“Well, because if you didn’t, it wouldn’t make sense when I explained that only two heads were used at a time to fit the female’s two-branched reproductive tract.”
“Ah. I understand. That was clearly integral to my understanding of the situation.”
“Exactly!”
I had a lot more to go into about the subject, given that I’d recently read an article from Australian Geographic, but unfortunately, we were almost at the gate of the Chevalier estate. While it wasn’t quite as expensive or done up as the VanMarche one, it was still way nicer than anything me or my ancestors ever could afford.
“Don’t worry, I got this,” I said as we approached the speaker. Not that Paul would have been able to press the button anyway, considering he was the one holding our Trojan horse.
Our Trojan horse just so happened to be a truly gargantuan gift basket. It was the least we could do to thank the eldest son who had helped so much in the fight, and I was also hoping it would smooth over some of his suspicions. Not that I could blame him. Because if I were in his shoes, I would certainly think something was amiss with the insane situation.
“Of course you do,” Paul remarked as the speaker crackled to life.
When we’d woken up together in my bed for the second time, it took a lot longer for us to get back to bantering. Mostly because my head was replaying the entire night and just how easy it had been to pretend that he was mypartnerinstead of just being my partner™. But thankfully, once we reunited with his siblings in their secret crypt—impressively hidden through an underground tunnel that led far, far away from the estate—we’d more or less gone back to normal. Well, as normal as we could be when I wanted to kiss him every time I looked at his face.
~ And every time we kiss I swear I could fly!~Don’t be a spoilsport.
Is now really the time for song lyrics?
“State your name and business,” the voice crackled through the speaker. I’d already spotted the glint of a camera lens above my head, as well as the one partially buried in a bush, so I assumed the person on the other end of the speaker was watching me but preferred me not to know it. That was okay, I could play dumb. I was surprisingly good at it.
“Hello there, my good man. I am the personal assistant of none other than Paul VanMarche the Third, and we are here to express our gratitude for the significant efforts your pack’s madein aiding ours during recent unfortunate events. We would be most appreciative if you would request an audience with all the immediate members of the Chevalier family, as my employer has curated gifts for each of them and wishes to give them all his personal expressions of gratitude.”
“You really expect me to believe that?”
It seemed the guard had a somewhat reasonable head on his shoulders. Luckily, I was mostly telling the truth. And the best lies always had a solid base of the truth.
“If you don’t believe me, we are more than willing to wait for you to send someone to verify his identity. Or…” Now I looked up at the camera, staring into it like I could see into the guard’s soul. “You could look up any number of articles or search your database of VIPs and quite literally see that Paul VanMarche himself is standing here with the gift.”
Unsurprisingly, there was a bit of a pause, and I heard the shuffling of papers over the intercom before the guard’s voice crackled through again.
“Unlocking the gate now. We’ll have a member of staff by with your transport ASAP.”
Transport? Huh, I didn’t think I’d ever be rich enough for someone to need a mode of transportation to get to my front door. I guessed I’d never really noticed at the VanMarche estate, because Paul always drove me right up to the entrance or the massive garage with enough cars to pay for not only my college if I ever wanted to go back, but also the college tuition of all my non-existent descendants.
“Thanks a bunch,” I said before crossing to the wrought-iron gate and waiting for it to open.
Sometimes I found the massive wealth of some people just… confusing. I lived a very comfortable life where I didn’treallyhave to worry about money, thanks to my mother’s hard work, and what little I’d been making was in some investment programthingy being overseen by the broker who’d handled my family’s finances for fifteen years. I didn’t make massivestonksor anything like that, but it was more than enough.
And yeah, I got that some people liked the finer things in life, liked expensive brands, so they wanted a little more liquidity to sate their desires, but surely there was just like… a limit, right? There was onlysorich one could get before the higher and higher numbers just became noise.
Eh, maybe I was just too neurodivergent to get it. It wouldn’t be the first thing I didn’t understand and probably wouldn’t be the last.
“I can’t believe we’ve just marched over here like we’re neighbors asking for sugar…” Paul muttered behind me, still holding the basket that was taller than his entire upper body. “Normally, one of our staff would reach out to their staff and coordinate our schedules, and it might have to be moved three different times.”
“Maybe you guys should be more like neighbors,” I suggested as a fancy golf cart trundled toward us.
“You make it sound so easy.”
I looked at him over my shoulder, raising an eyebrow. Paul was so practical in many, many ways, but in some… he wasn’t. “It is. You just have to try. When was the last time you dropped a line that wasn’t fueled by business or whatever?”
“You may have a point.”
“I usually do.”
We left it at that as the attendant pulled up to us. I got into the front while Paul and the basket settled in the back. We didn’t speak after that because it was a relatively short ride to the front door.
Except we didn’t go to the front door. We went around to the side, which made worry flicker up in me. But there was no malice or duplicity in the driver’s intentions, which drifted overhis head in a lazy cloud. He was just someone getting through the workday, not someone a part of a nefarious assassin plan.