Page 24 of Culture and Curiosities (Blue Ridge Charm #1)

Wren

“Are we sure he’s not a mage?” Not even bothering to use the mate bond since the room was so loud the human in question couldn’t hear us, I smiled when Daddy narrowed his eyes at me. “You’re not like other mages. I like your magic.”

He knew fun stuff.

He was also learning to roll his eyes. “Would it help if I gave you the Daddy glare and told you to behave?”

“Probably not but you’re sexy when you do it.” A giggle behind us said at least one other sub in the room agreed with me but they moved before I could turn around and figure out who to tease. “Why is it so crowded in here?”

We were only a few minutes late for the last meeting before the trip, but it was packed like the diner men had brought new sex toys in to show everyone.

“It will be related to food or mischief.” Daddy looked appropriately skeptical as he glanced around the room. “I wish they would stop proving Klynn right, however.”

Laughing was probably the wrong response but he was so funny and so frustrated. “He came last time.”

I wasn’t sure if we were going to count five minutes but it’d been a start.

“Yes.” Standing straighter, Daddy gave himself a tiny peptalk not to be dramatic. “He introduced himself and even spoke to Lorne again.”

That was one sparkly dragon who’d gotten hell when everyone realized he was one of the first people to meet our alien friends.

“I think they were talking about books which is even better because it’s something Klynn likes.

” There wasn’t much he liked besides nuggets and dirty books, but it was definitely moving us in the right direction.

“It’s going to be fine. He’ll be happier once there isn’t the pressure from everyone to overshare. ”

That was definitely part of the problem and he’d done much better once we’d thoroughly gone over the fact that safewords weren’t just for romance novels and sex mate shenanigans.

“I just wish I understood why the anticipation of going back to our world wasn’t making him happier.” Mentally frowning and outwardly looking like he wanted to sigh, Daddy started looking for someone in charge that time. “This is chaotic.”

“Someone tattled on Agent Murphy.” Boyd came up beside us, frowning the way Daddy really wanted to. “Evidently him being a pain in the ass is entertaining and there was a rumor Kenzie had made more mochi, so they were hoping for a show.”

“Has anyone figured out how he already knew about us?” Humans who knew about us were usually a lot happier or at least a lot less pissed. “Have we burned down his favorite tree or something? His house?”

We were slightly impulsive and accidents happened.

“Not that I’m aware of, but I’ll see if someone can figure that out.

” Studying the agent who was propping up a wall across the room and glaring like he was daring anyone to talk to him about something ridiculous, Boyd huffed.

“He was sent out immediately after Pierce used some of his contacts and it was too quick for them to have explained our world from scratch.”

“Yeah, he even knew right off the bat to safeword with the diner men and to explain he wasn’t a mage.” Clearly I wasn’t the only one who’d gotten confused with grumpy and glaring equaling mage. “Is anyone else besides the diner men’s wives bugging everyone?”

Daddy’s dramatic sigh coming through our bond said he still wasn’t happy with having to do a sweep of the car every time we drove anywhere.

Boyd shook his head, though. “Not that we’ve found. And yes, we’ve gotten very good at doing those searches. We’re keeping half the companies making that shit in business at the moment.”

“I have refrained from explaining how we would reproduce those devices, but eventually someone from my world will come through the portal and answer questions honestly.” Daddy shrugged as Boyd groaned. “I will apologize in advance for the chaos that will cause.”

It was going to be fun, so I hoped we were around to see it.

“I’ll worry about that when it comes.” Shaking his head like he was pushing away the images that had popped into his head, Boyd straightened. “Alright. It’s time to get this under control. None of the busybodies brought treats, so it’ll be easier to toss ’em out.”

I loved their logic.

“They should know better than to cause problems empty-handed.” It was just bad manners…based on local customs at least. “Okay, you wrangle everyone else and we’ll go try to get Agent Murphy to the table this time.”

People had to stop asking him if he was Team Binkie or Team Badass.

It was getting ridiculous.

“I think you must explain the main problem, my mate.” Daddy patted my head as I groaned. “You haven’t offended him again since the first time. Everyone else is repeating the problems.”

