The Beast

FIFTY-TWO

“Fritz . . . how to describe Fritz . . .”

As Rhage came up to a stoplight, he hit the brakes on the GTO and looked into the rearview. Bitty was in the back and staring forward with a rapt expression, like whatever he was about to say was the single most fascinating thing she was ever going to hear.

For a moment, his heart pounded. He couldn’t believe there was even a possibility that he might get a chance to . . .

Focus, he told himself. There was a long haul ahead before it was time to get sentimental.

But, God, if it happened, he was going to be having a lot of conversations with the little female.

“Rhage?” Mary prompted.

“Sorry, right.” The light turned green, and cued his brain into forward motion along with the car. “Okay, so Fritz looks like that guy from Raiders of the Lost Ark, you know, the one who got his face melted off. Except not that scary—and nothing actually falls away.”

“What is Raiders of the Lost . . . what?”

Rhage sagged in the driver’s seat. “Oh, my God, listen—we’re going to have to work on your education. There’s so much—have you seen Jaws?”

“No?”

He thrashed back against the headrest. “No! Oh, no, the humanity!”

As Bitty started to giggle, Rhage threw out a hand to Mary. “Hold me, I have to ask the big one.”

“I’m here for you, honey.”

Rhage looked into the rearview again. “Do you even know who John McClane is?”

“No?”

“Hans Gruber?”

“Um . . . no?”

“Maaaaaaaaaaaaary, hold me!”

Mary started laughing and shoving him back into position. “Drive the car!”

With the girls laughing, he shook himself and pulled it together. “We’ll work on all that later. Anywho, Fritz is . . . he’s older than God, as the humans say. And he gets flustered if you try to do anything. He won’t let you clean up after yourself, he stresses if you try to fix yourself any food, and he has an obsessive need to vacuum. But.” He held up his forefinger. “He bought me my own ice cream freezer. And I’m telling you, that absolves a multitude of sins.”

Mary turned around. “Fritz is the kindest force on the planet. He runs the staff and takes care of everybody and everything in the house.”

“How many people live there?” Bitty asked.

“Counting doggen?” Mary got quiet for a moment. “Jeez, I’m thinking thirty? Thirty-five? Forty? I don’t really know.”

Rhage cut in. “The most important thing is that—”

“—there’s a lot of love.”

“—there’s a movie theater with its own candy counter.”

As Mary shot him a look, he shrugged. “Do not underestimate the importance of Milk Duds in the dark. Bitty, tell me you’ve had Milk Duds?”

When the girl shook her head with a grin, he threw his hands up. “Man, I got things to teach you, young lady.”

Up ahead, Lucas Square appeared in the distance, the glow of all the shops and neon signs bright as noonday. And talk about hopping. There were pedestrians everywhere on the broad sidewalks, humans strolling arm in arm on dates, families scrambling along, clutches of teenage girls and saunters of teenage boys passing this way and that.

“Is it Friday?” he asked as he pulled into one of the open-air lots.

“I think so—no, wait, it’s Saturday.” Mary took out her phone. “Yup, it’s Saturday.”

“No wonder it’s so busy.”

It took him a while to locate a suitable spot, and he rejected a number of them for either having truck-crowding issues, cockeyed SUV-itis, or minivan creep. Finally, he found a vacant berth that was next to a planting area and docked his baby close to the curb.

“Yes, he’s always this choosy,” Mary said as she got out and popped the seat forward for Bitty.

“Hey, I take care of my females.” As their door was shut, he reached across and locked it manually, then he got out himself and used the key on the driver’s-side handle. “Ain’t no human going to ding my panels.”

They fell in line together, Bitty between them. TGI Friday’s was up ahead on the corner, and as a group of noisy humans came rushing out of its doors, Rhage frowned.

“Hey, Bitty?” he said casually. “So you’ve never been in a restaurant before?”

“No.”

Rhage stopped and put his hand on a shoulder that shocked him because it was so thin and small. But he had another concern at the moment.

“It might be kind of loud, okay? Lot of talking, you might hear babies crying, people laughing in bursts. There are going to be servers running around with big trays of food—lot of different smells and sounds. It can be overwhelming. Here’s what you need to remember. If you have to go to the bathroom, Mary will go with you so you don’t have to worry about getting lost or being alone. And if you find, at any moment, that it’s too much, we leave. I don’t care if we’ve gotten the menus, put in our order, or just picked up our forks. I’ll put a hundy on the table and we’re”—he snapped his fingers—“outta there.”

Bitty stared up at him. And he worried that he’d gone too far or—

The kid hit him with her little body and held on tight. At first, Rhage didn’t know what to do and just held his arms out to the sides and looked at Mary in a panic. But as his shellan put her hand to her mouth and seemed like she was composing herself, he hugged the girl back lightly.

As they stood there together, Rhage found himself closing his eyes.

And saying a silent prayer.

Mary could only shake her head. She’d thought that she’d fallen in love with Rhage before. Thought she loved him with all her heart. Thought that he was her soulmate, her center, her never-gonna-get-better-than-this.

Yadda, yadda, yadda.

Seeing him curl his enormous body around that little girl as he hugged Bitty back?

Well, what do you know, not only did it turn out her ovaries had a little spark left in them—the suckers might as well have exploded between her hip bones.

When the three of them started walking again, Rhage kept one hand on Bitty’s shoulder. Like for the both of them it was the most normal thing in the world—even though Rhage had to tilt to the side and the pair of them bumped into each other until they got their strides on a par.

As they closed in on the restaurant, Mary glanced around and ID’d the other families—and she couldn’t help but open the fantasy door for a split second and pretend that her little unit was just like all the others. That they were a mom and a dad and a daughter, going out to dinner to talk about silly stuff and serious stuff and nothing at all—before they headed back home to a safe place together.

