Page 52 of Tiger Queen

“The GoFundMe hasn’t taken off the way it should,” he explained. “If it was doing better we wouldn’t need to re-open.”

I sighed and patted his thigh. “You can’t control whether or not people donate, Anthony.”

“I could be doing more social media work,” he replied. “Other zoos? They post on Facebook and Twitter dozens of times per day. Photos and videos and fun facts. Showcasing the animals and stuff. I’m not doing any of that. I’ve been too busy with my programming job.”

I put a hand on his back and gently caressed him. “You’re doing a lot already.”

“I could be doing more.”

I remembered where I had found him this morning, asleep in the library with his computer in his lap. “There are only so many hours in the day. Don’t beat yourself up.”

“I’ll do more when I’m done with this new project,” he promised. “I just need to get it off my plate.”

I smiled and said, “Speaking of plates, what’s for dinner?”

“We’re going to order pizza. There’s this great pizzeria in town.”

“Sounds good to me.”

The pizza was terrible. It was like someone was trying to figure out how to make pizza from an online description without ever actually tasting it. The crust was too doughy and the cheese was bland and flavorless. But the three brothers wolfed it down and chatted about how it tasted just like how they remembered.

I was still in a depressed mood about reopening the zoo, so after dinner I took a handful of beers up to my room and closed the door. I curled up under the bedsheets and decided to watch something on my laptop.

And what better show than the one everyone had been telling me to watch?

Tiger King on Netflix was ridiculous from the get-go. I knew private zoos were a huge, unregulated mess but the zoos on this show were insane. Crazy Carl’s was in bad shape, but at least it was better than some of these.

And the people on the show? All of them were awful. Carol Baskin totally killed her husband—although it seemed unlikely that he was fed to the tigers because big cats hated the taste of human flesh, and would only resort to eating that meat in the wild if they were starving. Joe Exotic was a charming character, but it was obvious from the video that his zoo was poorly run and the animals were underfed and malnourished. Not to mention how he was illegally breeding tigers and selling the cubs. And then there was the Doc Antle guy who was grooming teenage girls into joining his weird sex cult…

“I really should have watched this during the pandemic,” I said to myself while cracking open another beer.

I found it interesting that two of the men on the show had polyamorous relationships. Why was it that men always got to be the ones with multiple partners? Where were the strong, powerful women with a pack of sexy lovers?

But that was exactly what David had suggested to me.

The next episode of Tiger King played on my screen, but I found myself thinking about other things. The three brothers had shared a girlfriend back in high school. I had slept with both David and Anthony already. Jake… Well, that definitely wasn’t going to happen. Even if the idea was intriguing. I could still picture him working with the arc torch welder, his bare skin covered with tattoos and a sheen of sweat, muscles glistening…

I was out of beer, so I put my laptop away and left my room. Jake’s bedroom door was open but he wasn’t inside. I went downstairs and heard voices coming from the library. David and Anthony were inside, seated on either side of the checkers board.

“Got sick of beating me?” I joked.

Anthony grinned. I was struck by how handsome he looked when he smiled, similar to David but different too. “You went straight to your room after dinner, so I found someone else to beat up on.”

“I’ve won three straight games,” David pointed out.

“Exactly,” Anthony replied. “I have you right where I want you!”

“Where’s Jake? Out in the zoo somewhere?”

“He drove into town to play pool,” David replied.

I grunted. “So he does have a fun side.”

“No no no,” Anthony said while sipping his beer. “Jake doesn’t play pool for fun. He’s a shark. He takes the Blue Lake locals’ money and treats it like a paycheck.”

The talk of money brought me back to the reason I was gloomy. “Think he can win a few grand per night? Then we wouldn’t have to re-open the zoo.”

David gave me a sad look. “If only.”

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