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Patty and Alex would be called an odd couple, by anyone who wasn’t them or didn’t know them. Not because of their difference in species, with Alex being a collie and Patty being a heifer, but of their age difference. Patty was in her forties and Alex was still a young adult, so Patty would’ve been looked at as a cradle-robber. Never mind that her species was herbivorous, judgmental Caroline Cooke was going to scream her head off to her HOA underlings to have Patty removed from the neighbor lest she had it in her mind to aim her sights at someone even younger.
Still, what mattered to them both, as she and him labored in the kitchen at making spinach enchiladas and zesty quinoa, was that they were happy together. Patty smiled so much more often that it took either her little maverick, her feline friend Kathy and her own kitten Buddy to get her notice that she was. And Alex never had a moment where he didn’t tell Patty that she looked great today, yesterday, or the day after. She’d reply that she looked the way she always did. She looked with her eyes.
Then he’d roll his and kiss her on the mouth.
However, those kisses were always too quick and too sneaky when it wasn’t them alone. Not because Alex and her couldn’t show that much intimacy, no. They’d cuddle all day and kiss each other like their lips were glued together if they could manage it. No, it was because someone in their family still wasn’t aware of his and her relationship status.
That someone was Rudy Earls, Patty’s little boy calf in his elementary years, who was currently dealing with quite elementary things. Like how was his Roy Star-Buck of the Star Patrol action figure going to kick the butt of his Evil Commander Lyon action figure in their duel in outer space.
While the momma cow hadn’t given it much thought on that fateful night when Alex and her consummated their passion and love for each other, she’d become nervous and worried of what would happen should Rudy get wise to her and Alex’s secret relationship. She wasn’t only concerned over if he might react badly to it, it was why he might.
Rudy would sometimes ask where his dad Cash was. She’d say that he was just away, but now she regretted never really giving her poor maverick the full, unadulterated truth. That Cash wasn’t away, he was gone. For good. What if when he figured on his own that Alex’s hugs and kisses that he gave to her weren’t simply friendly ones, but ones that grown-ups give each other when they’re more than friends. Alex was all for telling the little guy about them, but he understood Patty’s concerns.
Today, though, after a long discussion in the quiet of yesterday night, Alex and Patty came to a resolution.
“You still sure about this?” Alex asked Patty after she put their supper in the oven. He was sure about it, but he and Patty needed to be of one confidence if they were going to go through with what they were about to tell her little maverick.
“Honestly, I’ve never been this scared.” Patty admitted. “But I meant what I said. We need to tell him. About us.” The momma cow was mentally whapping herself over the fact that she didn’t have the courage to tell Rudy sooner, but it really was better that they reveal it to him themselves before either he found out unawares or someone else told him too bluntly.
Speaking of him, Rudy was reaching the climax of Roy Star-Buck’s and Evil Commander Lyon’s molded plastic, make-believe combat. He made crashing and smashing sounds with his mouth as his two action figures ka-pow’d and ka-blam’d into each other, but the thrilling action was interrupted by a call of his mother. “Rudy. Would you come into the TV room, please?”
Rudy quietly humphed and put down his toys for later. The kid clumped his hooves over into the TV room where he saw his mother and his best friend forever sitting on the couch together. “What is it, Mom?” He asked evenly, but still curiously.
“Uh…” Patty started off cautiously, hesitating. Until Alex took her hand and squeezed it to transfer all his bravery over to her. She smiled at him and continued back to her little maverick. “Come, sit between Alex and I.” She instructed. Rudy followed the request and hopped his bovine bo-hiney into the spot between them.
“Okay. Rudy,” Patty started, looking her young son in the eye. “Remember how I said that Daddy… that Cash is away, for a long time.” She recalled for him, treading carefully. Rudy only nodded, listening in to what his mother might have to talk to him about.
“Is he coming back?” Rudy asked back, more inquisitive than actually anticipated in tone. At least, that’s what Patty hoped for as she looked over to Alex, who bobbed his head to her to keep going.
“No,” Patty sighed. “No, he’s not.” The momma cow had a sad look on her face as she was prepped to see the disappointment and even sorrow that could surface from her little maverick. “And… Rudy. He’s not coming back. Ever.” She let off her chest. She took her son’s little hand and squeezed it, wordlessly apologizing to him if she let him believe that maybe his father was going to return to their home.
Rudy’s relationship with his dad was a toss-up. Every now and then it did seem like Cash was his Papa but other times it was as if a stranger who looked like his father was living under their roof. Either Cash was semi-invested in spending time with his boy or could be downright mean to him, treating Rudy like the accident Cash might’ve really secretly saw him as.
