The Dragon’s E-Mail Order Menage

Chapter 9

Levi Phipps was having a bad day. It hadn’t started out that way and there hadn’t been any part of him that expected it to go downhill, but downhill it went, whether he liked it or not. Not that he should have been surprised. His life had been a fu*king roller coaster over the last few months, hadn’t it? Why should this be any different?

He had wanted to shake things up, had known that it would happen when he had thought up the whole idea of going online and finding a woman to bring into the house, but somehow he hadn’t realized how far reaching the implications of a decision like that could really be.

Wanting a thing and getting it didn’t always match up quite the way you expected it to, even if the thing you got was good; even if it was better than anything you could have dreamt up if left to your own devices. And Maggie coming to live with them was exactly that. It was more than he would have thought possible, and it went far beyond the s*x, which was the obvious benefit. It was a thousand little things he wouldn’t have known how to explain if anyone had known to ask for details.

 The vast empire that currently served as the residence of choice for Levi Phipps felt lighter somehow, brighter just for having Maggie inside of it. He hadn’t known that a person could do that, hell, he still didn’t know if just any person could do that, but Maggie could. She could make your whole life feel like it meant a little more than it had before she was in it.

Maybe that was why he had acted like such a complete jackass when she said she needed to go home. She had said those words, said them calmly and sweetly and with such trust in her eyes, and he had completely lost his sh*t. Jesus, he had actually seen red. He had always thought that was just an expression, one of those over used phrases people threw out to make sure you knew how serious they were about being pissed off, but when he thought about Maggie leaving that was exactly what had happened to him. He could hardly remember what he had done, but he did know he had stormed out of the room lie a child whose toy had been taken away from him and who wasn’t handling it well.

He knew Hudson had been kind to her, though. He was grateful for that. In a different kind of a situation it might have made him jealous or like he was lacking in some way, but with Maggie and Hudson, he was just happy that things had been handled the right way in the end. Leave it to Hudson to fill in the gaps; he was able to excel in the things that Levi was lacking in and that fact gave Levi hope.

It made him think that maybe, with the two of them combined, they could be a complete enough package to make Maggie happy for the rest of her life. Because in a startlingly-short amount of time, only months instead of years, Levi had somehow managed to fall in love with Maggie, or at least to begin to, which to him felt every bit as significant.

 He believed that Hudson was at least as far along that path as he was and he believed, or maybe he just hoped, that Maggie was right there with them. He was almost sure she was (despite the fact that he had never even attempted to bring it up with her) and thought that it was that love that was behind her willingness to forgive him for his bad behavior.

So you would think that things were on the upswing for him, right? You would think that he would be floating along on a bed of fu*king clouds now that things had gone back to being good between Maggie and him (and Hudson; he could never forget Hudson). Unfortunately, that was only the case for a couple of days. A couple of days and a couple of hours, to be exact. He might as well count the few good hours he had gotten in that morning before he picked up the phone to hear his father’s voice on the other line.

“Levi! Where in god’s name have you been?”

“Well hello to you too, Pops. How’s the day treating you? Get any good prostate exams lately?”

“Why don’t you just shut your mouth for a minute, Levi? Maybe give listening a try for once instead of just talking to hear yourself talk.”

Ooh yeah, this was going to be one of those kinds of conversations. He could always count on his father for a good verbal sparring match and in a short amount of time he had learned that this conversation would be no different. But of course it wouldn’t. Dear old dad only called when there was a problem that needed to be fixed, and that problem was usually somehow Levi’s fault. In fact, come to think of it, he couldn’t remember the last time either one of his parents had called him just to talk to him. He didn’t think it had ever happened, not with either one of them. So he knew before even saying hello that this conversation was going to be to the point. Or if he didn’t know, he should have.

“Levi, are you listening to me?”

“Sure, Pops.”

“Don’t call me Pops. You know I detest it when you call me that.”

“Okay,” Levi said through gritted teeth, closing his eyes and willing himself to get through this conversation without having concocted a plan for murder by the end of it. “Then yes Father, I’m listening. What’s the matter?”

“Right, good. Getting right to the point, that’s exactly what I wanted to do. Now, do you recall a certain luncheon with your mother and me a few months ago? At that dirty little hole in the wall you called a restaurant?”

“Sure, how could I forget?”

“Wonderful. And do you also remember my telling you that we have certain expectations for you? Expectations that, to date, you have not been living up to?”

“Dad, if I didn’t forget the lunch itself do you really think I forgot your whole grandkid or else thing? Please. The threat of disinheritance isn’t something one forgets easily.”

“Perfect. Then do you mind telling me why we haven’t heard from you yet?”

“Um, because I don’t have a baby for you yet?”

“Of course you don’t. Don’t be an idiot. At the end of our time together you told us that you had been seeing a lady, or at least I hope she’s a lady, and I expressed the desire to have you bring her out to meet us. This time at a restaurant of our choosing.”

Sh*t. Sh*t! Ok, that he really had forgotten. When he had agreed to this second lunch literally all he had been thinking about was getting the hell out of the line of his parents’ sight. He had barely known Maggie then. She had only been with them for a short amount of time and he didn’t really care one way or another at that point what she thought of him or his family. Things were different now. Now she was one of the most important things in his life. He wanted desperately to keep her happy, to keep her in his life until the end of his days, and he had a feeling that introducing her to his parents was not the best way to do that.