Page 68 of Wishes and Research

Grady scoffed. “You were the one that told them what flowers you were passionate about. That has to be what threw them over the edge.”

I was pretty sure it was the combination of all of it that had given the old farts the ammo they needed, but I wasn’t sure it was my place to tell them that. Before I could figure out my response, though, Paxton leaned over the table and kept his voice at a whisper. “Can one of you explain why you need stuffed animals at a wedding? I really don’t know if that’s…cultural, or well, cultural.”

Dragons and littles?

That seemed to be how we all took his comment because Alick and Grady turned to each other and I knew they were having a private conversation. Paxton and I were patient but he slid close to me and brought his lips to my ear. “We’ll be able to do that too, right?”

Nodding, I ignored the smiles Alick and Grady sent us and kissed Paxton’s cheek as he pulled back. “Yes.”

“Good.” Paxton settled back against the booth and smiled like he hadn’t done anything cute at all.

His adorable entertainment distracted the two other guys and they finally sighed again. Grady seemed to be taking responsibility for his part of the chaos. “Okay, I think that might’ve been me, but it was a vague question the other day about what Alick’s favorite stuffed animals were. It’s not cultural in any sense of the word, though.”

I wanted to be grateful for that, but I was mostly confused.

“I really don’t want to know what they think you’re doing with stuffed animals.” Paxton’s wide-eyed response said his mind was trying to fill in the blanks and it was frightening.

“Don’t look that up online.” Kissing his head, I turned back to Alick and Grady, who were trying not to laugh.

“I’m not looking that up either, but at least you’re forewarned about the whole thing?” I was probably being a smart-ass but Alick just leaned back and seemed to be trying to decide if he was going to sigh or laugh. “So…you wanted to hike up to the portal?”

Both sets of eyes turned right to Paxton.

He was trying to look boring and just waved. “Hi. I know about that stuff.”

Rolling my eyes brought their attention back to me. “Because he found bugs that teleport.”

Paxton reached over and poked me as he frowned, clearly waiting for me to finish my statement correctly.

“And he’s my mate.” Giving him a bright, innocent smile, I kissed his cheek. “He’s a violent little bug but he’s mine.”

And he was wonderfully dramatic too because he flopped back in the booth and decided to get back at me the best way possible. “Miss Nancy, they’re being mean to me and they said naughty things.”

Ugh.

That was definitely cheating.

Chapter 19

Paxton

“That went. That was.” Stopping the ridiculous flood of half sentences, I took a breath. “That went well, right?”

Daddy was trying not to laugh, but he smiled like I was cute. “Yes, it went very well. Alick liked talking to you because he kept smiling at you and chatting. Grady didn’t think you were annoying because he didn’t frown at you like he usually does everyone.”

I was probably on Team Grady when it came to the locals.

“They were very nice. They asked a few inappropriate questions but stopped before it got uncomfortable, and they didn’t get weird about the mate thing.” Or the me knowing about dragons thing.

That’d been kind of funny, though.

“Did you see their faces when you told them I knew?” People usually looked at me like that when I said something confusing about my job, not because I knew about dragons.

Daddy laughed and nodded. “I think they were expecting a bigger freak-out.”

“I don’t know why.” People were so strange. “You’re biological creatures who process energy differently. You’re not ghosts.”

I had questions, but I was going to be patient about them and hopefully not make Daddy feel like he was one of my beetles.

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