Total pages in book: 80
Estimated words: 77812 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 389(@200wpm)___ 311(@250wpm)___ 259(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77812 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 389(@200wpm)___ 311(@250wpm)___ 259(@300wpm)
Even better than that trip to Yellowstone where I’d met a Bigfoot.
“Soup for the rest of the year.” Old Man One was shaking his head like he wasn’t sure what they’d been thinking. “It’s…it’s pink. Do they come in that color?”
Did what come in pink?
The mochi did since they could see that right on the plate.
“Mages fuck with everything. This had to be their doing.” Old Man Two sighed and frowned but started to look like he’d figured something out. “It’s got to be like the flowers.”
“Mackenzie, what were you thinking letting the mages do this?” Old Man One wasn’t making any more sense, but he’d helped me figure out who Kenzie was.
“Has anyone asked Carrick if that’s possible?” Old Man Two looked around at the other people in the small diner and half of them shrugged while the other half were pretending to ignore them.
When no one responded, Two turned to One. “If they’re sour maybe that’s why it’s called a pucker in some of those books.”
What books?
Oh. Wait.
“Why would it be sour?” Old Man Two was now thoroughly confused and he cocked his head before he started studying the dessert again. “I thought that list said special star.”
Special star?
Pucker?
Were we allowed to talk about buttholes in public?
“Those were two different names on the list.” Old Man One rolled his eyes like the other guy was an idiot. “If you’re not going to pay attention, you don’t get to learn. Education takes effort.”
Technically he was right but no one else seemed to know what to say about it.
Their eyes kept getting bigger and bigger, though, so I was pretty sure the other guys at the mochi table had figured it out too. The old men were clearly waiting for a response to what they thought was a reasonable conversation, but the Kenzie guy leaned over to a human.
“If I respond to any of this, Miss Nancy is going to make me eat soup for a month.” Kenzie might’ve been mischievous but he wasn’t stupid because the other young guys at the table nodded solemnly. “What do we do?”
“Tattle.” A shorter dragon wearing a sparkly vest sat straighter. “Miss Nancy! They’re being naughty. My Daddy’s going to be very upset if I make Carrick mad and I’m trying to be a good boy.”
Best. Town. Ever.
Everyone had Daddies and Doms and they talked about them a lot and colored in public and even the old men in town were trying to be helpful.
They’d made sure they knew I was Team Binkie right away so they could sort me on their list. Unfortunately, Pierce had gone on Team Badass since he refused to explain he was a Daddy…which was the reason he was avoiding coming back to the diner and why I was in there for as many meals a day as I could manage.
“I’m coming out there in five seconds. If I see anything nefarious going on I’m calling the deputy and the partner of the party making the bad decisions.” Miss Nancy, the wonderfully gruff character of a woman who seemed to own the diner, started counting and the men scrambled like someone was coming after them with a shotgun.
Or a wooden spoon.
The sparkly dragon looked very pleased with himself and the human they were hanging out with was trying not to laugh. Everyone else went back to pretending the old men hadn’t been trying to figure out why Kenzie had made butthole mochi. They were all really good at treating the conversation as perfectly normal, but I hadn’t been able to figure out if that was because they thought it was normal or because it actually was normal.
I’d figure it out eventually, but discovery was part of the fun, so I wasn’t going to rush it.
I also wasn’t going to tell Pierce what was going on because while we were family, he was some kind of weird branch of the family tree that was damned near a get off my lawn old fart even though he wasn’t that old.
Some people were just born a cranky pain in the butt. However, he was family, so I was patient with him.
Fucking with him was fun, though, so maybe I’d tell him about it?
After shopping.
Because second best to the people in the town was the number of small little stores that needed my patronage. And my wallet. And my attention.
Luckily for me, I had my own rental car and Pierce wouldn’t start wondering what I’d gotten up to for a few more hours because he was hiding and pretending to do work. That was utter bullshit, but he wasn’t having nearly as much fun as I was yet.
Something about the town said that would change soon, but until it did, I was going to have fun getting to know the locals and going shopping. So as I put money down on the table for my burger, I made sure to smile and wave at anyone and everyone.