Once I’d gotten my pants back up, he’d stopped grumbling about naked dragons and impulsive fuckers. But in our defense, he only had human hearing and had opened the wrong door when we’d been given a break that was too long for everyone to behave.

“He liked you, too.” As far as we could tell after he’d stopped bitching. “At the very least he’s not weird around my sexy alien and he didn’t stay angry long after walking in on us.”

Aliens .

Plural.

He hadn’t been weird around Klynn either but that was probably because he was coming along to make good impressions on the alien leaders on the other side of the portal…and to get them to promise to keep out the dinosaurs.

Klynn had also kept his clothes on and hadn’t asked inappropriate questions either.

“We will attempt the conversation together.” Daddy sounded like I wasn’t going to be able to talk him out of it, so I just sighed and did my best to look boring by the time we weaved our way through the crowd.

“Agent Murphy, hello.” Keeping the conversation light and hopefully without anything triggering to the grumpy human, I gave him a toned-down and very grown-up smile.

I was incredibly boring and fully clothed so nothing could go wrong.

“Did you manage to get coffee this morning before the pot died again?”

He nodded, watching us both skeptically but not immediately losing his mind. “Yes, but at some point, I’m going to have questions about that.”

“Me too.” I shrugged when he looked like he didn’t believe my response. “Honest. My family doesn’t explode coffee pots and can use all electronics safely. It must be a local thing.”

Nodding slowly, the agent didn’t seem to think I was lying. “I’m not sure if I need to make a note of it, but it needs to be addressed.”

“Agreed.” Daddy was just watching us quietly, which seemed to mean it was still my turn to talk. “Now, I’ve been voted as the one to point this out, so don’t shoot the messenger, but…”

This was ridiculous even for the locals and the way he rolled his eyes said he was expecting nothing but insanity to follow.

He really was smart for someone who worked for the government.

“It’s been decided that you’re…attractive when you’re grumpy and glaring at everyone.

” He didn’t seem to realize how often he did it either because he was back to it again already.

“So you’ve been put in Team Badass and it’s only going to get worse because they’re trying to decide who you need to… date.”

No point in throwing around the mate word with a human.

For some reason the old men at the diner had decided they liked him and they were planning on keeping him even if he was a G-man.

I couldn’t decide if they were really old enough for that reference or if they’d been watching old movies, but either way, it was getting ridiculous.

“I’m not sure the best way to handle this, but the suits aren’t helping either.” When he just blinked at me, I had to keep going. “Suit porn is a thing the diner men have been researching.”

They’d actually gotten chased out of every nice menswear store in about a hundred-mile radius, so they were back to only being able to do online research from what I’d been told.

It only took a few seconds for what I said to really hit our new agent friend and he groaned, scrubbing his hands over his face. “For fuck’s sake.”

I managed not to laugh or even smile, so I was an amazing ambassador for my species but it was exhausting. “Yeah, I agree. I can only suggest you try to glare less and if anyone asks you about who you’re dating it might be helpful to at least lie about that and make someone up?”

It’d been the only option we’d come up with, but even Kenzie wasn’t sure it would work. Our agent was remarkably honest and yep…he was already shaking his head. “That’s not appropriate and it won’t be helpful in the long run.”

Because he couldn’t lie?

Did he think we could read him and could tell if he was lying?

Was it about him representing the government?

“Then my only suggestion is to look less…”

“Daddy, help.”

I was going to offend the cranky man again and I was fully clothed and being incredibly boring.

“You need to look less like a human Dominant.” Daddy finally took the awkward conversation out of my hands.

Thank the ancestors.

“Their society has been isolated long enough because of their differences that they don’t have the same human hesitation about diverse relationships.

” Daddy shrugged when Agent Murphy sighed in defeat.

“From what I’ve seen, they’re even more curious than the typical human and have less self-control. ”

“Please tell me your people aren’t the same way.” Agent Murphy had been quick to figure out that we weren’t going to be the same, which also made everyone stupidly curious. “An entire planet of them is going to cause chaos and I’m tired of walking in on inappropriate things.”

