Page 39 of Lucius

“Oh, that’s awful,” she said with a laugh.

“You didn’t say it had to be a good joke.”

“True.”

“We taking this stuff down?” Amadeus called.

“Yeah,” she said. “Thanks for your help, guys.”

“You bet,” Benjamin said. “Thanks for not making me carry a couch.”

“You still had to carry feed for the petting zoo,” Indio said.

“Good point,” Benjamin said. “I vote we don’t let Indio come on trips with us anymore.”

“Hey!” Indio said. “For that you can carry the bags all the way to the petting zoo for me.”

“Damn it.”

Sidney chuckled. She knew the guys all liked each other. They had such a great relationship even though they were different animals. And she liked Lucius’s brothers a lot too.

“We should get your stuff to the house because dinner is in about an hour,” Lucius said.

“Sounds good to me,” she said.

The SUV was full of trash bags of her clothes and toiletries, and a suitcase filled with her art supplies. Lucius had marveled at her stack of sketchbooks and mugs full of pencils, and the easel that she liked to put in front of a window so she could sketch with natural light.

“I just realized there’s no natural light at your house,” she said as she picked up one of the bags.

“Ah, crap. Well, there’s plenty in the park, though,” he said.

“True. But I should probably get a regular job, right? You said that everyone works here.”

“We can figure that out later, there’s no rush,” he said. “We just met and are still getting to know each other.”

“I don’t want anyone to think I’m trying to be a mooch or anything.”

“No one would think that, I promise,” he said.

“Here,” Amadeus said as he joined them pulling a cart. “I called Jupiter and asked him to grab a couple carts for us to haul Sidney’s things and the petting zoo supplies.”

“Good thinking,” Lucius said.

“I do have good ideas from time to time,” he said.

They loaded her things onto the cart and followed Indio and Benjamin as they moved their cart of petting zoo supplies through the gate into the park. They parted ways, Sidney and Lucius taking her things to the employee cafeteria to utilize a service elevator, which would take them to a hallway where the private living quarters were located as well as the marketplace.

He unlocked the door to the lions’ area and in no time they were unloading her bags and dumping everything onto the bed.

They were quiet while they sorted her things; hanging, folding, stacking. It wasn’t that it was hard work or needed a lot of mental attention, but she was still sorting through the argument with her mom.

“You know what bugs me?” she said finally as she carried a stack of shorts into the walk-in closet and set them next to shirts she’d already placed there.

“What’s that, sweetheart?”

“Like I wonder if she ever would have been happy for me? I mean, I know that what’s happening between us is fast because we’re soulmates and she doesn’t understand that part of it, but I’m excited about a new relationship and finally doing something for myself, and she just absolutely shut me down.”

“Well, she probably felt attacked.”

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