Page 35 of How to Flirt with a Hellhound
I hadn’t called him my mate or anything. Hopefully boyfriend was an acceptable human term. I had swallowed his seed—didn’t that make us boyfriends? It’s not like I did that with just anyone. I’d also placed cameras all around the outside of his house to protect him. Not that he knew about that, though. Huh. Maybe I should tell him. Was that sweet or weird? I thought it was sweet, but humans were prickly things.
Jude would probably know.
Toby still hadn’t said anything, though, and now I was getting nervous. I didn’t sense that he was upset. He just looked… shocked.
Jude finally did laugh then, and he bounded up the steps, hand extended to shake Toby’s hand. Corbin followed slowly behind, looking up into the trees again where the crows and ravens were watching.
“Nice to meet you, Dex’s boyfriend,” Jude said, smiling his puppy dog smile.
I resisted growling when their hands touched. Barely. Corbin wisely only nodded his head at Toby.
“Toby. It’s nice to meet you too,” he said, and then both Jude and Toby stared at me.
Fuck. I was supposed to be doing something, wasn’t I? I had no fucking clue what, though. Human manners and all that were Jude’s thing. He’d been the one to grow up with them, after all. Corbin was certainly not going to be any help. He was staring off into the trees rather than paying us any mind, and I thought he was subtly scenting things as well.
Jude cleared his throat, finally saying, “We’re… friends of Dexter’s.”
Even I knew that sounded suspicious.
“Brothers,” Corbin said, finally looking over at Toby and inhaling deeply. “This is a good place,” he commented.
Jude rolled his eyes. “Yeah, I guess you could say we’re brothers. I’m stuck with these two socially inept weirdos whether I want to be or not. We all grew up together as family.”
It must have been the right thing to say, because Toby laughed and seemed to relax against me.
“I don’t know too much about Dex’s family, but it’s great to meet you,” Toby said softly.
“There’s a few more of us, but we’re the only two you’ll have to put up with for now,” Jude smiled.
“You guys want to come in and have some tea?” Toby asked politely.
Jude looked like he was about to accept, but Corbin cut in. “You have friends who visit you?” he asked. “Two of them?”
Jude elbowed him, and he grunted and gave him a dirty look.
“Yeah, his friends were just here the other night,” I answered.
Corbin nodded, then he focused on Toby, reaching his hand out for a handshake. Jude and I were both kinda shocked—Corbin didn’t often touch humans—but Toby gamely shook his hand. Corbin nodded once, said, “Welcome to the family, Toby,” and then turned around and walked off toward my house.
And I thought I was bad at dealing with humans.
Jude laughed though, saying, “There Corbin goes proving my point. I’m Jude, by the way, and although tea sounds great, Corbin probably wants to check out the house first, and we need to get settled in. We’ll definitely take a rain check, though. It’s really great to meet you. Maybe you can come over to Dexter’s tomorrow for lunch and we can all get to know each other. As long as you don’t mind socially awkward people,” he joked.
“I’m a hermit writer. I’m the definition of socially awkward,” Toby joked back, and Jude laughed easily.
I wasn’t usually jealous of Jude’s ability to get along with humans, but I hugged Toby closer to me at his chuckle.Iwanted to be the one to make him chuckle. Toby casually put a hand on my chest again, almost like he was comforting me, and I practically rumbled in happiness at the touch.
Jude smiled and then turned to go, calling out, “We’ll see you tomorrow, Toby!”
He was down the steps and heading after Corbin, who was making his way around my house and toward the property on the other side. Trees and distance made it hard to see—at least for humans—but Corbin would find it just fine.
“Umm, they’re passing by your house,” Toby said.
I looked down at him, unable to resist giving him a kiss on the lips. He looked bemused at that.
“Boyfriends, huh?” he asked.
“Is that ok?” I asked back, not that I was sure what I would do if he said no. I could woo him, though. I’m sure I could figure that out. I didn’t think tying him up in my bedroom was a good alternative, although it did briefly occur to me. It would solve the stalker problem, too, if he was always attached to me. But humans liked having their space, unfortunately.