“No.” Daddy actually smiled at the agent’s relief. “Unfortunately we are an entire society of what you would see as emotionally closed-off, repressed individuals. It creates other problems.”

Whatever he saw in Daddy actually made the agent smile and shake his head. “You guys just like keeping me on my toes.”

I wasn’t sure the smile would last, or if we wanted it to based on the number of people who sighed around us, but he’d proven he wasn’t stuck in grumpy mode.

It was just his happy place.

“At least through the portal there will be a lot less likelihood of someone asking you overly personal questions.” I was betting Dom but I hadn’t figured out what kind yet. “Most of the nosy ones are staying behind.”

Because no one trusted them to be the representatives from our side of the portal.

So we were impulsive but not terminally stupid.

And I was smart enough not to promise to keep my clothes on while we were camping on another planet.

“Thank you for the…the cultural information. I’ll do my best to keep that in mind.” His version of that seemed to be trying to tone down his default dickhead mode into something more neutral. “I want to make sure this trip goes well so that we can keep the lines of communication open.”

We were so close to having a normal conversation with Agent Cranky Pants, as Merritt was calling him, that I knew something was going to happen.

Yep.

As the extra people left and we were down to just the people who were supposed to be there, the crazy became easier to hear.

“I really don’t understand why we can’t just bring back a couple of small ones.

We can just say it’s one of those genetic experiments.

” Our resident Florida man just couldn’t help himself and I could see Agent Murphy getting more frustrated by the second.

“I’m pretty sure there were documentaries made about it. ”

Wait.

Was he taking about a real documentary or the Jurassic Park movies?

“I really think we need to bring them toys. They don’t have teddy bears or anything like that. They haven’t even turned their dinosaurs into Barney.” Kenzie accidentally made Agent Murphy’s eye twitch without meaning to that time.

The last time it’d been very deliberate.

“No, I really think we need to look at the ratio of Team Badass members to Team Binkie members. The numbers just aren’t even.”

I wasn’t even sure who that was and I didn’t bother turning around as Agent Murphy went from eye twitching to glaring.

Great.

As I mentally sighed and gestured toward the table, Agent Murphy was in full shut-down mode again.

One step forward and two steps back.

Fuck it.

“Help me remember I’m cute and nice, Daddy.”

Crashing into his chest, I ignored Agent Cranky Pants and focused on Daddy and my new friends talking about what toys needed to go through the portal as they passed out coloring pages.

“It was a productive talk, my mate, even if it did not last as long as I’d hoped.”

As far as political people went, Daddy was much better at adapting to his surroundings.

“I was boring. I know you don’t like that but I did it. I didn’t make him uncomfortable. I was a good boy, Daddy.”

But I was also kind of a crabby boy because I was tired and needed less people and more outside.

“I might be all done.”

Daddy was smart and didn’t ask silly questions. He just asked good ones as he grabbed a coloring page and crayons from Kenzie. “Thank you, Kenzie.”

“You’re welcome.” Kenzie shot Agent Murphy a glare but didn’t actually say anything about him. “Being a good grown-up is hard sometimes. I’m glad I don’t have to do it all the time.”

“Are you done with the meeting or with waiting, my mate?”

“It can’t be helped.” Daddy rubbed my back as he talked to me in his head and Kenzie out loud. “But having friends around and comfort objects makes it easier to deal with.”

“Um, all of it. I’ve peopled a lot, Daddy, and I’ve talked to everyone, and I’ve planned, and I’ve packed. I’m done. Let’s adventure.”

Usually when I was done peopling I went off some place fun, but I had to stay put and it was making me itchy.

“I think that is a wonderful plan, my mate.”

Daddy led me over to the table, finding us a good spot in the corner of the room.

“You are going to make me a pretty picture, please. All you have to do is color or play a quiet game on your phone. I will handle the necessary tasks and then we will leave.”

Yes, I liked leaving.

I liked coloring too.

“And cuddles? I can have cuddles too? Just tiny ones. We’ll be good boys, Daddy.”

We’d be good boys and just have tiny cuddles before we left. Big hugs and some quiet time. We’d be good. We could do it.