* * *
Isha
Jude was playing a game with me. I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what it was, but I was definitely losing.
He draped a thick yellow and white snake around my neck. “This is Dandy,” he said, holding court like a fucking superhero. “He’s a dwarf reticulated python, and one of the biggest snakes I have.”
Tam’s hand shot up like he’d been electrocuted. “Which snake is the biggest?”
“Miranda, my Burmese, but I don’t think your dad is strong enough to hold her, so I left her asleep.”
I cast Jude a flat stare. His answering gaze was wonderfully mischievous, and I couldn’t work out how it made me hotter for him than ever, even while I had a creature that felt like my nan’s old leather couch slithering over my shoulders.
The kids stepped up to touch the snake. Delilah shot me a grin that matched Jude’s in evilness, but their joke was beginning to fade out. After enduring scorpions, tarantulas, and some freaky kind of insect that had legit hissed at me, the collection of snakes Jude had brought out were refreshingly benign.
Jude shifted Dandy around. “Had enough yet?”
“Of what? Five wittering kids or your Doctor Dolittle impression?”
“Both.”
“I’m good. I liked the little yellow lizard thing. What was that again?”
Jude snorted. “That was the leopard gecko. You were scared of him last time, you must be mellowing to reptiles.”
“Yeah, it’s definitely the reptiles mellowing me.”
I had no idea what that even meant, but Jude moved on without asking.
Five minutes later, he lifted the snake from my shoulders and placed him back into his tank. He sent the kids out for cake and tipped me a wink. “Your turn now, mate. My part is done.”
I couldn’t argue with that. He’d kept the kids occupied for an hour and a half. I had ten minutes to feed them cake and give them back to their parents and it was all over. And it was Monday tomorrow.
Stop it.
All day, I’d fought the urge to obsess over what tomorrow would bring and focus on my kids, but with Jude in close proximity it was damn fucking hard. And I couldn’t deny that witnessing him in his absolute element was hotter than hell. His charisma, knowledge, and passion had entranced me, and even if our Monday promise came to nothing, I was glad I’d been here.
Tam tugged on my hand. “Can I give Jude some cake?”
“After your candles, bud.”
I fixed and lit candles on the grotesque cake Mina had handed me that morning, and filmed the kids singing Tam a round ofHappy Birthdayas he blew the candles out. Jude materialised from nowhere and handed me a knife. I laughed. “How did you know I’d forgotten?”
“Because you’re a dude who’s never done this before.”
He vanished as abruptly as he’d appeared, leaving me to figure out how to slice a cake in the shape of a king cobra without cutting its head off.
I doled out paper plates, then wrapped extra slices in napkins and shoved them into the gift bags Mina had made up. Tam tugged on my sleeve again. “What about Jude?”
“All right, all right.” I cut a huge slice of cake and dumped it onto a plate. “Go and find him, and while you’re at it, make sure you say thank you for an awesome party, okay?”
Tam scurried off to the back room where the animal display had taken place. It took me a moment to notice Delilah had gone with him, and the emotion that had filled my chest before the party had even kicked up a gear.
I couldn’t explain it. Dom was nice to my kids all the time, but there was something so genuine about the way Jude interacted with them that made me want far more of him than vibing on Grindr. I’d never been emotionally attached to a hook up, my attraction to men had always been purely physical, but, fuck, if Jude didn’t have me feeling some type of way.
Idiot. The sugar is going to your head.
I stopped eating cake. Parents began arriving to retrieve their children. I packed them off one by one until only my own remained. Delilah pointed out of the window. “Look, there’s Mummy’s car.”