Page 100 of Raw

Just one kiss made my body tingle all over, and as much as I missed Mama, I was happy to be back here where we could be alone and hidden from everyone.

Besides Papa.

But he mostly minded his own business, which made it easy for us to do all the things we should’ve never done.

30

I spent the day by the river with Papa, leaving Fennec all by himself to finish shoveling the snow around camp.

He said he was okay with it, and that we didn’t have to worry about staying away until late.

Papa still promised him that we’d be back by dinner and that we’d bring fish to eat.

We already caught five, but since they were small, we waited for more to get caught in our net or take the bait on our fishing rods.

“Good to be back in nature, huh? So calm and relaxing,” Papa sighed, leaning back against a fallen tree across the river.

I smiled at him and nodded. “It’s perfect. Maybe on our way back, we’ll come across a deer or rabbits.”

“We could use some meat to freeze and stock for the next few weeks. It’ll only get colder out here, and more snow will fall. Don’t think I’ll be in the mood to go hunt in such low temperatures.”

“I don’t mind, and Fennec surely doesn’t either,” I hinted.

“If that’s what you wanna do, I won’t stop you.”

As much as I loved spending time alone with Papa, I was already missing Fen.

I wondered what he was doing.

If he had already finished clearing up all the snow from camp, and if he was now just lying around, waiting for us to come back.

Or maybe he went hunting himself.

“Papa?”

“Yes, sweetheart?”

“Did you know about Fennec’s infertility?”

I believed him when he told me about it that night, but I wondered how much Papa actually knew about him.

“He’s infertile? No, I didn’t know that. How do you know?”

I frowned and looked down at the bucket where the fish we had already caught were in, still moving at times.

“Uh, Mama once told me,” I lied. “I thought you knew.”

Papa chuckled. “No, I didn’t. There’s not much Fennec tells me about his life. I didn’t know about his visits to that therapist either up until your Mama told me a few years back.”

“Therapist?”

How many more things were starting to unravel about Fennec?

“Yeah, some children’s therapist. Not sure why she sent him there though.”

I frowned. “Why don’t we know about these things?”

“Hell, what do I know? I left years ago. Guess she didn’t want me to worry about him. Always said he was fine when she dropped you two off for the summers.”

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