“You’ve known each other a long time, haven’t you?” they asked.
“More than half of our lives,” I replied. “Our folks were stationed together three times before we all landed here. We graduated high school together, got our first apartment together, and eventually transitioned to buying a house.”
“Must have been awesome to have your mate be someone you were already close to.”
“We know how lucky we are,” Nyx said. “But that’s never stopped us from wanting to find our other mate.”
“Seriously, it will be one of the happiest days of our lives when that happens.”
“I bet,” Kekoa replied. “So, after your rockstar aspirations fell through, what did you turn your attention to? For me, it was cat condos. We always had a bunch of kitties around, so I started building playgrounds for them. Turns out I had a knack forworking with wood. I’ve built a lot of things since then, but I still love drawing up elaborate feline entertainment centers, even if it’s been years since I’ve had a cat. I used to take my last one surfing with me. You should have seen him cling to the nose of a board; he loved it.”
“You took a cat surfing?”
“Yup. Mr. Duck Dive. He was awesome. I got him when he was a kitten, and he spent sixteen years surfing with me.”
“Damn. That’s pretty fuckin’ sweet,” Nyx said.
“Yeah, he really was,” Kekoa said, a sad, wistful look crossing their face.
“I never had a pet,” I admitted. “My folks were never fans of having animals in the house, or anything else with the potential to be messy, which made growing up quite the adventure.”
“Mine were the exact opposite,” Nyx said. “We tried so many family activities, from painting to pottery, and most of them were messy.”
“Mine were happy I preferred playing outdoors,” Kekoa admitted. “After all my older brother’s printmaking experiments and my older sister’s passion for home decorating, including randomly rearranging rooms, they were more than ready for a break from in-home disasters.”
“I’ll bet,” I said. “My siblings and I were always dabbling in something, usually involving food. This one time we got it in our heads to make homemade chocolate cake and totally misread the directions. We put too much baking soda in it, and it tasted awful; like, all we could taste was slightly burnt baking soda.”
“That could not have been pleasant,” Kekoa said.
“To this day it’s still the worst thing I’ve ever had in my mouth,” I admitted.
When Kekoa smirked at me, I realized I’d left the door open for them to give me the same kind of snarky sass they’d given Nyx earlier.
“There we go, now we’re elevating the sharing to the next level,” they said. “I can work with that.”
“In all fairness, he works as a party planner and is constantly being offered samples of food by caterers who want him to hire them for one of their events,” Nyx explained. “Half the time it seems like all he does is get to sample yummy deliciousness that he comes home and talks about in great detail, much to my stomach’s displeasure since the one thing he always forgets to do is bring me any.”
“Hey now, that’s not fair,” I protested, sticking my tongue out at him. “Not everything is mouthwateringly delicious. I have to taste the crap with raisins in it too, no matter how much I might want to skip them. Do you know how many bakers slip those things into their bagels, buns, and scones? It’s a travesty, I tell ya. A travesty.”
“I take it you don’t like raisins?” Kekoa said.
“Does anyone truly like raisins?” I asked.
“I’m sure there is some percentage of the population who do,” Kekoa replied.
Yup, he was trying to goad me and get me all wound up, the same way he’d done with Nyx, and as I opened my mouth to protest, I had to concede that he’d succeeded too. “Why? Just explain to me what there is to like about them!”
“I don’t know,” Kekoa said, winking at me. “I can’t stand the things myself.”
Sputtering, the words fled my brain as I deflated, while Nyx and Kekoa sat giggling beside me, clearly enjoying themselves.
“Okay, you got me,” I said when the laughter stopped.
“Try not to fall too far behind,” Nyx said.
“Me? I’m just catching up after the way he got you earlier.”
“Oh, so that’s how it is?”
