Prince Pucking Charming

He scans the kitchen and shrugs. “Where are they?”

Max slides off the counter and grabs the bag from the pantry closet. “I get four. Mommy gets three. How many do you want?”

Duke glances over at me. “Whatever Mommy’s having.”

After Duke fixes three mugs of hot chocolate, he joins me at the table. Max hops onto his lap, almost knocking the cup from his hand.

“Calm down, Max. You almost spilled hot chocolate on Duke.”

Max settles down, taking a few sips from her drink, and then moves over to the chair next to me. “Are you going to stay over?”

I gasp at Max’s question.

Duke shakes his head. “No, I have to sleep at my house.”

“How come? I have a tent in my bedroom. And a sleeping bag. You can stay in my room.”

Duke laughs, though he looks like he has no idea what to say. Sometimes, she’s too cute to resist. I have a hard time saying no to her.

“Max,” I say, “Duke has to go home tonight.”

“Can we have a sleepover another night?”

“Umm… No, baby. Duke has his own house.”

Duke finishes his hot chocolate and then gets up from his chair, extending his hand to Max. “How about you show me your ant collection before I go?”

She beams with delight and takes his hand. I follow behind them down the hallway. The sight of them together is seriously adorable. I can see why Max doesn’t want him to go because I don’t want him to go either. This situation with Duke is only temporary. I have to remind myself of that, prepare myself for when he leaves. They all leave. Max is too young to understand that.

Duke’s eyes widen as he looks at everything in Max’s bedroom. Pretty much anything you can imagine is packed inside these four walls. She has a cage filled with a family of hamsters on her desk. A self-contained ant farm is on the floor by her closet. Those things freak me out the most. Some nights, I imagine the seals breaking and ants crawling into bed with me. Nagini, her pet snake, is sleeping in a tank on her bookshelf. Nemo, her goldfish, is swimming in his bowl on her desk.

Ted bought Max a new pet last week. The white rabbit’s cage sits atop her dresser because we’re running out of room for pets. Max loves animals, but she’s allergic to cats and dogs. Leave it Ted to buy her every animal she’s not allergic to instead.

Duke lifts the top of Nagini’s tank. “Can I hold him?”

I stare at him in shock. “Are you crazy?”

“No. Snakes are harmless.”

I chuckle. “Yeah, until they take a bite out of you.”

“It’s a garden snake. I’m sure I’ll be okay,” he says with a confident wink.

Duke handles Nagini like he’s done this before. Surprisingly, Nagini likes him. She slithers up Duke’s forearm that’s the size of a tree trunk. Nagini sticks out her tongue, which always frightens me. I hate snakes. They scare the crap out of me. But Max is so good with her, and we’ve never had any issues.

“She smells you,” Max tells Duke. “Did you know that snakes smell with their tongues because they don’t have noses?”

Duke nods.

“She likes you,” Max says, staring up at Duke with a big grin on her face. “Nagini doesn’t let Mommy hold her. Only Daddy and me. She hisses when she touches her.”

“I think she prefers men,” I say.

“She knows you’re afraid,” Duke says, holding Nagini up. “Animals can smell your fear.”

“Snakes are so gross,” I say with a shiver. “I’m not a fan.”

“But you like Hammy,” Max says. “And he likes you.”