Page 113 of More than Need

Riley studied them as if looking hard enough would help him work out who sat on which side of the fence. “It’s getting mixed anyway, so the logical choice would be to mix them first,” he concluded.

Gideon pointed at Dawson with a, “Ha!”

“Multiple people agreeing on a subject doesn’t mean you’reright,” Dawson said.

“Don’t be a sore loser,” Gideon said, unable to keep the smile off his face as he leaned into Dawson’s space, kissing the corner of his mouth.

“I didn’t lose,” Dawson grumbled. “You’re the wrong ones, not me.”

“Well, Mr. Big Winner, take your dinner and go sit down,” Gideon said, exchanging another light kiss before handing the bowl over.

Riley didn’t say a word when he spotted the fact that Dawson’s meal had his the way he liked it.

Gideon sat with one leg under him. Contentment settled in him as he listened to Dawson and Riley talk. When he and Lucia had divorced, and he found himself suddenly on his own, he hadn’t thought about the future. Hadn’t thought he could find anyone that he felt that way about again. The intimate love he and Lucia had shared had been long gone by the time they called it quits, with nothing but warm friendship left, and part of him had wondered if he could get that back. Or if it had been lost along with everything else.

In so many ways, his feelings for Dawson and Riley ran deeper, hotter. There was a desperation he’d never felt with Lucia. Theirs had been a quiet, slow-simmering love. Notless, just different. In the end, it hadn’t burned bright enough to sustain them.

He hoped that she’d found that missing spark with Ned even as much as he needed to work through his conflicting feelings about the entire situation.

“Have you had a chance to speak to Sadie?” Gideon asked cautiously when the conversation lulled. He wanted to get himself out of his thoughts, but he also knew Dawson was trying to carry the burden by himself and not involve Riley. None of them could escape it now, and if they wanted Dawson, they needed to work through it.

Riley stared at his pasta as if it could give him the right words. If only the pasta gods were that generous. Mostly they just gave bloating and a craving for more.

“She’s still not answering my calls,” Dawson said heavily. “I could go to her work, where I know she’ll be, but it feels too much like ambushing her, and I don’t have a right to do that to her. I just have to hope that she’ll calm down enough to at least let me talk to her. Eventually.”

Gideon took Dawson’s hand and kissed the back of it. “She will. Your friendship is too important to you both.”

“I should have been the one to tell her, not have her find out like she did. If I’d just sat down with her, explained it, maybe it could have ended differently.”

“It wouldn’t have,” Riley said.

Dawson glared at him, though it didn’t have the same heat it usually did. He looked tired. “Are you trying to make me feel better or…?”

“The reality of the situation is that it’s her choice how she reacts to us, and it’s still none of her business. Whether you’d told her yourself—which I highly doubt you would have done any time soon, at least admit that to yourself—or she caught us, the way she reacted wouldn’t have changed. And I think you’re well aware of that.”

“You don’t have to say it out loud.”

“Howyouchoose to respond to it is the only thing that you have control over. Give her time. She’ll get over it, or she won’t.”

“I bet they don’t let you give speeches during team-building exercises or conferences,” Dawson said dryly.

Gideon almost choked on his pasta, grabbing his water to wash it down.

“It’s important that we acknowledge the reality of the situation. Speaking of situations,” Riley said, turning to look at Gideon.

Gideon froze. What had he done? Nothing he could think of. He hadn’t even pranked Grady today, even when the guy had asked for it by making annoyed noises at his computer all day. He should get a medal for that.

“Dad knows about us,” Riley followed up quietly.

Gideon dropped his fork, and it clattered on his bowl, the end of it dropping in the pasta sauce. “Uh.” Shit. “Did someone see us?” Had he not been discreet enough? Well, of course he hadn’tbeen. He practically had a neon sign that said he’d had Riley’s dick up his ass, and he’d liked it and would in fact be doing it again that night. The sign flashed in multi-colours.

“No, my mum told him.”

“Oh.”Oh.“I didn’t even think of that.” He should have, especially considering her reaction when she’d seen him walking out of Riley’s bathroom. None of them were very good at the whole “hiding” thing. It was a miracle it had taken them this long to get caught.

“Apparently neither did I.”

“Are you fired? AmIfired?” Would he find a scathing email in his inbox tomorrow morning? Or worse, a really nice one asking him to come to the chief superintendent’s office? Gideon had actually only ever spoken to Simon Sinclair a half dozen times over his career. The gap between his position and that one kept them out of the same sphere. His orders came down the line, not directly from the top. Sometimes he forgot he and Riley’s dad were the same person.

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