Grumpy Puck

20. Calliope

Chapter 20

Calliope

W hen I wake up, I’m wrapped around Michael like a Snuggie. As I untangle from him, he opens his eyes.

“Good morning,” he murmurs.

Not sure why I blush, but I do, and I also cover my boobs with the blanket, as though we didn’t?—

“You want to go to the bathroom first?” he asks. “Or should I?”

How is he awake enough to ponder such difficult choices?

“You go.” This way I can put on some clothes in the meanwhile.

He leaps out of the bed like he’s already had two espressos, and I enjoy watching his naked butt and thighs flexing with every step.

Once I have a minute of privacy, I dress and ponder the implications of last night—a.k.a. the best sex I’ve ever had, or BS for short.

Right before BS went down, Michael implied that despite having a rule against dating, he’d make an exception for me. Of course, it wasn’t crystal clear if that was his asking me to go steady, or stating that it’s a remote possibility.

Either way, what I also don’t know is whether I want us to date. As soon as he meets my family, he’ll realize that?—

“The bathroom is yours,” Michael says, startling me.

When I slant a gaze his way, he—unfortunately—has a robe on.

“Can you order room service?” I ask.

He nods, and I hurry into the bathroom to perform my morning routine.

When I come out, he’s dressed and just finishing a call.

“I was able to move up our flight,” he says, pocketing his phone.

I cock my head questioningly.

“I’ll feel better about dealing with the stalker on my home turf,” he explains.

Oh, shit. He fucked me so thoroughly that I completely forgot about the danger we’re in. Now that I remember, I’m not sure if I’d feel safer back home and I tell him so, reminding him that my dressing room was invaded, and maybe my apartment.

“That’s why I want you to stay with me,” he says. “I live in a private community and am surrounded by nosy neighbors. There’s no way the stalker can?—”

“Hold on.” I stare at him. “Are you asking me to move in with you?”

There’s a knock on the door. “Room service.”

Michael lets the woman in, and I see that he not only ordered food for the two of us, but also for my rats—which is the most persuasive argument he could’ve made for this crazy “move in together” idea.

“Yes,” Michael says when we’re alone again. “I do want you to move in.”

I squeeze my breakfast quesadilla so hard a glob of Monterey Jack Cheese drips onto my plate. Wolfgang swoops in and wolfs it down.

Meine Liebe, tell him you’ll move in if he can guarantee that every day will start with this much premium cheese.

I clear my throat. “Don’t you think us shacking up is moving our relationship—or whatever this is—a bit too fast?”

He frowns. “Who says ‘shacking up’ these days?”

“Moving in is a serious step,” I say, ignoring the jab.

“I’m not asking you to move in because we’re dating.” He picks up his spoon and stabs it into his unappetizing-looking bowl of plain oats. “It’s to keep you safe.”

Huh. Did I misunderstand? My pits begin to sweat. “So… we’re not dating?”

His eyes gleam. “Of course we are. Didn’t we establish that last night?”

Whew. That would’ve been embarrassing to get wrong. And more than a little disappointing. “You said ‘exceptions can be made,’” I remind him. “That’s not exactly?—”

“Calliope,” he says somberly. “I have a big announcement I’d like to make. Pay attention, please.”

I blow out my breath. “Okay, okay, I get it?—”

“Will you do me the honor of dating me?” he says in that same tone. “For real this time?”

Fuck. Now that the question is out, I feel a full-fledged panic, which is very stupid, considering how badly I wanted it a second ago.

“I’ll date you under one condition,” I blurt. “You meet my family next Friday.”

The logic—if there’s any to this madness—is that if he can’t handle the lunacy that is my family, it’s better to know now. It’s early enough that my heart won’t be in danger. Too much danger, at least.

Yes. I can’t believe I didn’t think of this idea sooner.

Michael stares at me. “Isn’t ‘meeting the parents’ also a step that happens much further on in relationships?”

