Tam nodded sagely. “Dad needs to spend more time with snakes. Then I can have one.”
The conversation had moved on sufficiently for me to bury my puerile humour. I slid from my stool and came around the counter. Getting to Tam meant brushing past Isha and getting a lungful of the woody cologne I smelled in my dirtiest dreams, but I still didn’t look at him.
Childish? Totally. But even the thought of seeing him in the flesh was making me sweat, tingle, and clench. As though he was still inside me, grinding his cock so deeply I saw fucking stars.
Stop it.
I stepped around him and crouched so I was eye level with his beautiful daughter. “I’m going to take your brother to see some of the animals I’ll be bringing out for his birthday party. Do you want to come? If you do, it’s really important that you do exactly as I say. That goes for you too, Tam.”
Tam nodded again, his head bobbing manically, but the little girl hesitated.
“What kind of animals?”
“Lizards and snakes,” I said. “Tortoises and frogs. I even have a pygmy hedgehog I let all the bravest children hold, right at the end.”
“A hedgehog?”
“Yes, she’s very small, and her name is Delilah.”
“That’s my name!”
“Is it? Well, you should definitely meet her then. She’s never met someone with the same name as her.”
Delilah chewed her lip and glanced at Isha. He crouched down beside me and took her hands. His shoulder bumped mine, and even through his designer jacket and my shitty polo shirt, I felt the heat of him. Of his blazing skin, sliding against mine, as he took me apart.
“Go on, D,” he rumbled. “All Jude’s animals are safe and friendly. If they want to bite, it’s because we’re doing something wrong, and Jude will tell you how to fix that.”
So he had listened during the whistle-stop tour I’d given him four long days ago. At the time, I’d been convinced he was humouring me, and then I’d become so obsessed by fucking him I’d forgotten it had happened at all. Some professional I was.
Delilah found her nerve and swapped Isha’s hands for mine. I finally met his gaze, unsure of what I’d find, but his expression was bland and distant, as though his mind was elsewhere.
Okay then. The fire in my belly cooled a touch, and embarrassment rippled through me for getting so worked up in the first place. I hadn’t replied to his message enquiring after my wellbeing, and he hadn’t followed up. He’d probably hooked up again since that night, perhaps more than once. If his mind was elsewhere it was likely on anything thing but me—the random Welsh dude off Grindr who was now leading his kids into a room full of snakes.
Fuck it. I was giving up the shop to write soap operas.
I took Tam and Delilah into the back room and showed them the animals I used for parties—geckos, bearded dragons, skinks, and snakes. Scorpions, millipedes, and Leonard, the giant tortoise. Tam was captivated, Delilah less so until she spotted the rescued ball python in the very last tank.
“It’s white, Daddy. Look.”
Isha was hovering by the door, poking at his phone, like he had been since it had become clear that his angelic children were going to follow my every instruction. His distance had been relieving at first; it irritated me now.Dude, can’t you give your kids ten fucking minutes?
As though he’d heard me, Isha tossed a steely glare my way, before giving Delilah his attention. “What’s that, baby girl?”
“The snake,” Delilah repeated. “It’s white, like a ghost.”
Isha pocketed his phone and came a little closer, his face still a flat mask of indifference. “Is it an albino?”
“Actually, no.” I unlocked the tank and slid the glass open, smirking inwardly as Isha took an immediate step back. “This is a blue-eyed leucistic ball python. See?”
I hooked the snake out of the tank and held her up for the children to study. In contrast with her soft white morph, her glittering blue eyes were hard to miss.
Delilah leaned forward. “She’s so pretty. What’s her name?”
“She doesn’t have one yet. I’m hoping whoever gives her a home will get to choose it, but that depends on how long she’s here.”
Delilah’s gaze darted to the yellow sticker on the blue-eyed’s tank. I’d already told her what those stickers meant. “Where did you rescue her from?”
“I didn’t rescue her myself.” The snake coiled lazily around my hand. “The RSPCA brought her to me after she was left behind when her owners moved house.”
