Page 89 of Coiled Tight
“That’s cool!” Kara clapped her hands. “I can help you, if you want. I mean, I don’t know Chilean slang, and I’ve heard they speak super fast, but I can help with the basics? Or something. I mean, your Daddy can help you if you say a wrong word. Right?”
“Um. Yeah?”
Maybe Daddy could help me decipher this entire conversation, too, because I was not getting it. Kara was supposed to be angry or upset, and I was supposed to be apologizing, and then she’d tell me to have a good life or something. But instead, she was offering to teach me Spanish?
It didn’t make any sense.
I didn’t deserve it.
“Um. I should head to the vet lair soon.” It wasn’t a lie, but it felt like one, like I was giving a flimsy excuse. “They let me start off later today, but I have to check on one of the foxes and?—”
“Can I get pictures?” Kara shrieked. “Foxes are so cute!”
I gulped. “Sure.”
Daddy hadn’t said anything about snapping pictures ofthe animals. I’d just do it without flash while giving them scritches. I wasn’t so irresponsible.
The foxes needed more scritches than they got on a daily basis, anyway.
“Yay!” Kara bounced on the bed. Then, she realized what she did and grew more subdued again. “Uh, I’ll let you get to work. Maybe we can… text some and see? These weeks have been a lot. I feel all scrambled up. It’s not nice.”
“I’m sorry. Again.” Was I going to get any other words out? Ugh. “Um. And it’s fine? I… I thought you’d just hate me, honestly, so… Yeah. Zero expectations. And I promise I won’t do anything bad again. I mean, you’re doing okay, and um, yeah, I’m very glad about that.”
Kara’s smile was still subdued but more genuine when she answered with a simple nod. “Sergio said we’re having a milkshake date today even though technically we already had our weekly milkshake, so I’ll go do that, too.”
Mónica squeezed her closer and gave her a kiss on her temple. I didn’t get jealous or anything. Temple kisses hit different.
I wanted one, too.
“I talked with Abel, and he said you two need to be at his place before his shift at the gym so that the cat doesn’t get lonely.”
Kara scrunched up her nose. I did the same. “Ma’am, the cat will be fine if she gets a break for a bit.”
“I agree with you,” Mónica chuckled, “but I bet Sergio won’t want to go against his Daddy.”
I followed along as they teased each other, then smiled as big as I could when Kara turned to me to say goodbye.
Now I just had to pretend I was doing okay for the rest of the day.
Easy peasy.
thirty-one
saúl
Getting two handfuls of Cam as soon as I got through the doors hadn’t been in my plans for the day. Keeping in mind I’d expected to find him hiding in his room, or maybe with the pups or at the horses’ with Mercury, I wasn’t complaining. I did grunt under the force of his weight before I could widen my stance and root down.
“Hey, darlin’.” I adjusted my hands around him, cupping the bubble butt he had. “Maybe you wanna wait until I take a shower before feeling me all up?”
I had to stink. I spent all day teaching some of the new hands my dad hired—again without consulting me—to clean out the sleeping areas for the animals. It wasn’t usually my task, but a few of our regulars were down with the flu, and I was the boss. One of them. Stepping up was part of the job as far as I was concerned.
“Don’t care,” the little fiend mumbled against my throat before he started trying to get my neck full of hickeys. His hands were everywhere, moving so fast it was a challenge to keep him steady. Not that I could stop him. I just groaned andmoved us until my back was leaning against the wall. “I need you, Daddy.”
“How did it go with Kara, baby boy?”
It was hard to get a read on him when he’d been little more than a blur when I walked in. I’d opted to not text him in case it had gone badly. I’d thought it best to let him get to the vet lair and distract himself with the animals while we got everything cleared for them.
“Good.” Cam huffed. “Talk later, Daddy. Need to thank you.”
