Page 395 of His Hungry Wolf

I stood up after him.

“Thank you for dinner. It was incredibly good.”

His brother looked at me like he hated me being there, while his mother offered me a fake smile without making eye contact.

“Your family really doesn’t like me,” I told Lou when I was sure they couldn’t hear me.

“My family doesn’t like anyone including me,” Lou replied with a smile. “But, Sunday morning, they’ll read the will and it will be my ass they will have to kiss if they want to keep living this way. Things are going to change,” he said confidently.

Returning to his room, we sat on the bed. I looked at the clock.

“So, it’s 8:30. What do you all do here until it’s time to go to sleep?”

Lou shrugged. “I don’t know. Read? Sometimes I would play board games with Grandma Aggie. We could pull out her backgammon set.”

“Backgammon?”

“It’s like an old-timey game where you roll dice and move your pieces from one side of the board to the other.”

“Sounds thrilling,” I joked.

“Then I must have described it wrong,” he said with a smile.

I laughed. “As fun as that sounds, maybe you can give me a tour of the rest of the place.”

“I think I’ve shown you everything.”

“Did I see a pool in the backyard?”

“You did.”

“We could take a swim.”

“You do realize that places like this don’t have pools to swim in. It’s more like a moat to keep the common people out.”

“Well, you did say you’ll be making changes when this place becomes yours, right?”

“I did.”

“Then why don’t we start with the pool.”

A light appeared in Lou’s eyes for the first time since all this happened. It was nice to see. It wasn’t like I needed a reminder, but it reminded me of everything I loved about him.

“I think we should. But we should probably make a stop first.”

Again taking my hand, Lou led me downstairs and into the living room across from the piano. His family was there. Each of them held a drink and a book.

“Excuse us,” Lou said crossing to the bar and retrieving a bottle and two glasses.

“Excuse us,” I repeated trying to sound more sincere than Lou did.

With his bottle in hand, we crossed towards the piano and exited through one of the many glass double doors. Lou was clearly not being subtle about it.

“When you said we needed to make a stop first, I assumed you meant for bathing suits or towels.”

“Titus, sometimes it’s like you don’t know me at all,” he said pressing his shoulder against mine and giggling as he jogged forward.

Placing the bottle and glasses on a poolside table, he stripped down to his underwear and dove in.