it’s mauled, slobbered, and disgusting, but he eats it without a care in the world.
“What is happening over there?” Antonio asks.
“I don’t know. Something disgusting, for sure. Where’s Frank?”
“He’s out of town with some buddies of his.
I think with one of his former CEO partners or something.
It sounds like he’s trying to convince Frank to go in on something together and Frank said that he has absolutely no interest but was willing to meet up with them.
I guess he’ll be back next week, but he’s been gone so long. ”
“How are things going with you two?”
Antonio is all smiles as he forgets he was helping me and leans against the counter.
“So good. He’s so sweet and nice and lovely.
Like I’ve gone on dates with people before and they were so pushy and rude and clearly just wanted to sleep with me, and I hated it so much.
It made me not even want to go out for drinks with guys. But he’s the sweetest.”
“Good, I’m glad,” I say.
“What about you? Are you… wanting to go out there and meet anyone? Ooh, there’s a dancer at work who is just a delight. He’s a fantastic dancer, but when it comes to talking to others, he’s super shy. But like in a cute way. He opens up once you get to know him.”