Page 25 of Redondo (Mates of the Mylos #7)

CHAPTER 25

REDONDO

The shirts were indeed silly. Purple with white collars and sleeves, which were thankfully the short kind, with enormous white wedding bells with little eggs under them centered on the back.In large white embroidered script above the image was the words ‘Redondo’s Clutch’. On the front left breast, in script, was the first name of the wearer.

Sam chortled as soon as they came through the door. “Me likey! Old school bowling league shirts!” Xeranos notified me you’d be here after your wedding, and I gotta tell you, after you boys all get your shoes on, we’re gonna have to take a picture to put on the wall. You’ll get a copy of course.”

“Of course,” Tom replied, looking amused.

My fathers quickly got their feet scanned and socks and shoes issued while the rest of us changed into the shoes we’d ended up buying only yesterday.

Yesterday! It seemed unbelievable, but here they all were. It absolutely had to be stars fated, though quite why the cosmos had chosen him for all of this good fortune, I did not know. I was glad it did, though, as it gave me my family as well as my mate.

“Say cheese!” Sam said as we posed for his picture and a flash of light went off as he used what Tom oohed and ahhed over as it was a camera that used physical film.

“I gotta friend with a dark room. He’ll develop these sometime in the next couple of days and I’ll have a copy of the best one sent to your quarters. There will be a copy for each of ya.”

“Thank you,” Papa said, delighted.

“You’ve got lane 5 for old times’ sake,” Sam said with a wink and we crossed over to it.

“Okay, in alphabetical order once more,” Ralph said, looking at my fathers expectantly.

Yllip laughed, knowing that Ralph was not going to get their names out of them. To me and my friends, they were Father and Papa. That was it. It was an endearing quirk, and one they refused to budge on.

“That would make me first if using English,” Father said. “F coms in their alphabet before the first letter of any of your names.”

“Then me, as P for Papa comes before Ralph.”

Ralph threw up his hands. “Okay, fine, Father, Papa, me, Redondo, Terry and Yllip.” He hurriedly entered our names on the electronic score pad. “Do you know how to play?”

“I’ve been watching,” Father said, looking around at the other lanes. “The object seems to be that I roll a ball down the path to the pins and make them all fall down. And I get up to two turns at a time to try to do so.”

“That’s right,” Tom told him as we all walked over to let the ball machine scan our hands to receive our initial ball selection.

After a first 8-2 split, Father got nothing but strikes, which were when all the pins fell down at the same time. Papa got a 6-4 and managed more strikes than splits, but always got all of the pins as well. I managed a 7-3, then mostly splits, though a few times I was left with a single pin standing.

Tom did pretty respectable as well, managing a strike and the rest a mixture similar to mine. Ralph and Terry were dreadful, though good natured about it. They hit only a few pins, mostly because their balls got all the way down the lane and clipped a few as they fell into the gutter. Yllip ‘wiped the floor with us’ as Tom put it, scoring strike after strike.

We played two rounds or whatever they were called, then called it quits until after we had some food at the snack bar. We ordered pizza, fries, and some beers, and somehow, the topic came around to dogs.

“Yeah, I really love golden retrievers myself,” Ralph said. “Smart, easy going dogs who are like a hug wrapped in fur.”

“If I get a dog, it would be a mutt. Adopt don’t shop,” Terry replied.

“Even purebreds end up in shelters,” Ralph told him. “I’d look for one there. And get him a buddy too, breed not important.”

“I’d want a wiener dog,” I said. “And I’d name him Peter.”

Tom buried his face in his hands. “I should never have told you that, huh?”

Once the laughter at our table died down, Tom said, “I should hold you to that. Before we get back, we shall have Xero find a dachshund rescue who will let us visit and adopt one of their pups. Then you’ll have years of getting looks from people when you tell them his name is Peter.”

More laughter around the table and I realized something. This really was my family, and it included two very real friends. No, make that three, I decided as I looked around and saw Sam notice me. He gave me a thumbs up and a smile and after the picture business, it was obvious he was a really nice male who deserved to be in the friends column. Taking the time to glance around some more, I saw after our initial appearance, no one was openly staring at me. In fact, the comments and looks when we first came in were more focused on our shirts than me. Further proof that I had more potential friends out there. People just needed to satisfy their curiosity after their initial surprise and I needed to give them a chance. Our honeymoon was the perfect chance for me to put that into practice, and the humans whose reactions were ones of fear? I’d just have to try to reassure them.

First though, I wanted that last fry. I snaked my tail out to grab it.

“Hey!” Ralph complained and I grinned.

He snorted. “Go on, man. It’s your wedding day so I’ll let you have it.”

“Good,” I said, popping it into my mouth, “because it’s gone.”

“We should do this once a week,” Terry said. “Make a regular bowling night out of it.

“Sure, why not?” Father said.

“A bowling night and a game night and a movie night. How exciting,” Papa beamed. “That gives us four days to still do other things.”

I looked over at Tom who waggled his eyebrows suggestively while responding with, “Oh, I think we can figure out how to spend those evenings.”

Oh, I definitely could too.

The end (for now)