Page 86 of Magic and Mayhem

Mostly because we’d started kissing as soon as I’d walked in the door.

Kenzie remembered that because he started giggling. “Yes, we were distracted.”

That was a very good description of it.

“You are very distractible.” As we waved to his parents, I was glad the truck’s engine covered our words as they pulled away. We hadn’t technically done much, but our conversation made it sound like we’d been one deep breath from doing stuff we shouldn’t mention in front of his parents.

“Thank you, Daddy.” Kenzie kissed my cheek, looking adorable. “And thank you for being nice to my mother even though she was kind of feisty tonight. Sometimes she’s just like that and there’s nothing you can do about it.”

So he hadn’t been fucking with her?

No, he had to have been messing with her.

But there’d been no tell.

He hadn’t even done the pause thing like he did before he lied about something.

“You’re welcome, cutie.” Returning his kiss, I almost laughed when I thought about his description of his mother. “I like her and I can see why she was just a bit worked up, so it’s fine.”

“Really?” Confusion flashed across his face. “She’s always very dramatic and most of the time I want to tell her to take a deep breath. But my father says that would make things worse, so I just try to show her that she should be happier. It doesn’t really work, though.”

Now he was fucking with me, right?

“I’ll do my best to help.” Squeezing his hand, I gave up guessing and just focused on our date. “Come on, cutie. Food and then we’ll get distracted again.”

Kenzie’s eyes sparkled as he gave me a beaming smile and bounced on his toes. “That sounds like a wonderful plan, Daddy.”

Now all we had to do was run the gossip gauntlet and survive dinner.

Chapter 24

Kenzie

Daddy rolled his eyes every time someone walked past and smiled like they were excited to see us. His eyes were getting a very good workout and we hadn’t even gotten our food yet because a lot of people were very excited we’d come for dinner.

“Kenzie?” Daddy’s voice was super quiet as he glanced around the diner. “Does everyone in here…well, do they know?”

Oh, about dragons.

Daddy had very good dragon and mage radar, but it was harder to know when it came to the humans, so it was a really smart question. It also made sense why Daddy had beenonly a dragon could hearhimquiet.

I was doing my best to not look too obvious as I glanced around the diner to check, but Mr. Kennedy was faster. “We’re all in the know, Mackenize. Tell your Daddy it’s fine to talk, but he needs to do it louder. Hamish doesn’t have his hearing aids in.”

Daddy seemed to be trying to decide if he was going to laugh or sigh but finally decided on just ignoring the shenanigans going on around us. “Alright, then I won’t worry about whispering.”

Yep, it would just frustrate everyone trying to eavesdrop.

“Sorry, Daddy.” I shrugged as he smiled and shook his head. “You’re very interesting.”

Half the room laughed and the other half coughed.

“They’re about as subtle as a ton of bricks…or maybe that gold that’s still missing.” Leaning back in the booth, Daddy cocked his head. “Tell me about hoards, cutie. They seem to be private but everyone knows about them. It also seems like some people’s are more obvious than others.”

Daddy was so smart.

“Yes.” Trying to decide where to start was difficult. “When a dragon goes through puberty, that’s when their hoard instincts come out and they spend time figuring out what makes them happy. Kind of like…well, Boyd said I can’t talk about body parts or sex stuff in the diner, but you understand.”

Daddy pinched his lips together as he nodded. He thought that was a silly rule too but he managed not to point it out. “That’s probably a good idea in general, but I know what you mean.”

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