Page 22 of Keeping His Mate
Kay-teh chuckles, giving me a knowing grin. “See, that’s the Bruv I know. Impatient and unpleasant.” Then she shifts her gaze to Elle-noor. “You sure you’re okay here? Blink twice if you need help.”
Elle-noor laughs. “I’m fine, I promise. Going through the security footage is a long, tedious task, but an important one.”
It is a believable story. For now, at least.
We wave to Kay-teh and Nee-roh as they leave, and then hustle back inside and up the stairs to find the pup fast asleep in the middle of my bed.
“Look at how cute he is!” Elle-noor whispers with a slight hop.
Cute. There is nothing cute about this wee beast, or what he has left on my floor.
CHAPTER 10
ELEANOR
“This is where you will place the dishes when they are clean,” Waldric tells me as he points to the nearest table covered in a big beige towel. “The rags over here are used for drying.”
I survey my little station with one deep gray bucket filled with dirty bowls, mugs, and food scraps stuck in between, and the other bucket with hot, soapy water that Waldric has prepped for me before I arrived. Letting out a sigh, I grab my first dirty dish and begin to scrub. All that time I spent studying animal medicine…and here I am washing dishes. My parents would be so disappointed.
However, I don’t have to pay bills, or rent, or buy food. Everyone contributes to the clan in some way, and this is mine. Well, along with studying the tr’gorys, that is.
Waldric continues chatting, mostly about how the wet season is coming to an end, but I tune in and out of his small talk as I scrub the bowls. I want to be polite to my new boss, but I can’t stop thinking about the tr’gory puppy. The twenty-pound ball of fluff that’s currently in Bruvix’s house. He’s big for being just a day old, but I know by the time he’s full-grown, he’ll be massive, so it makes sense.
He needs a name.
Hmm. Does he, though? Because if I name him, I’ll most certainly get attached to that furry little nugget.
Eh, fuck it. I’m already attached. That is a given.
Part of me feels I should honor my heritage and by giving the puppy my dad or grandfather’s name. But a bigger part of me is compelled to continue my tradition of giving dogs very human-sounding names because it’s funnier. Before Frank, there was Walter, and before Walter, there were Harriet and Bernard. Hollering “Frank!” or “Walter!” when your dog has just eaten something he shouldn’t adds some comedy to an otherwise infuriating situation. And it’s impossible to scold a dog named Harriet while keeping a straight face.
I search my mind for an old-timey name that would keep me smiling on the inside even in the most dire of circumstances, and within moments, it comes to me.
Stanley.
My sick little tr’gory puppy will now be called Stanley, and I’m going to feed him all the nutrients his body needs to grow into a big, strong, monstrous tr’gory. I mean, I don’t want him to act like a monster, but he’ll certainly look like the massive, intimidating beasts that make up the rest of his pack.
And once he’s well, I’ll return him to Nanay, where he belongs.
“Nalba, yo-you are looking well today,” Waldric stutters, breaking me from my thoughts. “Healthy.”
Speaking of puppy love…
Healthy? I suppose that could be considered a compliment, but that’s something you only want to hear your doctor say. It’s a word my mother used when I came home from college on holiday breaks, though she used it as a coded suggestion to drop a few pounds. To which I would immediately rebel and shove cookies into my mouth in front of her.
Poor Waldric.
“Um, I thank you, Waldric,” Nalba replies, her tone dry and confused. “I will need a second plate of this today. Cloh-ee and the child inside her stomach are quite hungry.”
“Of course!” he says, eagerly filling her second plate with the same bread, berries, some kind of rice cake, and meat that he put on the first. “I should include extra bread for her, yes?”
“I do not know what she likes,” Nalba says, biting the pad of her thumb. “You see, it is usually Cloh-ee that brings me food. But she moves so slowly now.” She shakes her head as if stunned and mildly disgusted by what pregnancy does to the body. “I cannot wait a whole afternoon for her to bring me my meal, so I must do it instead! And I was quite close to completing my work on the new additions to the laser guns for the crew.” She huffs a breath, tapping her foot impatiently. “I suppose it will all have to wait, however, because my tiny human helper must eat.”
Waldric, never getting a clear answer on the bread, adds three more slices on the side of the second plate. “You are kind to care for her during her physically demanding time.”
Kind? Is that what he heard? Because all I heard was a complaint about how a very pregnant woman needs to eat more, and how inconvenient that is for Nalba. But the girls did warn me that she’s an “eccentric genius” who can sometimes get on people’s nerves. I guess that proves how completely smitten Waldric is with her if he can extract a kind gesture from all that whining.
“It is kind. You are right,” Nalba replies. And I have to hold back my laughter as I scrape dried viiki spread off the bottom of a bowl.