Boner Scrapbook
Chapter five
Cya
“Well, isn’t he gonna be fun,” Gem proclaimed as Toni, Glyma, and Dex disappeared into the kitchen, the doors swinging shut behind them.
“Says you. You won’t have to work with him every day,” Rusty grumbled.
Honestly, Cya agreed with the Pyclon, but they remained silent as they turned their attention back to the espresso machine.
“He seems sweet,” Oliver defended.
Gem smacked Rusty in the biceps. “Yeah, be nice to him, Rus. He’s gonna look up to you.”
Rusty rubbed at his arm and scowled up at the Araknis. “How? He’s huge.”
“You know what I mean.” Gem huffed in exasperation as he stepped back behind the register to take the next customer’s order. “You’re older and cool. You’re gonna be his… sensate or whatever.”
“You mean sensei?” Oliver corrected, and Gem waved a blase hand.
“Same thing.”
“I don’t wanna be anyone’s sensei,” Rusty said with a hint of a whine in his voice.
“Too late,” Gem sing-songed.
“It’s a good thing,” Oliver said, placing a hand on Rusty’s shoulder. “You’ll be a great mentor.”
A mix between a growl and purr vibrated in the Pyclon’s chest, like he couldn’t decide whether to be annoyed or flattered. Oliver grinned down at him, scratching behind his notched ear, and Rusty ducked his head in embarrassment, even as his striped tail whispered over Oliver’s side.
“Whatever,” he muttered, but Cya caught the way he reached out to rub a thumb over Oliver’s wrist as the human made to walk away.
Cheeks pink, Oliver hesitantly reciprocated, swiping two fingers over Rusty’s inner wrist, and the Pyclon’s eyes widened in surprise.
They stared at each other for a moment before Rusty purred in earnest, and Oliver’s grin brightened even more.
Gem, for his part, simpered obnoxiously, several eyes watering as he pressed two hands to his chest.
“Can I get a smoothie?” a customer asked, and Gem rounded on her, flashing fang.
“For fuck’s sake, Brenda, read the room! We’re clearly having a moment here.”
Perplexed, Cya watched the exchange unfold. The dynamics between everyone at the cafe confused them; they always had. Different species from various classes and cultures, yet there was more affection and connection amongst them than Cya had witnessed in their own blood relations.
Seeing Oliver drag Rusty into a hug while the Pyclon pretended to hate it—even as he curled his tail around the human’s legs—made Cya’s stomach clench. Their skin felt tight and uncomfortable, the back of their tongue turning bitter. They looked away, swallowing the disconcerting feeling.
With a gentle shove, Rusty escaped Oliver’s embrace and crossed his arms over his chest with a huffed, “Get off me. You’re making things so weird right now.”
“Love you too, Care Bear,” the human said as he strode toward the hallway leading to Quin’s office.
“Dick,” Rusty grumbled without any real heat, backing away with a chitter when Gem released a squeal and made grabby hands at him. “No, Gem, keep that cute-aggression in check.”
“That’s an entirely unfair request!” Gem pouted, but he heeded Rusty’s growled warning.
Nearly half an hour after he’d disappeared into the kitchen, Dex returned, laughing with Toni as the Elas clapped him on the shoulder. Unbidden, a flash of jealousy speared through Cya’s chest, and they couldn’t smother their glower as Dex fist-bumped with Toni, then swaggered back to Gem’s side.
“Everybody’s so nice. Except for Tad. She was kinda scary.”
“She’s absolutely terrifying,” Gem agreed. “It’s why I want to be her when I grow up. I’ve been considering a villain era for myself, and striking fear in the hearts of men feels like a great way to start.”
“Hashtag feminism,” Dex said seriously.
Gem wiggled giddily. “Oh my gods, exactly!”
Cya clicked their tongue in irritation, causing Gem and Dex to look their way. They stiffened and focused back on the milk they were steaming. Facing them completely, Dex propped his hands on his hips and furrowed his brow into a comical frown.
He poked their biceps above one of their gold armbands and said, “I got a boner to pick with you, by the way.”
“I beg your pardon?” Cya exclaimed in complete and utter affront as Gem snorted.
“Dude, it’s bone,” Rusty said, face wrinkled in dismay. “You’ve got a bone to pick with them. Not… what you just said.”
“Yeah, don’t mention boners unless you’re ready to sit through hours of boring AF sexual harassment videos,” Gem said.
“Oh,” Dex said, drawing out the word, “that makes way more sense. ’Cause, like, what does it even mean to pick a boner? I never understood it.”
“Maybe you’re picking it out of a line-up of boners? For identification purposes?” Gem offered, splaying several hands. “Maybe there was a horrible fire and the only body part left undamaged was the peen.”