“Sometimes,” I say. “In our case, my family thinks we’ve been dating all this time. Except for my sister Seraphina, who knows the truth—but she kept saying we’d end up together anyway. Meeting them all will clear the air.” Or put a nail in the coffin of this relationship.

“Okay. I’ll meet the Klaunbuts.” He pronounces my last name in the German fashion I invented.

I sigh. “It’s fine. You can say ‘clown butts.’ Even to their faces. That’s what they go by.”

He nods, then looks out the window, eyes widening.

At first, my heart sinks as I picture the stalker spelunking into our room.

But this isn’t that.

It’s a bird sitting on a windowsill.

A gorgeous specimen with a blue-gray back, white underpants, and a black head.

“That’s a peregrine falcon,” Michael says reverently.

Ah, right. He’s a bird watcher. But… “What’s it doing here in Manhattan?”

Until now, I thought big cities only had two types of birds—pigeons and sparrows—but this is neither of those.

Michael fishes out his phone and takes a picture. “I’ve heard of people spotting them here. We’re very lucky.”

A few of my rats produce short squeaks of disapproval, while others escalate them to long squeaks, which is their version of “go to the dick.”

“I don’t think my rats think us so lucky,” I say.

Michael waves that away. “Rats aren’t the peregrine’s primary food source.”

I scoff. “That just means they’ll eat one when there’s nothing tastier around.”

I gather my little ones into their carrier. We’re leaving soon anyway, and this way, they’ll feel safer.

Michael takes another photo. “Being the fastest animal on the planet, the peregrine falcon is famous for its hunting skills. They can even catch other birds.”

“Wow.” Can he spout facts about any random bird?

“They can also fly fifteen-and-a-half thousand miles a year to migrate between continents,” he continues. “They nest on high cliffs or buildings, and they mate for life.”

Ah. That last bit makes me almost sympathetic to this rat-killing machine.

With a whoosh of powerful wings, the peregrine falcon takes flight—and I silently hope he’s spotted a pigeon as opposed to something cute and cuddly, like a rat.

“Did that make your trip?” I ask. “Or was it that big check last night?”

Michael’s eyes darken as he turns toward me. “Something last night made my year… but it wasn’t the check.”

Great. Now I’m blushing. Again.

“How big of a truck do we need to rent in order to move your stuff to my place?” Michael asks me once we land in Florida.

I chuckle. “I shared a room with my sister until recently. My things can fit in the trunk of a car.” And an embarrassing amount of my worldly possessions are actually with me right now.

“Great.” He helps me carry said possessions over to his car, and then we head to my place, where we park next to the lake, the view of which I will probably miss.

“Do you only like birds?” I ask Michael and then gesture at the giant gator who is warming himself nearby. “Or would a close relative of theirs also interest you?”

He shakes his head. “No wings, no interest.”

“What about the ostrich? They have no wings.”

He scratches his head. “They have vestigial wings. Though it’s a moot point because I like seeing birds in their natural habitat, and we’re not in Africa.”

With an eyeroll, I lead him to my place and show him the floorboards that I thought were messed with.

“This used to be Ted’s place, right?” Michael asks, crouching down to examine the floor.

I nod.

“Could it be he left something here, like drugs, and then snuck in to get them back?”

I shrug. “I don’t know the guy, but it sounds possible.”

Michael removes a couple of floorboards and exhales in disappointment. “Nothing there now.”

I give him another shrug and go to pack up my stuff—which takes all of twenty minutes.

“Wow, your community is very nice,” I say when we drive through the fancy gate.

There are herons and giant ducks swimming in a nearby lake, as well as what Michael tells me are snakebirds, along with a whole bunch of other fowl.

“Living here has been very helpful ever since the viral video business started,” he says after he identifies each bird for me. “Security will not allow any media vultures to get inside—or to even loiter near the gate.”

Huh. “You would scare them away anyway.”

He shrugs. “I’m glad to be spared the headache.”

We park on the driveway of a house that is so large it is just a couple of bricks short of being a mansion. I gape at the grandeur as Michael gets the door for me. When we step inside, he says, “Welcome to my humble abode.”

