Page 36 of Horn in My Side
He recognized the ones pinned on the top, which were from the school assembly, when he caught Cora the laelaps and when he held the snoozing Felix in his arms.After that, however, were photos he didn’t even know were being taken of him.There was one of him fixing the squeaky wampus cat pens, oil can in hand as he sprayed the hinges, while another showed him refilling the amikuk tanks.He refreshed the feed, and sure enough, a photo of him with the kibble bag on his shoulders popped up.
New product alert!Our friends at Ethereal Balance just sent us their latest offering—mandrake-flavored canine kibble.Our fenrirs, blue foxes, and raijus go crazy for this one, so get it while it’s in stock.#etherealbalancemandrake #fantastictailsandmagicalscales #dewberryfallsmainstreet #petshopcalifornia
The caption seemed innocuous enough, but the photos were more suspect.Yes, the label was definitely at the forefront, but Mal took up most of the real estate in the picture.It didn’t show his face, but his back and shoulders were prominently featured.Hearts started popping up on the post and a comment came in with a sweating emoji that said “Zaddy Orc.”
Zaddy—
He groaned aloud.While he may not be social media savvy, he knew enough from working around the young guys on his previous jobs to know that these were what people called “thirst traps.”
He rose and strode out of the office, searching for Jasmine on the shop floor and found her at the counter with a customer,ringing up their purchase.He took deep breaths as he waited for her to finish, and as soon as the customer left, he marched toward her.
“Jasmine.”
“Mal?”She looked up at him with those big, beautiful eyes looking all innocent.
Yeah, right.
He planted his hands on his hips.“Explain the pictures, please.”
“Excuse me?”A hand landed on her chest.“What pictures?”
He held his phone up to her face.“These pictures.Zaddy orc?”
“I ...er ...”She bit at her lip, color rising under her tanned skin.“Well, you see ...those pics from the assembly—which I didn’t take, by the way; the shop was just tagged—kind of went viral.”
“Viral?”he said, incredulous.
“Viral for Dewberry Falls, anyway.It’s gotten about fifty thousand hearts the last time I counted?”
“Fifty thousand—” He scrubbed a palm down his face.“Fifty thousand people have seen my photos?”
“At least.”
He glanced around them.“Is that why those women wanted to take selfies with me?Or why that teacher from the assembly has been by twice in the week to buy chew toys?Does she even have a pet?”
“Maybe?Er, I’m sorry, Mal.”She took in a gulp of air, face flushed.“I shouldn’t have been using your photos as thirst traps.I’ll take them down and untag you right away.”
“Thank you,” he said, relieved.
“It’s not that I’m objectifying you or anything.”She grabbed her phone out from the drawer under the counter.“Sure, your photos have been getting a lot of hearts and comments from single women, but they’ve been boosting our algorithm, so more people are seeing and following our account.Families, couples,and even people who own non-magical creatures have been coming in too.We’ve had ten sign-ups for our monthly subscription box and they’re not even from Dewberry Falls.Sales are up fifteen per cent in the last five days.”
“Fifteen per cent?”He couldn’t believe it.
“Yeah.”Jasmine’s thumb raised to tap on the screen.
“Wait.”He gently wrapped his hand around her wrist.“Don’t.”
A dark eyebrow raised.“Don’t?”
“Don’t delete the photos.”
“No?”
“I mean ...I guess it’s fine,” he muttered.“You can’t exactly control what other people are commenting nor are you forcing people to buy stuff they don’t need.”
“Yeah, they’re just finding us via the algorithm.”
“And it’s not like I’m naked in any of the photos.”
