Page 10 of Bred By the Minotaur (DreamTogether Breeding Program #3)

Ten

Hank

Knowing Phoebe is right down the street makes me rock hard.

The mother of both of my calves, the woman I’ve been hungering for going on six years now, is only a few houses away.

I explain to my mother the next day how I happened to be sent to a fire—and it was my surrogate’s house.

“And after all that, she still hasn’t messaged you?” Mom says, tut-tutting.

“She doesn’t even have a phone anymore.” And probably no way of buying a new one. “Hey, where’s that old phone we were talking about giving to Milo when he’s older?”

Mom thinks for a moment, then heads into the other room to rifle through drawers. She returns with a beat-up old smartphone.

Since I have no way else to contact Phoebe, I decide to simply walk down the street and knock. I think this could help her, but I don’t want to come across as clingy and worry her more.

Not if what I think is true—that she does, actually, quite like me. But that’s what frightens her.

After a few moments, the door opens and it’s Phoebe, dressed in clothes that don’t seem to fit. She lets out an undignified noise when she sees me, then slaps a hand over her mouth.

“I’m still in my pajamas, sorry,” she says, bunching up the baggy clothes in her hand. “I thought you were the postman. I asked for some stuff to be overnighted.”

“Sorry to bother you.” I hold out the phone quickly. “I know last night you didn’t have anything. I thought you could use this until you get a new one.”

She stares down at the phone, and then gingerly takes it from my hand. She’s looking at it like it’s a golden egg.

“Wow,” she says, her eyes scrunching up as if she’s trying to keep from crying. “This is really nice, thank you.”

“Hey.” I calmly reach out and squeeze her shoulder. “It’s nothing. Whatever I can do to help, just tell me.”

Her big blue watery eyes search mine, and then she sighs, closing them.

“I really appreciate it,” she says.

I glance around the small house behind her, where pillows and blankets are piled up on the couch.

“Are you going to a hotel?” I ask. “Insurance should pay for one.”

“I’ve been trying to get help all day, but filing a claim is going to take forever.” She sighs and withdraws from the door. “I should probably get back to it, actually.” She clutches the phone to her chest. “And thank you for this. It’s a real help right now.”

I nod. “Of course. Let me know what happens.”

“I will.”

“If you find you need a place to stay...” I shouldn’t be offering this, because I know she’ll turn me down—but I also want her to know it’s an option. “I have a spare bedroom. For the...” I nod downward at her. “For the calf.”

She blinks, then glances down at her own belly before turning her eyes back to me again.

“You could move in there. I know that I’m, well, a stranger, but...” I trail off, realizing I’ve already said too much.

Phoebe’s mouth works like she isn’t sure what to say next. “That’s a really kind offer, thank you. But I think I’ll be all right on the couch.”

I know right away that I’ve overstepped. In my humiliation, I say a hasty goodbye, then hurry back off down the street as the door closes behind me.

Man, I made an ass of myself.

I stalk back to my driveway, irritated at how I really am like a bull in a china shop. I just don’t know the right things to say. All I know how to be is honest, and I wish I could convince her to trust me, just a little. I want to help hold her up while the world is falling down.

Phoebe

I mean, I barely know the guy. So why did I want to say “yes” so badly? Why did moving into Hank’s spare room sound like the best idea anyone’s ever had?

All I’ve got here at Sandra’s are some misfitting clothes and a couch with sinking cushions. He would have a whole room, a bed, just for me.

There’s no way I could do something like that. He’s right—he is a stranger. We don’t know each other at all, not beyond a few anonymous encounters at DreamTogether.

I file my claim with insurance, and I’m told that at some point, my house will be rebuilt, exactly the way it was before. Whenever they get around to it, though.

“It could take two years,” the woman on the other end tells me.

The next person I speak to denies my claim for interim housing because of some exception on my insurance plan, blah blah, and I want to scream. I don’t, but it’s simmering dangerously close to the surface.

I place a few more calls and argue my case, but I’m denied.

Denied.

Denied.

Eventually, I give in to the hopelessness, hanging up the phone that Hank gave me. It’s been a real lifesaver. I should find a way to thank him—something that won’t give him the wrong idea, though.

Now I finally have access to my money, but it’ll be a while before I get my insurance settlement, so I have to pay for replacing everything in the meantime that I need to keep doing my job.

After blowing my limited wad on a new tablet and computer, I try to set up a desk in the corner of Sandra’s living room.

But the house is small and cramped as it is, and we’re always in each other’s way.

Of course, we have fun times together, watching movies late into the night and eating food that’s bad for us to try to forget about the fire. It reminds me of when we were teenagers and snuck a small television into our room to watch bad late-night TV.

