“Take this, you snaggle-toothed scuttle-butt!” Alex proclaimed as the collie made Rudy’s Koko the Cat action figure, with spiked boxing glove action, lunge at Fangs the Tiger, the saber-toothed, striped minion of the malicious Dr. Monroe, who was being operated by the calf himself.
“Hah-hah-hah!” Rudy guffawed in a deep baritone. Or as baritone as a pre-pubescent could manage. “Tiny kitty with tiny punches does nothing to big cat with big muscles!”
Rudy had been getting Alex to play with him with his comic-book adapted characters since the collie woke up from his usual day cycle sleep after his latest graveyard shift at the warehouse. Patty was currently out running errands, getting items for dinner and going to get her car inspected so that she could pay off that registration fee.
And that worked perfectly for Alex, because there was something he wanted to discuss with Rudy. It was something that he’d been wanting to talk about, and follow through with, ever since only a few months ago when him and Patty confessed to the little maverick about the true nature of his and the momma cow’s relationship. As well, with the Valentine’s Day Fair coming to their Texas town of Union that Saturday, the collie thought the timing would be a hundred percent, on the dot, right on target, perfect.
“Guh!” Alex cried out in mock pain as he laid Koko out on her side, seemingly bested by the jacked-up tiggy. “Darn it! How?” Alex questioned in Koko’s falsetto.
“Big tiger crush tiny kitty!” Rudy rumbled in Fangs’ growl, leaping up to pounce on her.
“Shoot it up, woo-hoo!” Alex suddenly hollered as he made Koko’s little brother, Bobo the Big Gunny-Bunny, leap from quote-on-quote nowhere to rescue. The collie made gatling sounds as he pretended to make the mutant-roided rabbit blast Fangs with his blasters.
“Agh! Bobo!” Rudy growled for his defeated villain figure. “You win this time. But next time. Next time! Fangs will bite your butt!” Rudy made Fangs scurry away, saying incoherent things that had to be g-rated swears.
“High-4 Baby Bro!” Alex celebrated, as he got Koko and Bobo to clap their three-fingered, plastic palms in a victorious high-five. Or high-four. Or three, if the thumbs weren’t counted. “Want to keep going? I could do Spyke Havok, Bobo’s rival, and you be the rabbit guy.” Alex suggested, holding up the bunny action figure that was rated M for Manly alongside his fictional foil who was sleeker and more ninja looking.
“Nah, that was fun.” Rudy declined, getting his toys off the ground to put them away. “Fun enough that I’ll ignore that you made Bobo talk.” The calf underhandedly criticized, as Bobo was supposed to be a strong but silent type. Alex chuckled and helped Rudy with tidying up the toy-scattered carpet floor.
“Hey, Rudy-Dude?” Alex called to the calf as they finished putting away his playthings.
“Yeah?”
“I want to ask you something.”
“What?”
“Come over here, first.” Alex requested, getting on his knees to be eye level with Rudy. The calf approached his oldest best friend and stood there to listen to him. “What do you think about your mom and I? Together?”
“I think she’s happy.” Rudy said plainly. Alex grinned and gave the calf a thumbs up with his eyes over the correctness of that answer. Alex was really happy too. Happy enough to have the idea that he wanted to share with Rudy.
“Are you happy?” Alex asked the calf, specifically. He couldn’t go through with what he wanted to do unless Rudy was on board too.
“Yes.” The calf responded candidly. Over the few months that followed after the truth came out, Alex had been working hard to help his little buddy get used to, and more than that really, the fact that he was his mom’s boyfriend. He helped him out on homework, even math, in spite of the headache of the new textbook that old how it was supposed to be done over how it’s always worked. Plus, he made sure Rudy could see it when the collie and Patty would hug and kiss and call each other bae and boo, and after the second month Rudy gave up making gag noises. And after Alex moved out of the guest room and into Patty’s bedroom, if Rudy felt like he couldn’t brave the night alone he’d always opt to nestle between his mom and his bigger best friend. Like the little kid he was who wanted his mommy and maybe-perhaps-daddy to shield him from the lumpy monster that was where the laundry hamper was.
Alex grinned hopefully, and put his hands over the top of Rudy’s shoulders to ask him, “Rudy. Do I have your permission to ask your mom to marry me?”
Rudy’s eyes bulged, and his mouth dropped open an inch as if his brain became an early computer processor that was processing a huge data dump. Alex counted to ten in his head before he attempted to speak again. “What I said months ago still stands. I’m only going to be your dad if you want me to be. And that’s still true now. I’ll be whoever you want, no matter what it is. And if you don’t want me to ask her yet, then by golly—” Before Alex could finish reading off his plan to get Rudy to say yes, the elementary-aged calf spoke up.
“Do you promise you won’t leave Mommy and me?” Rudy asked cautiously. And maybe fearfully too. Alex could understand why. He could joke, but Alex really wanted to put a ring on Patty’s finger. He even ordered one that had a “chocolate” diamond on it. It wouldn’t arrive until next week but he knew Patty would wait. Or prayed that she did, at least. So, instead, he answered honestly.
“I promise. Cross my heart.” After that, Rudy swooped his arms around the collie’s neck and gave him the tightest hug he could. Which meant some of Alex’s air circulation was put under pressure. “Need air.” Alex warned the young calf, in an overdone choking voice. Rudy let go, looking the sorriest of sorry to his best friend, who was now going to be his step… not father, yet, but something really cool that didn’t have a technical name.
Alex then grinned like an imp and swooshed Rudy up into the air, making the calf giggle at full volume, before the collie made a jog around the house, carrying Rudy like a football. Patty arrived back home just in time, tote bags loaded with that week’s groceries, to see her son be the helpless victim to Alex the tickle monster. “Mom, save me!” Rudy screamed through screeching laughs.
“No one can save you! No waahaahaahahahahaha!” Alex was interrupted from his cheesy and hammy nefariousness when Patty came up from behind and stuck both her fingers directly into her boyfriend’s weak spot; his armpits. The tables quickly turned and now Alex was at the mercy of a mom-ster cow and her little spawn.
Alex knew, in his heart, that this had to be a precursor. Saturday was going to come swiftly, it was going to be fun, it was going to be romantic, he’d got on his knee before Patty, and she’d say yes. To infinity and beyond, yes.
It was going to be perfect