Page 20 of Lila

“You wanna visit your penguin, today?”

He bounces next to me, clapping his hands.

“I’ve gotta go. You two have fun. Behave,” Ann says, pointing at Gray with a raised brow.

“We’ll be fine. Don’t worry.” I assure her and she sighs then nods before heading out the door. “So we’re going to the aquarium, huh?”

He jumps up and runs to the door. A second later, he pokes his head around the corner to see if I’m coming. When he sees me still sitting on the couch he glares at me as he walks back.

“If we’re leaving the house, we need to set some rules. Safety first, little man.”

He huffs before stomping back to the couch and plopping down beside me, looking at me expectantly.

“No running off. I know you’re excited to see your penguin, but you gotta stay with me.” When he nods in agreement I go on. “And no using your magic. You can’t go around making people do what you want.” He blinks at me and I arch my brow.

He rolls his eyes before he presses a button on his tablet. “Fine. Go now?”

“Gotta pinky promise, first. But just know, a pinky promise can never be broken,” I warn him as I hold out my pinky for him to shake. “Take your pinky,” I say wiggling my to indicate which finger. “And wrap it around mine.”

He looks at me like I’m crazy, but eventually holds out his pinky, intertwining it with mine and we shake our hands up and down two pumps.

“Ready?”

“Yes! Go! Now!”

“You know you’re pretty bossy,” I say as we walk to the door.

The car comes to a stop in front of a tall building with blue-gray walls and a large sign reading Silver Springs Aquarium.

We walk through a set of glass doors to the ticket counter and Gray bounces on his toes as he waits for me to secure our tickets. As soon as they’re in my hand, he grabs my hand and pulls me down a short hallway that opens up to a huge room. There’s an info desk in the middle, a tank of what looks like stingrays on one side of the room, and on the other, there’s a cafe and the penguin exhibit.

Thanks to his promise not to run off without me, he still has a hold of my hand despite the penguin exhibit being in sight. It doesn’t stop him from running though. He just drags me along with him. I stumble as I try to keep up with him. If he wasn’t magically bound to stay at my side, he’d already be circling the penguins.

We finally reach them and I’m surprised to see a few of them waddling around the open room instead of behind an enclosure.

“Shouldn’t they be behind some glass?” I say as Gray releases my hand and gets up close with the penguins.

“At a normal aquarium, sure. But we’re not like that here. All of the animals here can come and go as they please. Even the sharks and dolphins can leave their tanks and return to the ocean at any time,” a sweet voice explains from beside me.

I turn to see a tall woman with blonde hair pulled back in a ponytail. She wears a blue t-shirt with the aquarium logo on it and blue jeans. A heavy gold necklace hangs around her neck, and I peer at the strange symbols on it. “Oh! I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to offend you. But that's awesome! How do they do that?”

“Not offended at all. Don’t worry.” She winks at me. “The owner is a powerful witch. He created portals for all of the animals.”

“Wow,” I say, wondering how she knows we're magic. Lavender told me Silver Springs has strict rules about talking about magic with humans. “And he can maintain that many portals? Keeping them all open 24/7?”

“Yes, and we never hear the end of howpowerfulthe dick is,” A black man slings his arm around the woman. His t-shirt matches hers so I expect their coworkers, but there’s a familiarity between them that speaks of something more.

“Why are you talking about someone’s dick?” A man who looks almost identical to the first, except he wears glasses and a button-up shirt instead of a t-shirt, asks as he joins our group. “I apologize for my brother,” he says. “He doesn’t have any manners.”

The first guy glares at him before rolling his eyes. They both stand on either side of the woman. One runs his hand up and down her back, as the other grabs her hand, interlacing their fingers. She just shakes her head at them.

“Don’t mind these two. They’re a competitive bunch. It’s worse when Tripp is around. Thank godoneof my mates isn’t crazy possessive.” She rolls her eyes, but the two men don’t disagree.

“Oh. Are you with all three of them?” I ask. It shouldn’t surprise me after what Lav, Minnie, and Amber told me about the abundance of multiple-mate couples, throuples? I don’t know what to call it, but women having three boyfriends isn’t uncommon here. Hell, it’s becoming the norm.

“Yup!” She lights up as she admits without reservation that she’s with the three of them. I wish I could have her sureness. “Four, actually.”

I look at my fingers, counting out four. “Wow,” I say. ”I don’t know if I could handle four boyfriends.”

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