But even when she’s too tired to get up and be a busybody, Sandra is constantly interrupting my work to ask for things. I don’t mind helping, but it was easier to focus on my job when I lived elsewhere and only came over when she needed me.

She’s feeling better these days, which is good, and I try to hold that one upside close.

But it also means she’s up more often, tsk ing as she cleans around me.

I wake up to find the clothes I dropped on the floor folded and placed on the chair.

Everything is put away and rearranged, like some fairy came in the middle of the night.

This is why we live in separate places, in separate homes. As much as I love her, at some point, this will escalate. She’ll shoot me dirty looks when I don’t put something back exactly where it belongs and exclaim loudly when she finds something out of place.

But I don’t have a choice right now about my sleeping arrangement, so I do my best to abide by her strict guidelines and not leave anything out on the counters.

From time to time, I think about Hank’s offer of the spare room, and wonder why I didn’t accept.

When my debit card arrives, I go to buy some new clothes, and get a little organizer to put against the wall so they’re not lying around.

Then I leave a half-finished muffin out, intending to come back to it later, and I hear Sandra grumbling about ants as she tosses it in the trash.

“That was mine,” I grouch as she dumps it.

“Don’t leave food out. Put it in a container.”

It’s barely a few weeks into cohabitating when I’m already so close to exploding I could scream. That’s the last thing I want to do when things are already fragile between Sandra and me, so instead, I get up out of my chair, throw on a coat, and head out into the spring afternoon air.

“Where are you going?” my sister calls.

“Out.” And then I slam the door behind me.

I breathe in as much fresh oxygen as I can, grateful for it filling my lungs. I coughed up dark stuff for a few days after the fire, and I never want to go through that again.

I head down the street, and it’s not until I’m standing right outside that I realize I’ve walked to Hank’s house.

It’s cute and surprisingly big, with a porch that has two chairs, a little table, a barbecue grill, and some children’s toys scattered around the yard—among them a plastic slide and a forgotten Big Wheel.

I puzzle over it for a while, these remnants of the little boy who lives here. My son. My flesh and blood child.

“Who’s that lady, Dad?” a little voice says.

I glance up to find Hank coming down the street, holding the hand of a small minotaur child. The boy is patterned just like his father, splotched all white and brown.

But his eyes... his eyes aren’t anything like Hank’s, which are big and endless and brown. No, the boy’s eyes are bright blue.

Just like mine.

“Milo?” I ask reflexively. The boy’s eyebrows jump high into his shaggy hair. He really needs a haircut. I can barely make out the nubs of his horns through it.

“How does she know my name?” The minotaur boy tilts his head at me. “I don’t know her.”

“I know her,” Hank says gently, leading him toward me. Milo is studying me as they come to a stop. “She is, um... a friend of mine.”

“Ohh.” Milo nods like this is all information that he knows already.

“Is she coming in? Can she meet Darla?” He drops his father’s hand and comes over to me, grabbing onto my pant leg and tugging me in the direction of his house.

“Darla likes other girls. Did you know my dad is bringing home a baby from the baby factory? But we don’t know if it’ll be a boy or a girl.

” He continues on like a freight train. “I hope it’s a girl, though. So Darla will be happier.”

I glance up at Hank with a brow raised. “Baby factory, huh?” I ask. “That’s lucky. That there are factories for babies.”

Hank drags a hand down his long face in embarrassment.

“I don’t think Phoebe needs to meet Darla today,” Hank says, prying Milo’s hands off me and taking them into his own huge palms.

“Oh.” Milo looks vastly disappointed by this.

“But we were going to play some Monster Masher , right?” Hank pinches the boy’s furry cheek. “Do you want to go get it set up? We can order pizza tonight.”

Milo’s eyes get big and round, his eyebrows lifting. I’m startled by how much this expression reminds me of myself.

“ Pizza ?” he exclaims, and I’m promptly forgotten. He rushes headlong into the house, his tiny tail flicking wildly behind him as his little hooves gallop up the steps. Then he vanishes inside.

“I should, um, probably go,” Hank says awkwardly, hovering like he wants to go after Milo.

Oh, right. I’m just on a walk, and I’m creeping around his house.

“Yeah, of course. I hope you guys have a fun night playing Monster Masher .”

Hank hesitates, biting his lip with one of his big, square molars like he’s thinking hard.

“Do you want some pizza?” he finally asks. “If you don’t want to, I understand. No pressure, or?—”

Before I can think twice about it, I answer, “Yes.”

Why? Why did I say that? Because I wanted to. Because the last thing I want right now is to walk back to my sister’s house, and instead, the lights are on inside Hank’s cute two-story suburban home, warm and waiting.

And Milo. Who is he? What is he?

Hank’s eyes light up like the sun. He grins widely, and gestures for me to walk on ahead of him, in through the open front door.

Who knows what I’ll find on the other side?