So whatever Rudy would say next would tell Patty whether her maverick still loved Dad enough to still wait for him.
“I knew it,” Rudy said suddenly, looking away from his Mom’s gaze and looking like he could, at last, give up. As for Patty, she passed her eyes over to Alex who looked the same way she did; caught off guard. Part of them was relieved, but they still wanted, needed, to pursue what Rudy meant in those three words.
“What do you mean you knew?” Alex asked of the ball-shaped calf.
“Buddy and I talked about it a lot.” He explained first. “She asked me if Dad was dead, like maybe hers was.” Kathy, his other best friend’s mom, had lost her husband while he was away fighting in the Middle East. It made sense that little kitten might ask if Rudy’s father had passed too, being the straightforward feline that she was. “I said that he was gone away.
“Then Ms. Kathy asked me if I knew how long he was going to be gone away. I told her that I don’t know. Then I said Dad was gone away the way that Edit’s dad had gone away.” And by gone away, was that Edit’s father stretched out his stubby kiwi arms and flapped away onto the jet plane. Forever.
Patty silently breathed out, not happy but incredibly released of one worry. Looks like her little maverick was more perceptive than she thought, and she couldn’t help be just a teensy bit proud of him.
“We’re really sorry little buddy,” Alex comforted Rudy, giving him a one-armed hug around his slumped shoulders, letting him know that he was okay, and that everything was going to be okay.
“S’okay,” Rudy let Alex know. “I still have mom and you and Buddy.” He assured, and that made Patty lean in to smooch her boy on the cheek, which got him to giggle a little.
Now, for the part Alex and Patty were preparing and dreading. The heifer more than the mop-headed collie.
“You know… there’s something else I wanted to talk about.” Patty began, and Rudy gazed at her with a wonder on why she wanted to talk about that. “You see… Mommy is actually… seeing somebody.” She pushed out.
Rudy’s eyes got big as his head and he leaned into his mom when he asked, “Who? Are they nice? Is it a boy?” Patty smiled at her little maverick, while at same time feeling those butterflies bump their heads around in her stomach. She felt like she might have to do backflips, as many as what her own belly was doing too. Alex took her hand that was on her son’s back and he put his hand on Rudy’s shoulder, saying with his eyes that she had this. That she could do it.
Alex chose to help by providing a first hint. “It is a boy. A good boy.” He credited, making Patty chuckle at him. “And he is nice. And fun. And a great lover~” Alex teased, making Patty go amusingly aghast. Her son was right there.
As for the calf himself, he was getting antsy. He wanted to know who it was, wanted to know right then, wanted his mom to tell him, tell him, tell him.
So, she got herself to look her son in the eye, and told him. “It’s Alex.” It was done. It was out. Patty had told her little maverick that her boyfriend, her love, was none other than Alex, Rudy’s chosen best friend.
Rudy looked between them, the gears loudly turning in his head as the puzzle pieces fell into place, and Patty and Alex waited patiently as the little calf was formulating a response, from his lips or in his face. That it started. First it was a sniffle, then a hitched breath, and the dike burst. Rudy started to cry. “No—no he can’t—” Rudy hiccuped.
Patty started to panic. She was beginning to regret the admittance, but she knew she couldn’t turn around on this. Alex was her boyfriend and she had to get Rudy to understand.
“Sweetie, wait, don’t cry,” She implored him in a comforting, gentle voice, as she got down to her knees and holding onto him by his chubby sides. “It’s okay, it’s okay, I know you’re confused—”
“No, Alex can’t be your boyfriend!” Rudy insisted, the tears still coming. That’s when Alex got down on his knees too and tried to be helpful to Patty in getting Rudy to calm down and see that he could be her boyfriend.
“Aw, come on, little buddy. I love your Mom, so much, I can—”
“Nonono, you can’t!” Rudy nearly screamed, rapping his fists down on the couch cushions. “I don’t want Alex to be my dad!” He shouted.
Oh cowpats, this is exactly what Patty was worried about. It seemed, to her reasoning, that Rudy still might’ve felt strongly about Cash. That he was his Dad and no one else. Patty still determined to press on and guide her son to see how good the romance between her Alex would be for her, and even for him. That it’d be better than anything his father ever even attempted to offer them.
“Rudy, please, I know you’re upset, but I’m sorry.” She offered to her little maverick. Patty wasn’t truly sorry that Cash was gone but she believed it could allay her calf long enough that she might listen to her. It seemed to work as Rudy’s breathing returned to, at least, halfway even and he tried to rub his tears away with his right fist. “You want Daddy to come back, but he’s not—"
“That’s not it…” Rudy interrupted his mom in a broken voice. Patty halted and looked over at Alex, he shrugged with his face rather than his shoulders. He was as lost as she was now.
