Page 10 of Bad Seed
He’s so stern—which is melting my clothes off—I can’t tell if I’m supposed to laugh or call the DEA. For a brief second, he licks his lips, and I bray out a laugh. “You’re hilarious.”
“I am?” Aubry sounds surprised that anyone could find him funny. I’m sure they’d find him a few other things first of course. Daddy comes to mind.
There I go leaping to some impossible conclusion that he’s single and wants to mingle with all my jingle. Man like that’s probably got an Amazonian woman at home or a pixie. It’s never in-between with them.
“Where’s your wife and kids? At the face painting?”
“No.”
“Petting zoo? I hear they got a tortoise this year.”
“Nope.”
“I hope they’re not on the tilt-a-whirl. It’s more like the tilt-a-hurl.”
Aubry’s smile brightens, a row of blinding teeth appearing. “I’m not married.”
“Girlfriend?” He’s thedoesn’t need a piece of papertype. Jump on a Harley and ride out into the sunset, wind ruffling his thick, shiny hair.
“Ah, it’s just me.”
That cannot be true. He’s the kind of man who’ll get a girlfriend appointed to him the second he dumps the last one.
“Well…”
Ah, here it comes. The girlfriend who’s not really a girlfriend.
“Me and my cat. Do you want to see a picture of him?”
He has a cat?“Yes!” I shout, far too eager for my own good, but Aubry seems just as excited to show off his fur baby. As he flips through his phone hunting for the pics, I try to sit up taller. But his chest is so long, I can’t get my head above his shoulders. As smoothly as a ballerina, I glide my foot onto the bench while mm-hmming along. Once I get it under me, I pop up to land on my knee.
That second, Aubry swings his phone around. For a brief second, I spy an orange cat rolling around on his back in a casserole dish. But for as absolutely adorable as the cat is, my eyes drift back to the man holding the phone. He’s positively glowing with cat dad pride.
“Astin’s got one brain cell at the best of times, but…”
“Astin?” I ask trying to slip in closer to see more.
He scrolls to another picture of the same cat with his front paws balanced on the toilet seat as he tries to take a drink.
“I found him when he was a kitten hiding in a…” Aubry’s boastful tale pauses. “In an old pasta jar. So I named him Parmesan. Which became Parmie, then Parm, then Sean, Sean Astin, and finally Astin.”
He couldn’t be serious. “‘I can’t carry it, but I’ll carry you?’” I ask.
“More ‘Goonies never say die.’ If I was going to name him after a Lord of the Rings character, he’d be Legolas. Fair of face and none of brain.”
Who in the wild hell is this man? He’s a six-foot sequoia, wider than a door frame, rescues damsels from her own immune system, total fantasy nerd? Nope. Can’t be real.
Maybe I died at the restaurant.
“Oh, you should see this pic of Astin. He’s got this spring toy.” Aubry keeps scrolling past images. “Well, one time he…”
Pictures of the cat in various states of lying on something or about to fall off of something suddenly stop. A gray image appears. I only catch it for a second before Aubry bolts upright, and he scrolls back to Astin asleep in his lap. “Never mind.”
I couldn’t tell much, but it almost looked like a picture of a warehouse or old factory.
“I don’t want to keep you from your festival,” he says. I didn’t realize how open he was until it all shuts down. It’s like a totally different man doing his best to tell me off while being nice about it.
My body wants to find a way to wedge him back open. Invite him to my place so he can dragon my dungeon all night. Except there’s nothing but stone now.
