Total pages in book: 78
Estimated words: 75457 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 377(@200wpm)___ 302(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75457 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 377(@200wpm)___ 302(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)
Oh yeah.
Wait.
Did that mean he was a bottles and binkie kind of little?
“I don’t even know what kind of toys people play with here. I haven’t seen any.” At least, I didn’t think I had. “Most of the council people I’ve been talking to are too old to have young children and no one talks about grandkids. The closest things I’ve seen to babies are the younger kids who follow the people of Earth around.”
They were old enough to be able to wander around the interior of the town unsupervised, but I’d seen one get his ass chewed for trying to let himself out into the area around the town. So what appeared like kids running completely amuck didn’t seem to be as dangerous as it looked.
“Most people with babies and toddlers live in a forested area while their children are young. The area around the portal is a harsh environment.” Klynn seemed to find that topic easier to discuss. I half expected him to use it to jump to another topic but he didn’t like backing down. “I…I can show you what some of our toys look like if you are interested.”
Were they his toys or would we end up going shopping?
“I’d like that.” Sighing dramatically, I did my best to sound slightly ridiculous but not dragon-level pouting. “I probably can’t interact with them either. Do you have the baby version of toys or slightly older? I can probably make the baby stuff work.”
Had that been a laugh?
Klynn let out a slightly choppy breath that seemed to be a laugh. “You were very brave and turned on the privacy settings, so I’m sure you can make toys function properly.”
“Ugh. There’s a proper way to get them to function. They’re magic too.” These people needed to learn to appreciate how to do things by hand once in a while. “How magic? Am I going to look stupid?”
“No.” Something about the way he sighed out the word made me question if his little side wanted to pop out. “You can do it and trying new things makes you smart.”
“I don’t know about that.” I put just enough drama in my voice to earn another one of the possible giggles from him. He looked fairly neutral as he straightened and took my hand, but I was pretty sure that was just his default state.
“I do. I’ll show you.” Shaking his head like I was being ridiculous, he sighed and I had to fight back a smile. “Playing is easy. Toys are fun. You’ll see.”
“Maybe.” I kept sighing and making drama-filled human noises as he led me deeper into his home. It was basically set up similar to apartments on Earth just with furniture that looked a bit like it came from an expensive version of IKEA.
The kitchen was set up along one wall in every home I’d seen and that was where it looked like I’d landed on another planet, but luckily for me, I had a boy who wanted to take care of his Daddy. That meant I wouldn’t have to figure out how to make the fridge box thing rise out from the counter or turn on the burner that didn’t seem to exist until someone waved their hand funny over it.
Toddlers couldn’t make any of that work, and I didn’t understand enough about magic to make it work either.
My boy had decided to step up on the caretaking part of our relationship, though, so I was hoping that would mean he’d let me step up on the Daddy and Dom side of things.
“It’ll be fine.” Klynn actually started swinging my hand as his tone sounded more like he’d always been speaking English like a local. “Daddies know how to play. They just forget sometimes.”
At some point I was going to have to sneak into his tablet and get a better idea of what he was reading.
“Are you sure? You’ve got alien toys. My boy’s not human, so I might not be able to play right.” That got another giggle out of him and it actually sounded like a quiet laugh that time.
“I’m not the alien.” He shook his head like I was ridiculous but seemed more confident as he waved his hand over another panel on the wall and made his door slide open like we were on Star Trek. “You are.”
“I’m me.” I managed to sound like I thought he was being ridiculous and didn’t laugh at the silly conversation. “You’re the alien. You do magic. You live on another planet. You have to protect me from dinosaurs.”
Those were still weird to see even if they were all smaller than I’d imagined dinosaurs being. Jurassic Park hadn’t prepared me for small plant-eating dinos that were basically like large annoying dogs that tried to push their way into any building they could find.