“Inconceivable,” Thor said. “Simply inconceivable.”
“I don’t think that word means what you think it means,” I replied. “At least not when it comes to Payne; he just proved how conceivable anything is if you set your mind to it.”
“That he did,” Thor said. “Smarter than two old cowboys who thought they were going to teach their bunny boy how to play darts.”
“There’s still checkers,” I replied.
“I love checkers,” Payne declared as he wiggled his butt and danced around us.
“We’re not winning nuthin’ tonight,” Thor grumbled, shooting me a look of mock misery.
“Oh, I wouldn’t say that,” I replied, eyeing Payne up and down. “I think we’ve just won a second chance with our bunny. I’d say that was worth more than a few tragic defeats at his hand.”
“Imagine gaining the greatest prize in history, all while going down in flames.”
“Now that’s the kind of crash and burn I can live with,” I admitted as I watched Thor step up to throw. “As long as I get to do it with the two of you.”
“I wouldn’t have it any other way,” Payne said as he jumped in my arms.
Needless to say, Thor put the darts down to get in on the hugging, and yeah, there might have been a few more tears too, but even the owl had taken off, so there was no one around to witness the culmination of our pining.
Or our joyful reunion with Payne.
Epilogue
Six Months Later
Payne
“Stupid paper. Stupid pencil. Stupid, stupid duck drawing! You’re not supposed to look like a Disney duck!”
Despite the beautiful blue sky overhead, the smart speaker playing my favorite playlist, and the comfortably padded chair I was currently seated on, nothing about this drawing session was coming together the way I wanted it to, and I was completely crashing out over it.
“Alright, that’s enough paper abuse for now,” Master Thor declared, his heavy hands settling on my shoulders. “And I’m sure the pencils would like a break from being told off.”
Huffing, I nodded, because he was right. Kicking the trash can and cussing out everything in sight, including my muse, wasn’t going to help anything.
“You still have a reserve of drawings lined up, correct?” Master Thor prodded.
“Three weeks’ worth, Sir,” I explained as he rubbed my shoulders while I breathed and dialed back the flood of frustration and pissed-offness I’d been drowning in for the last hour.
Since coming to live with them at the house, we’d developed a wonderful routine. In the mornings we had breakfast together, then headed up to the main resort, where they dropped me off if I had a room service shift or took me with them and found me a place to sit and sketch if they had work to do that day.
They were always done by three, no matter what, and when I was with them, we packed a picnic lunch and ate while we talked and planned our evening, in between me showing them what I’d drawn that morning.
Some days, there was nothing for them to do around the grounds, and if they happened to coincide with one of my days off, we’d go on adventures together. This morning I’d had a shift, and when I’d finished, I’d insisted on drawing because my brain had been filled with ducks since our trip to the petting zoo the day before. I thought I’d finally locked onto the story I wanted to tell, but the images in my head kept shifting until I’d wound up with a hodgepodge of every cartoon duck I’d ever seen.
And hated all of them.
“Then I think it’s time we go do something fun, don’t you?” Master Thor said.
Nodding, I let out another exhale, a softer one, and started packing my pencils back in the case. “Yes, Sir, it really is. Thank you for coming out to get me; I wouldn’t have stopped.”
“I know,” he replied, cupping the back of my neck and giving it a squeeze. “We could see you through the window and could tell that you were getting frustrated when you kicked the trashcan and shook your fist at it after throwing another crumpled piece of paper in. So, we set up a surprise for you inside, and you don’t even have to change.”
I’d already been melting beneath his touch, each squeeze and rub chasing away the lingering frustration and annoyance of those drawings not turning out right.
He never touched my things to help me clean them up. I had a very specific order I packed them away in, and he knew that, because I’d explained that I grouped them by their frequency of use, not by the progression of the color tones the way they’d come. Because of that, the order changed by project, and sometimes, as I was putting them back in the case, I decided to change them up in preparation for the next session, knowing that there was never any rush.