half of the restaurant. Will you need the pet menu?”
“We absolutely will need the pet menu. This is their first time in a restaurant.”
The hostess smiled. “For two humans and three pets?”
“Yes, please.”
“This way.” The waitress led us to a booth, handed us the menus, and headed off, returning with three pet beds, which she put down on the floor at our feet. The puppies and kitten needed no other invitation and made themselves at home. “Would you like anything to drink?”
“Coffee, black,” my husband requested, and he stared into my eyes as he did so.
“Spiced minty grass of some sort.” Damn it. “Tea. I meant tea!”
“We have spiced grass, but it isn’t minty,” the hostess replied with a smile. “We have mint syrup if you’d like your spiced grass to be minty, however.”
“Hit me up with a pot of the regular spiced grass, and because I’m really curious, a cup of spiced grass with mint syrup,” I replied, meeting my husband’s challenging gaze with a raised brow.
“I don’t know what I just lost in that exchange, but take me for all your worth, because you won that without question,” my husband stated as soon as the woman left. “Also, for the record, she thinks you’re hot.”
“Wait. She thinks I’m hot? Not you?”
“Yep.”
I blinked, leaning over to catch a glimpse of the woman as she went to make our drinks. “You’re not upset, are you? Does this bother your sexy incubus self? She’s a woman. Didn’t you say rejection hurts your pride?”
“I am more delighted because she sees you like I see you, and that is very gratifying. My sexy incubus self is rather pleased with this. Really, I’m very pleased, and you will be rewarded for being so beautiful tonight. I have zero regrets about this situation.”
“She gets a huge tip when we leave. And whatever I think is huge probably isn’t, so we need to double whatever number I try to put in as a huge tip.” I giggled and ducked my head. “This might be a first.”
“It is part of my extensive campaign to raise your self-esteem.”
“You’re very good for my self-esteem. I seem to have graduated from my initial knee-jerk disbelief to concern my sexy incubus might become unpleasantly jealous rather than delighted.” I leaned towards him and whispered, “If I wasn’t already the prey of a sexy incubus, I’d say she’s really pretty.”
“That is because she is really pretty,” my husband replied with a soft laugh, and he checked on our pets. “Is Avalanche doing okay with her meats? I know you’re giving some to her every day, but you don’t usually give her a lot. She’s still pretty heavily drinking milk?”
“She would very much appreciate some fresh meat from the pet menu, but she should still get her milk, and her meat needs to be in small pieces, so we should look at the kitten menu for her.” I checked the pet menu, my brows raising at the wide assortment of meats and brands they kept for pets. “This is a pet paradise, Sam! They even have moose. Oh, they have edible bones, Sam. We need to get those for the puppies.” I thrust the menu at him. “Are any of those bone types what you give them?”
He checked. “Yeah, these are good. I’ll order a few extra for the road so they can keep busy while we’re driving around and in the hotel room tonight. We’ll get a box for them to go. It should keep them happy. Oh, I want you to do rabies treatments on them in a few days, just in case, and we’ll do a round ourselves. No idea if we’ll be exposed handling this, so I’d rather just pretend we will be.”
I wrinkled my nose. “I will be sad if I flip off that damned marker again.”
“And if you do, my grandfather will flip it back on, so don’t worry about it. He’ll want to check on you weekly anyway to make sure the babies are okay.”
“It’s going to be a constant stream of worriers, visiting and visiting and visiting. Make it clear if they visit, they babysit!”
“I can do that.”
The waitress returned with our drinks, and we ordered for our pets first, which amused the woman. Once certain our furry friends were cared for, I ordered a salad to appease my husband’s vegetable-eating ways to go with my sea bug roll.
It amused me when he ordered the same thing.
“I have learned when it comes to sea bugs,