“Right. Humble.” The ceilings are about twenty feet tall, there are gorgeous paintings and statues of birds all over the walls, and the furniture looks like it jumped straight out of a European furniture catalog.

“Your rats can have the parlor room,” he says, leading me over to a space bigger than the apartment I just vacated.

I let the rats out and everyone seems happy, except for Lenin, who looks at me reproachfully.

Tovarisch, you’re turning me, the proletari-rat, into a fat bourgeoisie.

“Where am I going to stay?” I ask Michael.

Please say “my bed.”

“I have two guest rooms,” he says. “Let’s see which you prefer.”

I’m both impressed and disappointed. Also, I was wrong before. This is a mansion. “Seems like us mascots don’t get paid as much as the players,” I muse as we walk from room to luxurious room.

Michael grunts. “Given how much I hated the idea of Florida, they had to give me a very competitive salary to lure me here.”

I spin around to glare at him. “What could you possibly hate about living in Florida?”

“Fucking sunlight.” He folds his pinky finger. “It blinds you, gives you cancer, and wakes you too early in the morning.” He folds his ring finger. “Fucking grass. It’s everywhere, and has snakes lurking in it, and pesticides, and bugs that are resistant to said pesticides.” He folds his middle finger. “Fucking ocean. It’s wet and too salty, and people drown in it all the time, and fish pee in it. And there are sharks that?—”

“Jeesh, stop.” I bet he was going to use up all his ten fingers, and maybe go on to toes. “There must be things you’ve grown to like.”

His eyes gleam. “You mean… besides certain special people?”

I nod, my chest bubbly all of a sudden.

He purses his lips in such a way that makes me want to kiss them. “The birds, obviously.” He walks me over to a big window facing a forest and looks into a telescope for a few seconds. An almost-boyish grin appears on his face and makes something ache in the pit of my belly as he says, “Ethan and Mo are feeding Eye right this moment.” He pulls me over. “Have a look.”

I do, and it’s cute, or as cute as watching a bird puke food into a smaller bird’s beak can possibly be.

“Do hawks mate for life?” I pull away from the telescope.

“This type does,” he says. “Which is all the more impressive given the fact that they are solitary birds.”

Huh. “Is it true they can mate mid-air?” Because that sounds pretty cool, especially if?—

“No,” he says. “When the male wants to woo a female, he’ll dive bomb to show her how good a hunter he is, and then tackle her. What follows merely looks like they’re doing it in the air. But, in reality, if she’s down to fuck, they’ll do it on a perch, on the ground, or in their nest.”

Why does the idea of getting tackled sound kind of hot? Do I have a bird brain?

My phone rings, sparing me from dwelling on more questions in the same vein.

“It’s my sister,” I tell Michael as I pick up.

Nodding knowingly, he walks out of earshot.

“Hey,” I say.

“Don’t you ‘hey’ me,” Seraphina says sternly. “Once again, our family has to learn about you from viral videos.”

“What?”

“The way your boyfriend almost killed the Yeti mascot,” she says. “And that kiss. I couldn’t bear any of it.”

I don’t ask her which of the many kisses she’s talking about because that would just be making her point for her.

“I will make it up to you and everyone else in the family,” I say.

“You will?” She sounds pretty skeptical.

“Are Mom and Dad having the usual Friday night dinner?”

“No way,” she squeaks. “You can’t mean it. You’re really going to?—”

“I am. Assuming it’s okay with Mom.”

There’s a sound of running on the other end of the call, and I hear Seraphina asking Mom if she wants to meet my Boo Boo.

Something clanks loudly. Seraphina shouts something like “that’s my phone.”

“Calliope,” Mom says, the excitement in her voice a little disturbing. “If you don’t bring your boyfriend over after teasing me like this, I will not speak to you for a month.”

“Hold on.” I locate Michael and mute my phone to ask if he’d like to go to dinner with my family on Friday.

He smiles. “I’d love to meet your family.”

Yeah, sure. There go the famous last words in our budding relationship.