Rhage jumped ahead to open the door, and inside, the restaurant was exactly as he’d described it, noisy and busy and teeming with life. Fortunately, Bitty seemed more curious than nervous, although she stuck with Rhage as he went up to the hostess stand and asked for three in a booth, if possible.

The brunette who was behind the cash register took one look at him—and what do you know, no waiting for Rhage. As the young woman smiled with all her teeth and did a little shimmy as she pulled a trio off the pile of menus, Mary shook her head in apology at the other twelve people in line.

“Right this way!”

The hostess hipped her way through the different sections of the place, taking them to the far side where there was, in fact, a booth that had just been cleaned off, its surface still wet, no silverware rolls put out yet. The latter was taken care of immediately as Rhage and Bitty sat on one side and Mary took the bench across from them.

“Enjoy your meal,” the hostess said to Rhage.

Before anyone could say a word, a blonde with short hair and a lot of eye makeup came by with waters on a tray. Her expression was a combination of bored and harried—until she saw who she was serving.

Mary just smiled and shook her head as she opened her menu. As she checked out the enormous variety of food offered, she was dimly aware of some conversation happening, but she didn’t bother with any of that.

When they were alone, Rhage opened his menu. “Okay, what do we got—”

“Do they always do that?” Bitty asked.

“Do what?” He turned a laminated page. “Who?”

“The human females. Stare at you like that.”

Rhage picked up his water glass for a test sip. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“It’s like they want to order a meal of you?”

Water. Went. Everywhere. As Rhage coughed and fisted his chest, Mary had to laugh. Also had to unroll her fork, knife, and spoon and do a little mop-up.

“Yes, they do,” Mary said. “They get sucked into the Awesome Zone and can’t pull out.”

Rhage dragged in a breath. “I don’t know . . . what either of you are talking about.”

Bitty turned to him. “You don’t see how—”

“I don’t notice them.” Rhage looked the girl straight in the eye. “My Mary is the only female I see. That is the way it is and ever will be. The others can trip over themselves all they like, they will never match up to what I have been blessed with, and I will never, ever have anything to do with them.”

Bitty seemed to consider that for a moment. Then she picked up her own menu with a little smile. “I think that’s really nice.”

“So, what do you feel like having?” Mary asked. “Both of you.”

“I’m in a steak kind of mood.” Rhage turned another page. “And also Mexican. And chicken. And I think I gotta rock some potatoes.”

Mary leaned across to Bitty. “Good thing there are only three of us. We’re going to need the table space for his plates.”

“I don’t know what to get,” the girl said. “I’ve never seen . . . so much.”

“Well, I’m willing to share.” Mary closed things up and put the sheath on the edge of the table. “But I’m just going to get a big salad.”

“I’m still working on my list.” Rhage nudged Bitty with his elbow. “I think you should get at least one thing on your own. You deserve to have your own plate—plus I can eat whatever you don’t finish.”

When the waitress came back, she had eyes only for Rhage—and it was funny; Mary could remember being insecure about that sort of thing in the beginning of their relationship . . . especially in light of that one episode. Now, though? It truly didn’t bother her. Rhage had not lied. These women could literally strip down to their hey-how’re-ya’s in front of him and he would have no more interest in them sexually than he would a sofa.

Amazing how your mate could make you feel cherished without actually saying a word to you.

“So what are you thinking?” the waitress asked Rhage.

“First, my ladies. Bitty?”

The girl seemed to panic. “I don’t know. I don’t—”

“You mind if I make a suggestion?” Rhage asked. When she nodded, he said, “Have the mac-and-cheese side with the broccoli side and the crispy chicken fingers with the honey barbecue sauce. Simple. Easy on the stomach. Not a lot of confusion with the old taste buds.”

Bitty seemed to brace herself. Then she looked at the waitress. “May I please have that?”

The waitress nodded. “No problem.”

“My Mary?”

Mary smiled. “I’ll have the grilled chicken Cobb salad please, with no avocado and no bleu cheese—for dressing, just ranch or something like that would be great. On the side.”

“We have ranch.” The waitress focused on Rhage, her eyes clinging to his face, his shoulders, his chest. “And you?”

“Well, I do believe I’ll start with the buffalo wings and the loaded potato skins. Then I’d like the hibachi chicken skewers, the New York strip with the half rack of both the barbecue ribs and the Memphis-rubbed, the strip done medium, and I’ll finish with the triple-stack Reuben. Oh, and I think I want the all-American burger, too. Medium, as well. Oh, and ranch with the wings, please. On the side.”

As he closed the menu, he seemed to be unaware that he was being stared at.

“Yes?” he said to the waitress.

“Are you—are you waiting for more people?”

“Nope.” He gathered the menus and handed them over. “And may I have two Cokes, please? Ladies?”

“Water’s good for me,” Mary said. “Bitty? Water or a soda? Water? Okay, she’ll take water—and then I think we’re done. And very hungry, as you can see.”

As the waitress walked off with a set of wall-eyes, Bitty started to giggle. “You’re not going to really eat all that, are you?”

“Heck, yeah.” Rhage put out his palm. “Wanna bet me?”

Bitty shook his hand. “But what happens if I lose?”

“You have to finish what’s left.”

“I can’t do that!”

As the pair of them went back and forth, Mary just watched them, the huge, impossibly beautiful male with the small little sprite of a girl as comfortable with each other as you could get.

“Mary?”

She shook herself. “What?”

Rhage reached his hand across the table. “Bitty’s asked how we met.”

As Mary clasped his palm, she had to smile. “Oh, you wouldn’t believe it.”

“Tell me?” the girl asked, sitting forward. “Please?”