like that. Tomorrow, I’d get to wake up and do the volunteer work I loved—work that was important, and at some point I’d see my brothers or my dad, since it was impossible not to when you all lived on an island as small as Whispering Key.
The truth was, there were a billion people in the world who’d trade places with me right now. I was young and healthy, and my bank balance was a beautiful thing. I had important volunteer work I was doing at the Nature Center, even if Rafe believed that wasn’t real or important. I was grateful. And I believed the rest would come in time.
I made my way into the bedroom, stripped out of my boots and clothes in the darkness, and ran my hand over the bed before I lay on it to be sure I wasn’t squashing Marjorie. I left the rest of my bedding in the center of the mattress and curled up with just a pillow and blanket on top of the covers, and then I let myself drift.
In the perfect future I visualized, I walked along the beach with the wind whipping around me, hand in hand with the man I loved. I couldn’t see his face, but I didn’t need to, because I knew everything about him that I needed to know. He was incredibly kind. He loved me unreservedly. He adored animals, peace and quiet, and simplicity. He never pushed me to talk. He never rushed me. He was patient when it came to sex and let things develop really slowly.
And he was out there waiting for me, I thought as my brain finally wound down and I fell asleep, somewhere just beyond my reach.
3
Toby
Help Me Hagatha (Issue #2399)
Dear Aunt Hagatha:
My sweet little girl is a senior in high school, and she insists on applying to colleges that are way above her league academically. She’s done pretty well in our small-town school, but maybe my wife and I have expressed our pride a little too strongly. Sending her off to the Ivy League would be like sending a Chihuahua to live with wolves. How can we rein in her ambition just enough to prevent her from getting hurt?
Protective in Palmyra
Dear Protective,
Life hurts. What hurts worse is a parent who tries to hold you back because of their own fears.
Also, Auntie’s not an animal expert by any means, but a quick google shows that Chihuahuas and wolves share 99.9% of their DNA, so if she tells you she’s fierce, believe her.
Best of luck,
Auntie H.
I was having that dream—you know, the one where you’re in the middle of the Roman Colosseum in a fight to the death, except the fight is more of a RuPaul’s Drag Race Lip-sync for Your Life, and you arrive like Britney Spears doing “Slave 4U” at the VMAs, with the tiger in the cage and a giant snake around your neck, but you’ve somehow, impossibly, forgotten the words to the chorus? Yeah, that one—and I was so disoriented that when I woke up to a weight on my stomach and bright yellow eyes glinting at me through the darkness, I had a moment where I said to myself, “Oh, it’s just the tiger,” and closed my eyes again.
A second later, my entire body locked down and my heart raced. Holy shit. A tiger?
I was no stranger to waking up bewildered in strange beds, and I was pretty good at getting calm, assessing my surroundings, and then extricating myself silently, but I had to admit, the possibility of being mauled added a whole new level of danger to the proceedings, not least because I was lying on my back, buck naked except for a sheet, and the animal was perched directly on top of my cock and balls.
I looked left, and in the very dim moonlight filtering through some wooden blinds, I saw a nightstand but no phone.
I looked right and saw nothing but pillows and blankets.
I looked up and saw a ceiling fan… and that’s when I remembered: Whispering Key, Mason, the Zamboni that ate my phone, Littlejohn Jennings “getting me sorted.”
Damn it all.
“Dear Lord, I’m being murdered by a tiger,” I whisper-prayed, squeezing my eyes shut. “While I appreciate the Carole Baskin homage and the inherent drama of the scene, honestly haven’t I been through enough?”
The feline on my crotch did not think so, if the multiple needle-sharp jabs into my hips were anything to go by.
“Hey,” I hissed, pissed off. “Enough. This is