“Will you give us a moment please?” Tanner grabbed my arm and pulled me away from Claude. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“I know all about DODO. An acronym for Dad of Daughters Only. So tell me what daughters you banged to get into so much trouble.”
“Wow. WOW.” Tanner took a deep breath. “I don’t even know where to start.”
“Maybe start by telling me how many it was. It was three daughters, wasn’t it? Triplets, maybe? God, why are guys so obsessed with banging triplets?”
Tanner leaned in and lowered his voice. “Ash… I don’t know where you heard that word, but DODO doesn’t have anything to do with dads or daughters.”
“Then what is it?”
“You really want to know?”
“Yes!”
“Okay, okay. But you have to lower your voice.”
“Why? Worried Little Lucy is going to hear about your perverted ways?”
“No. I’m worried that Claude is a DODO agent. Jesus, I’m worriedeveryoneis a DODO agent. I even thought you were for a while there. Back when you were stalking me. And maybe a little after we first actually met.”
“You were stalking me!”
“Hmm…no. You were definitely stalking me. Anyway, back to DODO. Everything I’m about to say never leaves this menagerie, okay?”
“Of course.”
“Okay, so DODO…” started Tanner.
“Actually, I can’tquitepromise that. I’d like to think I can keep it a secret, but I’m 100% going to tell Chastity everything. She’s already in too deep. It’s better to read her in than to have her keep investigating.”
“Okay, fine. But no one else. Not even your parents. Deal?”
I nodded.
Tanner pulled me farther away from Claude, deep into some sort of tunnel. “DODO is an ancient organization with the power to make me disappear in the blink of an eye. I’ve been running from them for years, but they’re always out there. Watching. Waiting for me to slip up.”
“So…DODO is the cartel that’s after you? Were cartels ancient organizations?”
“Not exactly, no. It’s not a cartel per se. It’s worse.”
Worse than a cartel? How many daughters had he banged? I shook away the thought. He’d told me that wasn’t what was happening right now. Hadn’t he? I needed to clarify this. “Wait, so you didn’t bang any daughters? Not even those hot triplets?”
“Really? That’s what you’re going to focus on? And what hot triplets are you talking about?”
“I don’t know! The ones you banged.”
“I didn’t bang any triplets.” He paused. “Well, actually, I kind of have. It really depends on your definition of bang.”
I stared at him.
“But that has nothing to do with DODO,” he added.
“So banging someone’s daughter isn’t what upset DODO?”
“No!” He paused again. Just like he had with the triplet question. “Well, actually…in a funny way, it kind of is. But not at all in the way you think.”
“Aha! So you did bang a daughter.”Gotcha, bitch!