“What is it, then?” Patty asked patiently, putting a kind hand on her son’s leg to pet it soothingly.
“If Alex is—” Rudy gave another deep sniffle, to pull in the mucus that was keeping him from sharing his real emotions on what was truly bothering him. “If Alex becomes my Dad, then he can’t be my friend anymore.” Rudy made clear, after a few harder inhales.
Patty looked at Alex and he looked back at her, and it all came together. Parts of them were relaxed over the fact that Rudy’s dismay was over something less complex, but they were also hurt that it was rooted to something that may have damaged the calf’s feelings.
“Do you think I might leave too?” Alex asked Rudy carefully. The best Rudy could give was to glomp his arms over Alex’s shoulders and hug him tightly. Alex gave his little buddy tender pats on the back and soft scratches on the back of his head. “I’m not going anywhere, Rudy Dude.” Alex promised. The calf pulled away from him, with his hands balanced on his shoulders.
“But if you become my dad—” Rudy went on, but Patty stepped in to ease her little maverick further.
“Hey, I never said he was going to be your dad,” She assured, getting herself next to Alex, pulling the two of them together with her arms around his torso and waist. “I said he was my boyfriend.”
“Yeah, I can still be your friend,” Alex added, putting his cheek next to Patty’s. “Now I’ll also be your mom’s boyfriend~” Rudy passed his eyes back and forth between his best friend and his mom, trying to figure out how he felt about them now. He still wasn’t sure he wanted his friend to be seeing his mom, but on the other hand, his mom looked like she was really happy to be next to him.
“Does really make you happy, Mommy?” Rudy asked his mother.
“Enough that I want to do this.” Patty suddenly brought Alex into a chaste lip lock, which earned a disgusted blegh worthy of a belly laugh from Rudy.
“No, ew,” Rudy protested, putting his hands between Alex and his mom to separate them.
“Uh oh, going to do it again,” Patty teased, and she did kiss him once again, and now Rudy was trying to physically force his whole body between them to get them quit grossing him out. He did, and now he had his back to his mom’s front, who was chuckling it up like the easily amused at an open-mic standup.
“Aw, what’s wrong?” Alex coochie-cooed at Rudy, and then his face stretched up and down like a light bulb lit up over his head, deviously. “Wait, you want kisses too? Why didn’t you say so? Mwah-mwah-mwah,” Alex leaned in with his mouth puckered up for the disheveled calf, and Patty held onto him from behind as he desperately, comedically tried to kick away his friend from giving him his mom’s girl germs.
After several protests, ones that were still filled with little boy giggles, Patty and Alex released the calf and let him breathe as they laughed at his harmless misfortune. “You two are lucky that you’re family or I’d do my kung fu on you,” He told them, which made them laugh more. Then after the guffaws silenced to tellable levels, Alex’s nose twitched as he picked up a faint charcoal smell, and his eyes shot wide open and his ears perked in panic.
“Oh shhhhh-schnikeys the enchiladas!” He exclaimed, and Patty and him darted for the kitchen like they were making a bolt on a forward-running treadmill. Patty swung down the oven door and got out the cooking pan fast as she could. Fortunately, dinner the spinach-stuffed meal hadn’t burnt. Just a bit crispy on the top.
“Fwooh. Muy caliente, huh?” Patty joked, glad that their mail wasn’t ruined.
“Really, though,” Alex chimed in toward Rudy, after the trouble had been averted. “I’m not going anywhere. Scout’s honor,” the collie swore. “And I’ll only be your dad if you want me to.”
“So? What do you think now? You like Mommy’s new boyfriend?” Patty asked as she kneeled down to her little maverick, giving him dewy, cutesy eyes as well as a sincere look of wanting know her son was all square with the arrangement.
“As long as he promises not to try and kiss me anymore, we’re good.” Rudy said with finality. Patty smiled wide, and brought her son in for a big mommy hug. She picked him up by his bottom, and then Alex joined in to make a hug sandwich with Rudy as the cheese.
The hug felt like it could last forever, and parts of Alex and Patty wished it could. But Rudy needed to breathe, so they ended it and got ready to set the table.
There was a renewed feeling. One where now they were all in on the fact of being a family. One momma cow, one good boy of a collie, and that same heifer’s little maverick, really now on their way to being like a true, maybe unconventional, family unit.
Plus, in the back of Alex’s mind, an idea of making that official started to form.

END… until next time :3

Coming up next -- Valentine's Fair Fallout, where an entitled parent nearly ruins fun at the fairground 'U'