Page 40 of Pet Project

I look across the room to see my roommate, looking like he’s going to be sick. I feel the smile fall off my face as he meets my eyes.

He’s afraid.

“Let’s grab a seat in the living room, pup,” I say as I nudge Toby toward the couch. “We all need to have a nice little chat. It’s time we put all of our pasts on the table so we can move into the future together.”

Toby trips over his own feet and I have the option to let him fall on the couch by himself or bring us both down. I hold tight as we crash to the cushions and he lets out a squeak.

“Together? Like allthreeof us together? That kind of together?”

I push myself upright, leaving the stunned pup half sprawled on the seat next to me.

“If that’s what you want,” Donnie says with a hopeful look in my direction as he comes around the back of the sofa to sit in the recliner we picked up last weekend. I nod at him in response with a small smile.

Toby scrambles to sit up on the couch, almost kneeing himself in the eye in the process. I narrowly avoided a flying elbow myself.

“Oh, I want, Daddy. I want.”

48

DONNIE

The sound of Toby calling me ‘Daddy’ does not give me any feelings but the icky kind.

“I amsonot a Daddy. Pick another title, please.” I grimace. Nothing against the Daddies of the world, but at best I am an Uncle as far as the dynamics go. I like littles and brats to hang out with, but I do not want one for myself. I don’t want that kind of responsibility.

Shiloh mumbles something under his breath that I don’t quite catch.

“Master won’t work!” Toby tells him. “You’re black! Or… at least close enough that some busybody tone-deaf do-gooder is going to go all crazy on him in the club if you’re calling him Master.”

“Ugh! What is with everyone’s insistence that I can’t use the terms I want just because my grandmother fucked a black man?!”

Shiloh falls back against the arm of the couch in exasperation and throws his legs over Toby’s lap. “It’snot like I’m going to give a shit what anyone there thinks outside of our friends and you know they won’t care.”

Resting my forearms on my thighs, I lean forward to be closer in case they start talking low again.

“You know he’s right, Kitten,” I say when it is obvious no one else is going to be talking. “There are a lot of people in the world right now who think everyone should think like them and they will make drama and confrontation where no one wants it just to feel better about themselves. I don’t think it’s a good idea to make it easy on them. There’s another title for me. We just need to think about it.”

He sighs and sits up, leaving his feet in Toby’s lap.

“Fine,” he grumbles. “But while we’re thinking about it, you need to tell us what the fuck happened to you tonight. You were just gone and replaced with someone I haven’t seen before…”

I gaze into his soulful copper eyes and sigh.

“As much as I’d rather talk about what happened with you in the bathroom, I suppose this is something you guys need to know about me.”

Taking a deep breath, I tell them my story.

“Almost six years ago, I was a junior at Tibalt University and was the left winger on the second line for the hockey team. It had been a season where everything aligned perfectly. Our guys led the division in goals, assists, points, save percentage – you name it. It was fucking magical. I was even approached by a few scouts telling me I should put my name in for the NHL draft that year.”

“You must have been really good,” Toby says with awe in his voice. “Like Gretzky good, right?”

A surprised laugh barks out of my chest at his question.

“Pup, the only player who I would ever place in the same stratosphere as The Great One would be Le Magnifique.”

At the confused glances pointed my way, I elaborate.

“Wayne Gretzky holds most of the scoring records in the NHL from his career and he was given the nickname of The Great One. Now, there’s a lot of arguments about how much of a difference it made with him having the teams he did around him, but the numbers still put him at the top objectively.”

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