Page 31 of Freak Show

I felt a warmth in my belly start to bloom.

I looked away when Titus stood up and began brushing the crumbs onto the floor.

“Ever heard of a napkin, loser?” Banner asked as he stood up and did the same.

Perry punched him in the arm. “Hey!”

“They pay a cleaning lady four times what they should to clean this place after they leave. Which is later this afternoon. I’m giving the poor woman something to do,” Banner defended himself.

I grinned. “What does this cleaning lady get paid?”

“Well,” Titus said as he walked to the box of donuts and checked into it before sighing. “Damn, there’re no more pink ones. Those were great.” He closed the box and went to the bagels, pulling out one of the cinnamon crunch ones. “She only cleans the rooms that were used, which ends up saving us a bunch of money. But to be truthful, we pay her so much so she won’t take pictures of the inside of our home and sell them to the assholes that like to publish our photos once a week.”

That made sense.

“A while ago, Annabelle’s photo of her in a diaper was leaked on the internet. And somehow it got sold to the sick fucks on an Instagram page that act like they’re sharing cute babies. When in reality it’s just a sick way for them to share young children for the pervs that like to look at them and do disgusting stuff to those pictures.” Titus grimaced.

“Every single one of the comments on her photo was from some adult male that ranged from ‘Beautiful girl’ with those squirt emojis to ‘bet she’d feel like a dream.’” Slone sounded as disgusted as I felt. “From that point on, we have gone out of our way to keep our children out of the spotlight.”

“And Daddy said if some sick fuck ever tried to do that to me, he’d break him in half then chop off his dick and feed it to him.” Briley pushed her plate away from her. “Though, he did say that once he died an agonizing death, he’d find the closest pig farm and offer them some dinner.”

There was a slight pause from Slone as he tried to decide how to downplay that comment, but I soothed him before he could get defensive.

“I would hope he would, darling girl. It’s great when you have such a fierce protector,” I told her.

Just the idea of anything happening to her filled me with fear, and I didn’t even know her that well.

“Well, I’m glad that we had that talk.” Perry gave us all big eyes. “I hate to run, but I left Autry with Jett at the house, and I think he might never forgive me if I leave him with the baby too long.”

Autry was one of Banner’s Navy SEAL friends. I’d met him at the circus when he was there with his SEAL buddies. He was a tall hulk of a man that had a ready smile and a teasing personality that set my teeth on edge.

It wasn’t that he wasn’t friendly to me or anything, but it was almost as if he saw too much and I wasn’t too sure I liked anyone doing that, let alone someone I didn’t know all that well.

“Take him some donuts,” I urged. “Actually, you can probably take everything. I don’t think it’s a good idea to be taking this with us. I might very well eat it all, then I’ll be miserable.”

Perry rolled her eyes, but she did end up taking all the food, leaving only the empty boxes.

“It’s time for us to all get ready,” Slone announced. “We’ve eaten, we’re up, it’s time to go.”

Banner sighed and stood as well. “I guess I’ll go play the responsible parent and help. I’m fuckin’ exhausted, though. That kid sleeps like utter shit.”

Slone chuckled. “Imagine doing that all by yourself, dude. Then you’ll know how we feel.”

That was right.

Both Titus and Slone were single fathers, though Slone was a single father that’d been extremely young at the time.

“No comment,” Banner walked up to Slone and hugged him tight, slapping him hard on the bare skin of his back, causing me to wince.

“Ow, you shit.” Slone shoved him away with a grin.

Briley walked up to Banner and circled her lanky arms around his midsection, pressing her face into his gut.

Banner picked her up and hugged her tight. “Have fun with my parents, girly. And if you want, I’ll tell you where my dad hides all the good snacks.”

Briley beamed at him and leaned back so that she could see Banner’s face.

“Where?” she asked. “And are these good snacks? Or old people snacks?”

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