Page 13 of Bred By the Minotaur
“That would be even worse! I can’t date the guy while trying to have his baby. Especially not a guy with a kid.”
“Your kid,” Sandra points out, and I just want to strangle her.
“That’s the cherry on top,” I snap. “This isn’t some adorable meet-cute from a movie. That’s a real kid’s life. What if we go on a date, and he wants me to meet Milo? I’m his biological mom. And this entire time, we’re lying to DreamTogether?” My breath is coming fast just thinking about it.
Sandra gently clasps my shoulder. “Hey, Feebs. Breathe for a moment. None of that has happened yet.” She pulls me in close. “Come on. Let’s just check the guy out. Maybe you’ll see his picture and be turned off right away, and it won’t even be a problem.”
She slips her laptop off the coffee table and pops it open, heading to her social media, where she types in the name: “Hank Pittsfield.”
There are tons of results, as I expected. She filters them by state, then city. All the results vanish except two.
It’s obvious which one is my Hank Pittsfield. One of them is a human man in sunglasses, taking a selfie in a car. The other is... well, a minotaur.
A very jacked, very enormous minotaur. A minotaur that could lift a car. A minotaur that could probably throw me around like I was a child’s toy.
Thinking about that minotaur’s cock inside me today, my body is instantly electrified.
“Holy shit,” murmurs Sandra as we click on his picture to expand it. Both of us lean closer to the computer.
Hank is brown and white in a big splotchy pattern, with short-cropped hair that is adorably striped in the same manner as his fur. He has two rounded white horns that curl up and forward. In his profile picture, he’s shirtless and wearing orange pants, and he looks like he’s posing for something.
“Is he a fucking model?” Sandra says, lurching back from the screen. She points at it, and then at me. “You are going on a date with this guy. You are sending him a message, right now, and inviting him to get Italian food.”
I can only gape at the picture.
This is worse than what I imagined. So, so much worse. It would be astonishingly easy to fall in love with someone like that, who’s absolutely cut, who has the serious face I expected, who whispers dirty things in my ear along with sweet, loving things, and wraps his hand around mine on the breeding bench while he talks about our son.
“I can’t.” I shut the computer closed and stand up. Sandra gives me a startled look. “No. There’s a reason they do it this way. So there are no complications. And this promises to be very complicated.”
“But Feebs—” Sandra starts.
“I said ‘no.’” I head into the kitchen, hoping this will be the end of the conversation. There’s dinner to cook, then I have to go home to get some work done before bed. I’ve got a tight deadline to meet, and my appointment at DreamTogether has set me back some.
“That’s not fair,” calls my sister. “You can just leave the room and I can’t follow you!”
I don’t answer as I busy around making grilled cheese sandwiches.
Looking down this road... I can’t do it again. Once already I wished I could have something more with Hank—and then I never saw him again.
I can’t risk that heartbreak a second time.
No, Hank Pittsfield is not something I need in my life. I have enough on my plate as it is, and going on a date with a gorgeous minotaur who has a son at home is not on the menu. Even if I were to entertain the idea, it’s too risky with DreamTogether.
When I return with two sandwiches and set one in front of Sandra, she doesn’t speak. Instead, she turns on the television again and we eat in silence while watching House Swap. After I’ve taken the plates to the sink and put them in the dishwasher, I find Sandra waiting with her hands crossed on her lap.
“Phoebe,” she says, and I stop in my tracks at the use of my full name. “You’re an adult woman, and you deserve to have happiness. I’m thinking that maybe I should get a nurse to come over and?—”
“We can’t afford that,” I interject.
“Maybe I move out of here,” Sandra says. “What if I came to live with you so we didn’t have to pay for this place anymore? Then you wouldn’t have to deal with DreamTogether, and you could do what you want.”
I’m stunned into silence.
She’s right that we’d save a lot of money that way. But I also know we don’t do well when we live together. We went through years of it as teenagers, and we were always at each other’s throats. It’s not healthy for us.
“I don’t want anything to change,” I say at length. “I like it the way it is now. I don’t need a boyfriend, especially one who has a kid.”
My kid, my brain adds.
