Daddy huffed and shook his head, side-eyed Raleigh, and huffed again, sounding a bit belligerent when he finally spoke. “If it’s possible.”
“Yay, we are going to get Fruit Roll-Up G-strings!” Raleigh declared.
We fist bumped while Daddy slapped his hand over his face and groaned. “I’m only doing this because using fruit roll-ups is a far better way to create a template than wasting material.”
“And the best part is that you can eat your mistakes,” Raleigh pointed out.
“Oh, you best believe I will be eating the mistakes, especially since you two will be wearing them,” Daddy said, tugging us back into a hug and tickling us until we squirmed so much Raleigh slipped out of Daddy’s hold and landed on the floor.
Of course that meant Daddy turned all his tickles on me, while Raleigh crab-walked backwards and stood well out of tickling range.
“Traitor!” I squealed. “Help meeeeee!”
“Umm, I don’t think I want to get back in the middle of that,” Raleigh declared.
“Ackkkkkkk.”
By the time Daddy stopped tickling, my sides hurt from laughing and trying to breathe. I was still chuckling and sucking in shallow breaths as Raleigh and I went to our room, stripped off our clothes, and slipped into soft, furry onesies to lounge around in for the day. Mine had big floppy bunny ears on the hood that I tucked my hair under before helping put Raleigh’s in a low ponytail so he could pull his hood on. It had kitten ears on top and was a fuzzy black and gray with a tail that extended from the rear, just like the cottontail on the back of mine.
By the time we reached Daddy’s drawing space, he’d covered the leather lounge chairs he’d purchased for us with soft blankets. He’d arranged them beside his desk, in front of the bay window he loved, only he’d moved the desk back from the window and placed the lounge chairs at angles, like wings stretching out from either side of the desk.
This way I can see you and the view.
If the fact that he’d rearranged his workspace to fit us in it hadn’t already stolen a piece of my heart, those words grabbed another dozen pieces or more. Every day, with every moment we spent together, he proved why we could trust him. His actions were never selfish; they were always about us as a trio. We had conversations. We talked about our day when we were apart.
I was so glad that the times we needed to be apart would be far fewer now. Our time at the club had really cut into the time we’d gotten to spend with him outside of work.
Shit.
These were work hours now. We were muses. Daddy wanted to tell us about something. Focus, get comfy, relax, and listen. The words were steps for me to follow, subconsciously whispered by some voice in the back of my head that always sounded a bit like my grandmother’s.
Raleigh and I arranged ourselves on the loungers, while Daddy sat on the overstuffed cushion he kept on the floor between them. He stroked our backs and shoulders as we settled in, ran his hands over the hoods that covered our heads, cupped the back of our necks, and squeezed in just the right spots to send a flood of endorphins flooding through our brains. Looking across the space into Raleigh’s face, his blissed-out expression a mirrorof everything I felt, the softness creeping in as the inner bunny in me thumped its foot on the ground in pure happiness.
“Do you remember the conversation we had at the breakfast table this morning?” Daddy asked.
“The one about the grocery order?” I asked. “We didn’t forget to add anything, did we?”
“No, not that one. I put it in right after you left so I won’t forget. It should be here in time for us to cook supper together.”
“What are we having?” I asked.
“Well, you did promise to introduce me to the shrimp pesto bruschetta dish you were raving about the other night, so I thought we’d start with that and the cucumber salad with the tomato-balsamic vinaigrette I promised you. It seemed like a good pairing, especially with the sparkling apple juice you love. I added a zero to the number of bottles you initially wrote down. I’ve grown quite fond of it myself, so I thought we’d better keep plenty on hand.”
“Good thinking,” Raleigh slurred. “In your glasses, it looks like a champagne, without the stomping elephants in my head the morning after.”
“Yes, that is never any fun, and that is why there are two different drink stations at all of our events, so the pets never have to worry about being served the wrong things.”
Sighing, I lifted my shoulder beneath his hand, just to get him to add more pressure to his caresses. He immediately got with the program, until my muscles began to go lax beneath his hand.
“The conversation I was referring to was the one about the pet play party at the beach that’s coming up in a few weeks,” Daddyexplained. “Murry said that it was a shame that we wouldn’t be able to tell what anyone’s animal was when we were in swim gear.”
“Sad,” Raleigh said.
“Exactly. But it doesn’t have to be. As soon as I placed our grocery order, I sat down and started scrolling through swim gear. That’s when I spotted something. There was a swim cap with a shark face printed on it and fins on the top. I could design the same thing, but for the pets. Ears could be part of the drawing or extensions from the sides, and they can be designed to match swim trunks, board shorts, and speedos with tails on the backs of them. Colors and patterns could all be designed to match the animal and only printed on the fabric, so it’s all still functional swim gear they can enjoy pool and ocean time in. We can do bathing suits and bodysuits as well, to provide coverage for all members of the community.”
“You got all that from our conversation?” I asked, completely in awe.
We’d barely had a two-minute discussion before moving on to a discussion about potential locations for our first outdoor photo shoot.
