Daddy lost it then, his laughter muffled by the notebook he pressed to his face while I scowled at the screen, looking for something, anything we could watch that wouldn’t have food in it.
Bingo.
I clicked on Chicago Fire because Raleigh and I were addicted to firefighter shows. We’d binged every one we’d come across, including a British show.
“See, there we go, no food,” I declared and dropped the remote on the cushion beside me.
“Good choice,” Daddy said. “Have you guys checked out Fire Country?”
“We love it,” Raleigh said. “And all the 9-1-1 shows, though I wish they’d let Lone Star go on longer. Nashville is cool, though. It just sucks that we can’t have both.”
“I love those,” Daddy said. “And Rescue Me. Third Watch is amazing too, though that one is like 9-1-1. It isn’t just fire; it’s EMS and police officers too.”
“We don’t usually like cop shows,” Raleigh said. “But when it’s a mix of all three, we really get into the show, so Third Watch is a favorite of ours too.”
“What are your feelings on medical dramas?” Daddy asked.
“Let’s just say we had some long, interesting debates about McDreamy and McSteamy,” Raleigh admitted, just as Chicago Fire returned from commercial break, not to them fighting a blaze, but to Casey serving up portions of his infamously beloved corned beef.
“The universe hates me,” I declared, not even bothering to reach for the remote.
I just pressed my face to the couch cushion and let out a long-suffering sigh at the unfairness of it all while Daddy and Raleigh snorted, giggled, and had a good, hard laugh at my expense.
I hoped their sides hurt by the time they were finished; this was so not fair. Someone was going to find a pile of black licorice jellybeans on his pillow when he came to bed tonight, and if Daddy kept laughing at me, he was going to find some on his pillow too. Disgruntled, my bunny and I decided that therewas only one way to escape the food porn that seemed to have invaded every channel.
We were taking a nap!
16
DADDY DORIAN
“A little to the left, yes, right there,” Coby instructed, letting his hand fall back to his side once my pets were positioned where he wanted them. “Now ham it up.”
Raleigh kicked water at Murry, who threw his hands up, recoiling from it. Coby’s camera clicked nonstop as they played in the final swimsuits of today’s shoot. The water dragon and the merman were going to be hits, I already knew it, which was why I’d spent a chunk of the afternoon making notes on new color and pattern compositions so I could bump them to the top of my to-do list.
If there was one thing I’d learned about my pets, it was that they were true water babies. Get them in or around the stuff, and they’d play until they were exhausted, and beyond if I allowed it. Which I refused to do, even when they pouted and pawed at me, Murry wiggling his nose, hitting me with pleading bunny eyes while Raleigh mewed and looked longingly back at the water.
They made it hard to say no when they pulled that shit.
They even tried it at bath time, dripping and clinging to one another with pruney fingers, not a bubble left in the huge sunken tub; they’d been in it so long.
It made long days like today easy, because they were happy to obey Coby’s constant directions and requests as long as it meant getting to spend more time in the water. Raleigh’s swim cap had prismatic dragon eyes on each side and spikes extending from the sides, just like in the image of the dragon I’d drawn as a reference. His purple half bodysuit had a dragon’s tail coiling up one leg while the other was blank. Scale patterns ran up his arms, while the front depicted the armor plating on a dragon's belly. Several spikes protruded from the backs of the arms, while a row of them flowed down the back right over his spine. They were short enough to get the point across without creating too much resistance when he swam.
No one would have to guess what flavor of pet someone was if they were wearing that suit, something I was extremely proud of as I watched them clown around for the camera.
Murry’s swim gear shimmered when the sun hit it, the greens and blues flashing when he dove beneath the surface, showing off the print of the tail that ran all the way down the backs of his legs. The flippers he wore were designed to look like the tail fin, with half of the detailing on one and the matching half on the other.
We’d had a long conversation about why there were no full-on aquatic tails this time around, which was mainly because of the safety concerns I had about an individual’s ability to keep themselves afloat in one. My pets had countered with videos of women in a mermaid show who wore them. Fortunately, some quick research had revealed the training that went into beingable to perform in them, as well as the controlled environments they worked in.
My pets had quickly realized that the conditions in open water were vastly different and uncontrollable and had ceased their line of questioning while learning something in the process too. When it came to this side project, we were all learning.
I scribbled more notes while Coby and my pets raced the sunset, the final shot so perfect that when I saw it on the video screen in Coby’s camera, I knew that was one that I’d be blowing up to hang on my wall.
It was dragon Raleigh standing waist-deep in the water, mermaid Murry in his arms, Murry’s head on his shoulder, Raleigh’s cocked to rest against his, both staring into the camera wearing dreamy looks as streaks of red, orange, and fiery yellow lit up the sky behind them.
“And that’s a wrap,” Coby said. “Wow. This last run was amazing. You guys really brought it. Aspen and I are going to have a hard time choosing which images to use because there are tons to pick from.”
“That means it’s time to come out,” I said when they didn’t immediately move.
