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DION

The children are at their sperm donor for the weekend. I’ve managed to catch up with work, so it’s me, my bottle of wine and the Netflix tonight. UberEats is on the way to bring me dinner, and I have a hot date with a serial killer documentary.

Lola is staring at me from her bunny prison, I can see her plotting her escape, evil fluffing shit.

“I see you fucker, try it. See what happens. I swear my kids will get rabbit pie for Sunday dinner if you step one lucky rabbit foot out of line.” I have reached the point of tiredness where I’m talking to a bunny as if she could talk back. I grab my phone and sit on the sofa while I wait for my dinner. I might as well play a bit of cat-and-mouse with Dr King. I wonder how his anal gland cleansing special went today.

I laugh at my genius plan. At some point I’ll have to stop, but today isn’t the day I stop. I needed a hobby, and this is so much fun. I drove past a few days ago and there was a line outside the animal hospital. I mean, he should be thanking me for all the new clients. It’s community service getting people to take care of their pets. I’m an animal ambassador — I made that title up and gave it to myself. When the doorbell rings, I hop up to let my dinner in. I haven’t eaten today, and I can’t wait to dig in. I have ordered enough food to feed me all weekend.

Whipping the door open, I’m not seeing my UberEats. Instead, it’s Dr King with steam coming out of his ears. He doesn’t look impressed at all.

“What are you doing here?” I say out loud.

“You need to stop this shit, Dion. You can’t put a person’s address on the internet.”

“You can if you’re advertising their services.” I checked that one out with Char.

“Stop advertising, we don’t need it.” He grits his teeth and crosses those very impressive arms. Lord, hello hand-porn. “You need to stop, I can’t have the whole fucking world knowing where I am.”

“Are you hiding from something?” Sounds like he is, why else would he be turning down free advertising for his clinic?

“No, just stop.”

“You see, that sounds like a yes to me.” I lean on the doorframe, taking in the very impressive view.

“Dion, please. You don’t —” He’s interrupted by my dinner delivery standing behind him, unsure what to do. He looks over his shoulder, and down at the driver who is bellybutton height next to him. I shove past and grab the bags of food.

“Thank you.” I greet the driver, and head into the house. “You can come in and argue with me over dinner, or you can go. But I’m hungry and I’m going to eat either way.” He just stands there looking at me like I have lost my mind, then I remember — I have no pants on. At least my undies are good ones today. I have pants, but I decided to take them off and be a couch potato. I wasn’t exactly expecting the hot vet for dinner, and if I put them on now it’ll be weird. So, I just roll with it. It’s not like he hasn’t seen me pants-less before — the entire internet has seen that. “Could you shut the door either way, because if that mother-fluffing-rabbit runs away, you’re catching her, my kids aren’t here to chase after her.” He’s still just standing there looking at me, so I just walk off to the kitchen. Fuck it, my stomach is growling loud enough that he can hear it and I want to eat while this is still warm. I hear the door close and let out a sigh of relief. I guess he left.

“Dion.” Nope, that was wishful thinking, he’s like a rash. “Please, I don't want the world knowing where I am. I need you to give it a rest.” He almost sounds like he’s worried, but he should have thought about that before he gave my children the pet from hell.

“You should thank me for all the business and new adoptions instead of whining like my kids.” I open the containers of Chinese food, glad I ordered extra. He looks like he eats a fuck ton of food. Handing him a set of chopsticks, and a beer from my fridge, I continue to justify my shenanigans. “I’m doing a great service to the community, you know.”

“Dion, I’m dead serious. No more. Please stop tagging the clinic. I do not want my location out there like that.”

“I’m dead serious too. Next time you give a family a devil pet, you’ll remember this and think twice.”

“So that’s what this is. Some sort of revenge plot? She’s a rabbit, not an alligator.”

“Tell that to my charging cables, my kids’ toys, school shoes and homework. Fluff-demon eats every-fucking-thing.” I point out the live wires dangling from the socket where a lamp was plugged in.

“Have you got her some toys? Some enrichment activities?”

“No, she’s a bunny, not a toddler.” I roll my eyes at him. Like I have time to worry about rabbit toys. “I don’t have time to entertain her, I have three kids, a job and a deadbeat ex-husband. So no, I haven't enriched the bunny.” I take my food and wine to the living room. Mika follows me, and I can feel him looking at my butt. I don't look back at him because I know I’m blushing red as a tomato right now. Instead, I down half my wine and mentally tell my face to chill the fuck out.

“She’s like a dog, you have to keep her busy or she will be destructive.” She’s not like a dog, dogs listen.

“She’s possessed, and you didn’t tell us that when we adopted her.”

“You know that’s not a real thing, right? Possession?” I sit down cross-legged, put a scatter cushion on my lap to balance my food on and glare at him. He clearly hasn’t spent time with our Lola. He is standing there, towering over me with his hotness, just distracting me from any comeback I had on the tip of my tongue. The asshat.

“Are you sure?” I ask, taking a bit too long. “We learned about it in Catholic school. It’s real.” I didn’t go to catholic school, but he doesn’t need to know that. He frowns and sits down next to me. There are four couches in here and he sits next to me! What-the -fluffing-fluff. Even my kids know this is my couch. I give him the side-eye and shove some chow-mien down my throat because I think I’m so hungry I might have started hallucinating. The dude from Game of Thrones is sitting on my couch, looking at me like he’d like to eat me for dinner and it’s uncomfortable as all hell. I don’t know what to do or say. This probably wasn’t my most well thought-out plan, am I supposed to talk to him? About what? Is there an appropriate dinner conversation to have with the person who you are in pseudo-internet-war with? If there is, I haven’t read the book on that and I have not a fucking clue.

This is awkward.

And weird.

Mostly awkward.