AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Willow hisses at him.
With surprisingly feline inflection, he hisses back.
I want to be them.
They are astonishingly cute.
And the comfortable way they interact with each other pulls at my heart in more ways than I want to admit. They are a picture of what I am desperate to have.
When Willow bonks her head into Zylus’s before dipping away into the kitchen, I tamp down my jealousy in order to give Zylus the bag of chips.
“Appreciated,” he says as he pops it open.
Oxford jumps on the couch beside him and falls against his thigh, dejected.
Zylus procures a single, small chip and feeds him. “How you doing, buddy?”
Oxford pours a sigh from his lungs that is so deep it should really belong to an elderly human, not a tiny dog in a suit.
“Well, I for one like your outfit.”
Oxford lifts his head, gives Zylus a death glare, then flops back down.
Weird.
Very weird.
I’m still going insane. That’s, really, the only explanation.
Shaking my head free of the weirdness and the creepy sensation of something off that climbs all over my skin, I take my spot at the helm of the puppy mother ship and go through the appropriate motions. “It looks like he likes you. I’ve never seen him warm up to anyone like this before.” Because I never have company. However, whenever I visit my family, Oxford hates them.
Zylus hums. “Maybe he thinks I’m special.”
“Maybe.” Overly cautious, as though someone invisible might be seated in the center of the room, I work my way to the window seat, sit, and fold my hands in my lap.
“You have impeccable posture,” Zylus notes as he gives Oxford another chip.
Suddenly self-conscious, I stammer, “O-oh. Yes. Thank you.”
“You are allowed to relax.”
I let my shoulders droop slightly in an effort to attain this fabled concept of relaxing. Resorting to factory reset, I say, “You have a beautiful home.”
Going off script, Zylus says, “It hasn’t eaten anyone yet.”
Willow comes back into the room with two bowls of popcorn. The first she hands…
She hands a bowl of popcorn to me and pops a chip I don’t remember her getting into her mouth. “Ignore my husband. He’s incorrigible, and there is no cure.”
Zylus flashes his teeth, and I swear I see fangs half a second before they return to normal human teeth.
I’m very tired.
I should invest in melatonin.
Or chug Benadryl.
“Um…” I look between my bowl and them when Willow falls ceremoniously into Zylus’s arms, thankfully avoiding Oxford. “Do you two not want any popcorn?” An ache starts at the base of my skull, informing me of just how little sleep I’ve gotten during this past…lifetime. I squeeze my eyes shut and give my brain a moment to regulate things I swore I saw. “Were you not holding another bowl just a few seconds ago?”
