Now it was Zé’s turn to snort. He even smiled. Something he didn’t really like doing unless he had to. “I never got trophy hunting.”
“Who does? Except extreme assholes.”
“So what do I have to eat?” he finally asked. “The rat?”
“The capybara is not a rat; it’s a rodent.”
“What’s the difference?”
“I don’t know,” she admitted. “And the only thing you have to eat is whatever you want. I have to admit, the prime rib here is really good.”
“Where is she?” Zé heard from down the hall.
He looked over his shoulder and saw a stunning black woman running toward them.
“Max! Have you seen a child of mixed parentage running around?”
Frowning, Zé and Max exchanged glances. Mixed parentage? Really?
“Nope.”
“If you see one, let me know.”
“How do you lose an entire child?” a male voice snarled and Zé watched in horror as a massive human being stomped toward them. His hair was white with brown layers under it but he wasn’t an old guy. Just massive. Maybe four hundred pounds packed onto nearly seven feet of thick bones. But he moved like a much smaller man. Fluid and easy as if all the world had been built for humans of his size.
“Zé, this is Bane and Bo.”
“Blayne!” the woman snapped, starting off down the stairs. “My name is Blayne!”
“Whatever.”
The male literally stepped over Zé and Max with those insanely large legs so he could also go down the stairs.
“Bo, this is Zé,” Max said to the man, which only got Zé a grunt in response.
“If more of them make a break for it,” he said, pointing his finger to the very last room at the end of the hall, “grab ’em.”
Max nodded. “Sure.”
Bo started to turn away but stopped and looked Zé over. “Do you play hockey?”
Zé was so surprised by the question, he began to answer that no, he did not, when Bane . . . sorry . . . Blayne returned and barked, “Seriously? ” Her voice was so high when she spoke that howls and yips from the other private dining rooms answered her.
“I was just asking. No need to get hysterical. I’m not the one who lost my child.”
Blayne pointed down the stairs. “Check the second floor.”
Bo stomped off—was he physically able to just walk or did he only stomp everywhere?—and Blayne went back up the stairs. She, unlike the male, was forced to go around them even though her legs were rather long, too. Just not as long as Bo’s.
“Uh, sweetie?” Max called out, catching Blayne’s attention. Then she raised her forefinger and pointed up.
Blayne looked up and so did Zé. That’s where they discovered a giggling child of, well . . . obvious “mixed parentage” hanging from the ceiling. The disturbing part was that she didn’t seem to be hanging from anything in particular. There were no beams or light fixtures. The kid was just hanging there from a flat ceiling. Giggling.
“Holy shit!” Zé exclaimed, forgetting there was a child nearby.
“When did that start?” Blayne wanted to know.
Max only laughed. “When Stevie started doing that, she was about six, I think. She was startled by a squirrel.”
“Oh, my God! Oh, my God!” Blayne dramatically pointed down the hall and shout-whispered to her child, “You get back in there!”
The child ran—still on the ceiling—to the last room. Blayne looked down at Zé and Max.
“You cannot tell Bo,” she whispered to them. “He’ll flip out!”
“The man with tusks will flip out?” Max asked.
Blayne bent at the waist so that she could put her hands very close to Max’s face as she angrily explained, “They are not tusks! They’re fangs! Like the mighty saber-toothed cat of yore!”
“Did you know,” Zé felt the need to note, “that saber-toothed cats are not really related to modern cats? Like your tigers and lions.”
“Stop talking!” Blayne snapped before yelling down the stairs, “Found her!”
She pointed her finger at Zé and Max again and whispered, “Not a word from either of you two! Ever!”
She stormed off and was halfway down the hall when she spun back around, now grinning, and happily told Max, “Oh, and tell Stevie I said ‘hi’!”
Max nodded and gave her a thumbs-up. When Blayne was gone, Max muttered, “That bitch is a nut.”
A minute or two later, Bo returned. He stopped just below, gazing at them, and asked, “So was the kid on the ceiling?”
Afraid to reveal anything, Zé and Max merely stared back but he seemed to see through their clever silence. He nodded his head, started up the final steps. “Yeahhhh. Blayne thinks I don’t know. But I know.”
“Let me guess,” Max said. “You thought that with both of you being hybrids, your varied genes would just wipe each other out and you’d end up with full-human children. Right?”
“Yep. That’s what we thought.” He glanced back at them. “Instead . . . we have children that can run on the ceiling. Like lizards.”
“They can all do it?’ Max asked.
“Yeah. They can all do it. Blayne hasn’t figured that out yet, though. She’s probably in denial.”
“Probably. But you know what? Most of my family lives in denial and they all seem pretty happy there.”
* * *
The cat went with the prime rib and seemed very happy about his choice. He also ignored the offers to taste the non-poisonous snake dishes that Max’s teammates offered him and that was probably for the best. Not everyone was a fan of boa constrictor tartare with mushroom-garlic risotto.
As always, Nelle turned what could have been just a bunch of bitches abusing her friendship into an event. All her wealthy “side-friends,” as her teammates called them, stopped by. Cats and dogs from all over the world brought their skinny, influencer asses into the private dining room to drink, eat, and chat while taking lots of pictures of themselves and one another with their phones.
Max enjoyed the scene from a distance, sitting on a wooden cabinet where the restaurant stashed extra napkins and dishes, listening to all the insipid dialogue. She didn’t mind insipid dialogue. She simply read news articles on her phone while other people’s conversations droned on in the background. Like a movie soundtrack.
“I’m out of here.”
Max looked up from her phone and smiled at Mads. “Everything cool?”
“Yeah.”
They bumped fists since Mads wasn’t much of a hugger. But when Max realized that Mads wasn’t really looking at her, she quickly grabbed her wrist and held her in place.
“Are you sure?”
When she got no answer, Max kept her loose grip on Mads’s wrist and slid off the cabinet. She led her teammate out of the room.
“What’s going on?” she asked once they were in the hallway. Again, Mads didn’t say anything, so Max guessed.
“Family? ”
Mads still didn’t answer but she did look more sour than usual, which could only mean one thing . . .