Page 92 of More than Need

“I appreciate the offer and… might take you up on it. Later. But I have to trust that Lucia knows what she’s doing, and that she wouldn’t let anyone who’s an asshole near our son.”

“Still hard,” Dawson said. He leaned forward and pulled out a snake from the Allen’s bag that Riley had sandwiched between his thighs and then bit off its head. “Man, I haven’t had one of these for years. I remember them getting stuck in my teeth as a kid. Do you remember those giant ones you could get? They were as long as my arm.”

“I think you can still get them,” Gideon said. Now he wanted a really big one. The small ones were so… small. Had he gotten Hudson one? He’d have to rectify that.

“I have to bite their heads off,” Dawson said. “So that they can’t watch as I eat the rest of them.”

He blinked in surprise when Gideon and Riley both burst into laughter.

Chapter 17

Dawson cursed as hehit his thumb with the hammer.Fucking hell.

“Should I take all power tools away from you?” Sadie joked.

“Probably,” he mumbled, sticking his thumb into his mouth to stop the ache. He found something else to look at, unable to keep her gaze. Luckily, since they were in the last stages of sorting out a wedding, there were plenty of things to look at. Eli and Jay—his two bosses—were standing across the lawn next to hideous gnome statues the bride’s father had insisted on. They didn’t exactly match the giant swans. Eli looked two seconds away from throwing them in front of a moving truck.

“Dawson?”

He snapped back to her. “Mmm?”

“You alright? You’ve been spacey all day.”

“Yeah, sorry, I, um…”I’ve been sleeping with your brother almost every night since we met him, and I’m pretty sure at this point I’m in love with him?Yeah, that’s… not how he wanted tostart that conversation. But he had to tell her. Soon. Soon-ish? He just had to tell her.

“You haven’t been around much,” she said with a sly glance. “Are you still seeing the someone you don’t want to talk about?”

Dawson froze.

She smacked his shoulder. “I’m hurt that you won’t even give me a name or talk to me about it. You’re clearly getting in deep; you’ve barely been home in weeks. Are you afraid I’m gonna poach? Soon I’m going to look like I’m carrying a beach ball, and I’ve sworn off men for the rest of my life. Richard has soured the entire gender for me.”

“Thank God I don’t need to worry about you stealing my man.”

“Ha-ha,” she said sarcastically. “At least tell me if he’s hot. I can live vicariously through you while I go through my man-hating phase.”

“Charming.” He should have hit himself with the hammer harder. “They are, yes,” he gave her. Safe enough. As long as he avoided names, he could give hersomething,so that he could stave off the suspicion for at least a little bit longer. To at least give him some time to work out how to do this smoothly and with no bloodshed.

“They? As in plural? At the same time? Are you dating a couple? How did that happen? Where did you meet them?”

He should have lied and just given her Gideon’s name. Except he couldn’t do that. Riley wasn’t some nameless figure to shove to the side just because Dawson had fucked up.

He nodded, pursing his lips as he searched around for where he’d put his nails. “Fucked up” didn’t even begin to cover it. One of the men who touched him every night was the very brother that she wanted to know, who wouldn’t even talk to her. Dawson had kept his promise, and nothing about her had been mentioned, and somehow that made it so much worse.

Who was the dirty secret, Riley or Sadie?

“Are you sure you’re okay? You’ve been really quiet lately,” Sadie said. “I miss you.”

“Sorry, I’ve just been…”Banging your brotherseemed like a terrible way to end that sentence. What else could he say? Hiding had become tiresome, and he still avoided telling the truth.

Sadie tilted her head, studying him and coming to the wrong conclusion, which only made Dawson feel relieved. “If you’re not feeling well, then you should head home, maybe get some more sleep? Eat cheese and pass out on your couch.”

“That’s not… how would that make me feel better?”

“It’s worked for me. Cheese fixes everything.”

Gideon would agree with her; the guy put away way too many dairy products. “That’s because you’re not human.” Neither of them were.

“Cruel but fair. Maybe my baby will come out blue!” She mock gasped and put a hand on her stomach. “We’d have to run away and live in the woods so that scientists don’t experiment on us.”

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