Daddy's Little Grumpy Bunny (A Little Pet Play Story)

Part 4 (Big) Thursday at HQ

{3422 Words}

{Trigger Warning: This chapter contains discussion of Lottie's past which included her witnessing animal abuse as a child.}

Lottie and Jackson were sitting at the kitchen table. Lottie convinced him to let her have strawberry ice cream and mashed potatoes for her unscheduled Big Girl Chat. Even though he had to try to not look at her eating. She had decided to use one spoon for both and kept switching between the bowl of mashed potatoes and the bowl of strawberry ice cream. Jackson thought it was fluffin' icky but he knew better than to get between his girl and her potatoes.

“The first thing I want to discuss with you is that I will be applying for a transfer in a year, probably  closer to two. I want you to begin thinking of where, staying within Canada of course, you would like to move to.”

Lottie nodded, not sure why that was so important. It was strange he wanted to wait a year or two and rushed to mention it to her. It's not like she didn't already know he wanted a different job, within the security department. His internal clock must be all wocky because he was a vampire. Two years was a lifetime away. “Okay, Jackson. Can we move to the Arctic so I can pretend I'm at the North Pole?”

“...Maybe… think about some other cities and provinces too. We need a list of options so we can compare to job listings at the time. That is, if you want to still… join me.”

Lottie dropped her spoon on the floor. She left it there for the little cleaning fairies that cleaned up after her when she dropped things. And got herself the second spoon she was supposed to use for her ice cream only. “Why… why wouldn't I want to… join you?” Lottie dropped a spoonful of strawberry ice cream into her mash potatoes and played with it.

“Mr Iniko has erased your contract with the Marula family and refunded the money I paid for you-”

Lottie held back her tears and glared at her potatoes. She spoke in a soft voice, barely over a whisper. “So you want to get rid of me now that your financial and legal responsibilities are gone.”

“No, not at all. I just… I just didn't want you to feel like you had to stay. If you didn't want to.”

“Why wouldn't I want to?” Lottie began stabbing the contents of her bowl that were now half strawberry ice cream and half mashed potatoes.

“You never really chose me. It was either me or Carlos. I was just the least bad of two bad choices. You expected to live your human life with your family but then you had to choose between two scary vampires. It wasn't much of a choice.”

“Family?! Choice?! Going no contact with the people I am forced to share blood types with was the best thing that ever happened to me!” Lottie screamed and Jackson couldn't help but wonder where she got her high school diploma that allowed her to enrol in college. Some days he wondered if he should make homeschooling a part of her little activities so he could be confident she had a proper education.

“That dog bite scar on my leg that you found and I didn't want to talk about? That happened because my older brother thought it was funny to see what would happen if he held me in front of him as they hit the dog we had at the time in the face with a belt! It's my very first memory. My brothers would lock me in the kennel just to scare me! When my parents would find out, they would laugh too!”

“Wait, wait, wait. Your vet allowed you to keep a dog that was biting its owners and getting hit with belts?!”

Lottie failed to see the problem in a situation she was born in like a frog in a pot of water while the temperature was slowly rising. “Dogs need to be tough. It's a dog eat dog world. They are scary. That's why they need discipline not pretentious vets who don't do nuttin’ but ask for extra money anyway.”