Anna Wineheart Books

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Henry’s Secrets

Henry snapped a quick picture of Yaeger and his family, slipping his phone into his pocket just as smoothly.

Yaeger narrowed his eyes. “Why do you need so many pictures of us?”

“Don’t tell me there are no uses for a photo of you sitting on the toilet,” Henry replied with a grin.

Like he expected, the dragon furrowed his brow. “Why the hell do you still have that picture?”

“Why the hell!” Sunnie cried, dancing through the living room.

Like adult dragons, dragonets had especially keen hearing, which seemed to be working to Sunnie’s disadvantage. Yaeger sighed.

“Yaeger,” Elson cried exasperatedly somewhere in the house.

“It’s not me—” Yaeger rubbed his face. “It’s Henry!”

Elson sighed, too. “I love you, Henry, but whatever it is, no!”

“I did nothing wrong!” Henry sang. “But I should retreat to my quarters since you seem determined to get pissy, Yaeggie. Maybe you should get out on the right side of bed. Or maybe not get out of bed at all!”

Before Yaeger could grab him, Henry slipped down the hallway and took some turns, ending up in the cluster of rooms on the far side of the penthouse that Yaeger had somehow never thought to visit the entire time they’d lived here.

If he did, Yaeger would’ve found Henry’s vast collection of pictures—largely ones that’d make Yaeger’s face go purple, because Yaeger was hilarious like that. He’d always been a little uptight about his own embarrassing situations.

Henry went about transferring the pictures on his phone to his computer, where he printed out glossy photos and brought them over to the guillotine slicer. With practiced ease, he trimmed their edges and added them to different books: a picture of Elson on the toilet, the mirror image of Yaeger on the same toilet—this was for a collection that Henry would present to them on their fiftieth anniversary.

The picture he took today was of Sunnie making a sneaky face—she had the best expressions, and this album contained a slew of her different faces, alongside embarrassing stories that she would cringe at someday.

There were other albums, too: one for Thamus, ones for Yaeger and Elson’s other children, ones where they were together as a family… and a few for Yaeger’s parents, who had explicitly asked Henry for pictures of all of them because Yaeger sucked at taking pictures himself.

Every so often, Henry accompanied them on a visit to the mountains, where he’d take pictures of Talia and Geoffrey with their grandkids and send the albums with Elson on the next trip there.

It brought Henry joy to live on the fringes of their family, basking in their happiness and watching them all grow.

On a whim, he plucked out a duplicate photo of Yaeger, taken on a cloudy morning with Yaeger almost tripping over Thamus, shock and horror on his face. He’d recovered smoothly, of course. But Henry never ceased to smile at the moments when Yaeger was caught off-guard. That child!

With a cackle, Henry ventured back out to the penthouse, where Elson was corralling the twins, Therry and Thade, into the bathroom to wash their muddy feet.

“Here.” Henry slipped the photo into Elson’s hand.

“What—?” Elson glanced down. And gave a rude snort, his eyes lighting up. “Oh, I’m going to wave this in his face later.”

“By all means, go ahead.” Henry sneaked in a picture of Therry splashing Thade with muddied water. “I may have to take more photos of Yaeggie.”

Elson frowned, suddenly. “Have you taken… you know. Pictures of Yaeger and me?”

“Several.”

“I mean in the bedroom.”

“I’ve got one of you bouncing on the bed, trying to bounce your husband off. He didn’t even budge.”

Elson groaned, scrubbing his face. “I meant the other kinds of photos.”

Henry grinned. “One or two.”

“Oh, gods.”

With a roll of his eyes, Henry said, “You don’t keep it to the bedroom. Just FYI. You mate everywhere. Places I frequent. Anything outside your bedroom is fair game.”

“Yaeger,” Elson howled.

Henry chuckled. “Oh, he’ll love those pictures. He’ll pretend to be angry just because they get you embarrassed. But he’ll take the album to one side and jerk off over it.”

“There’s a whole album?” Elson’s voice went high.

Henry was so proud of himself. “Should I show it to him?”

Elson turned so red, Henry thought steam might explode from his ears.

“What album?” Yaeger came stomping into the room.

Elson whined. “Henry took pictures of us!” He flicked his finger between himself and his dragon.

Yaeger tilted his head to the side, not comprehending. “Yeah, so?”

“Bad pictures,” Elson hissed.

“What bad pictures?” Therry perked up, peering at everyone like he’d unearth a great secret.

Elson gave Yaeger a look. And Yaeger understood.

“Henry,” Yaeger growled, all fierce and grouchy.

“Want the album?” Henry asked.

“Immediately.”

Henry hid his smirk and slipped off to retrieve said album. It was a heavy, leather-bound book with pictures sorted by location—there were several locations, and several pictures. Over the years, Yaeger had bent Elson over nearly every piece of furniture in the house, only caring that the children were not around to see it.

At least Henry had made them tasteful, all of them in black and white like the boudoir photography that was so popular amongst lovers. “Here,” he said, handing the album over with a flourish.

Elson squawked.

Yaeger grinned and hooked his hand into the front of Elson’s pants, dragging him away with the album tucked under his arm.

Elson screamed a lot in their room that night.

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If you haven’t read How to Hide Your Dragon Baby, grab it here!
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