“That seems extremely unlikely,” Rusty said.
“But not impossible,” Dex said. “Ah, man, I need to show my dick to more of my friends, because I don’t think any of them could identify me by boner alone.”
“It should be more of a priority in friendships. I mean, I could only identify Toni and Rusty by just their dicks.” Gem’s eight eyes widened in alarm.
“But what if Ollie was burned to a crisp, and it was all up to me to identify him. But no! I couldn’t do it because I’ve never seen his human penis.
So then he’d be buried in an unmarked grave, forgotten and alone, all because I didn’t know what his boner looked like! ”
“Maybe a boner scrapbook,” Dex whispered, mostly to himself. “In case of emergencies.”
Rusty cringed. “You guys really gotta stop saying boner.”
“I need to see Oliver’s dick,” Gem declared resolutely. “There’s no way around it.”
“No, Gem, don’t—” Rusty tried and failed to stop Gem from stomping out from behind the counter. “Can it at least wait until after work?”
“Death waits for no man,” Gem shrieked as he disappeared down the hallway. A moment later, Cya heard, “Ollie, show me your penis!”
“What!” Oliver shouted.
“That’s it. We’re doing another round of harassment training,” Quin growled.
“No, Quin, not the videos!” Gem wailed. “Can we please role play instead? I am really good at it, and there would be no risk of actual harassment because I would never fuck you. Which sounds really rude, now that I say it out loud.
“I mean, you’re beautiful, and you’re dommy-mommy vibe is definitely something I could work with, but I would not know what to do with your cooze.”
“Jesus Christ, Gem, you are not helping your case.” Oliver’s horrified voice grew muffled as the office door shut.
Shoving his hands into his pockets, Dex exhaled in a staccato rhythm through pursed lips, like an engine struggling to start. “Well, that excavated quickly.”
“Escalated,” Cya corrected through clenched teeth, and Dex nodded sagely.
“Yeah, that too.”
Rusty sighed in resignation. “It always does.”
With a harrumph, Cya took over a half-made smoothie Gem had forgotten to finish, snapping at Dex. “Pay attention. Smoothies and juice-based drinks will be one of your tasks.”
As they added the necessary fruit to the blender, Dex stepped up beside them, eyes narrowed in accusation. “You’ve been avoiding me. We were supposed to study.”
“And you’re supposed to be learning.”
“Why didn’t you just tell me you had the runs on Thursday? I would have understood.”
Face aflame, Cya glared at the Lupyn. “Had the—I didn’t—what are you talking about?”
“You went into the bathroom and then never came out,” he said with a disappointed frown. “You could have just told me about your tummy troubles, but you ghosted me. I waited outside for, like, half an hour and missed my tram.”
Okay, that had guilt settling in their gut, but they were too mortified to give it much space. “I didn’t have tummy troubles,” they hissed in a whisper. “I left from the side exit, and I didn’t see you. So I went home.”
Which, technically, wasn’t a lie. They had left through a side exit. They’d just done that purposefully because they knew Dex was waiting for them at the front. Immature and cowardly? Probably. Worth it to avoid the humiliation of learning math from a priggish jock? Definitely.
Dex’s brows furrowed. “Why didn’t you just text me? Or answer when I called?”
To avoid answering, Cya turned on the blender, making it impossible to continue the conversation. Unfortunately, Dex was not deterred. He raised the volume of his voice to be heard over the noise.
“I was worried, you know. Because you just never came out, and then you ignored my texts.” He crossed his thick arms over his chest, and Cya hated the way their gaze caught on the swell of his biceps under his fur. “I thought you were dying of the shits or something.”
And of course he’d said that last part right as they turned off the blender, voice carrying loudly through the cafe.
Rusty’s ears, then his head, swiveled in their direction, pink eyes wide, as even the conversation in the dining area quieted.
Cya’s tail rattled, mouth pinched into a hard line, and the Lupyn’s ears lowered to lie almost flat against his head.
He pointed at the blender. “I didn’t know you were gonna turn that off.”
“Stop. Talking,” they seethed, and for the first time, Dex actually looked intimidated.
Fuming and humiliated, they poured the smoothie into a fresh cup and stabbed the lid with a straw with so much force it nearly pierced through the bottom.
They set it on the end of the counter before they returned to the espresso machine, ignoring the wall of blond fur that slid into their periphery a moment later.
“You know,” Dex drawled, “if I didn’t know any better, I would think you don’t want me to tutor you.”
“Oh, so math isn’t the only thing you’re good at understanding? Good to know.”
They offered him a saccharine smile, and his own grin slid off his face. “What?”
Cya rolled their eyes but didn’t reply.
“You wanna study tonight?” he asked.
“I’m busy,” they lied.