Page 105 of Tangled up in You

“Oh, hedoeslike you,” he said without thinking. “That’s part of the problem.”

“He sure doesn’t act like it. He acts like he hates me more now than he did the other night.”

He smiled. “I promise he doesn’t hate you. He acted the same way with me before we got to know each other. Considering we’ve lived together over eight years and are talking about getting married, I don’t think he’s getting rid of me anytime soon. Although he sometimes still gets this frustrated with me.”

“And you put up with him?”

He shrugged. “We put up with each other.” He dropped his voice. “Feel free to tell me to go to hell if you want, but I sense the neurospiciness is strong in you.” He hoped she was a fan ofStar Warsor she was about to rightfully hand him his ass.

She cocked her head, her expression guarded. “Why?”

He could finally straighten without obviously adjusting his cock in his jeans. “Because I’m autistic as fuck, he’s about as off-the-chart neurotypical as you can get without creating a whole new class of allistic folks, and he hasn’t got a bead on you yet.”

She visibly relaxed, nodding, her voice dropping. “AuDHD in the house.” She finally smiled, and it was the first time she looked truly relaxed since their contentious third interaction began. Then she held up her hands in front of her and pumped them. “Whoop-whoop.”

He laughed and fist-bumped with her. “Hold on. Noise alert.” He waited until she put her fingers in her ears to put his fingers to his lips and let out a loud whistle, laughing again as Mark’s head snapped around.

Grudgingly, Mark trudged over.

Christopher hooked a thumb in her direction. “I need you to fully reboot and start over with her,RangerPowell. She’s in the club.”

Mark’s expression twisted in understandable confusion. “Huh?”

Christopher threw jazz hands. “She’s another sparkly unicorn vampire scientist. Deal with it—you’re outnumbered. Congrats! You’re the bland allistic filling in our neurospicy sandwich.”

Mark threw his head back, groaning. “Oh, for fuck’s sake, just kill me now,” he muttered.

CHAPTER 8

MARK

Chris remained silent during the drive. Mark regretted he’d snapped at Jesse the other night. He also felt irritated at himself for borking everything.

He passed the turnoff to the road leading home and continued on to the Park Service livestock barn where they’d pick up their mules.

This will fucking suck.It also meant amending the permits—again—to modify their trip.

It also meant it shaved a few days off the personal time he and Chris planned to take.

“You coming in?” Mark asked Chris.

“Nope.” He stretched out as much as the seat would allow. “I’ll sit here and bark at strangers who get too close. Just leave the windows open so I can breathe, but not too much I can jump out and run away.”

Mark headed to the office, leaving Chris cackling in the truck.

One of the things that annoyed Mark—beside realizing they had to make this trip on foot—was that he needed to eat a heaping pile of crow.

And that Chris would never let him live this down.

But on the ride home he figured out a way to hopefully fix one problem. When he pulled into their front yard and parked he said, “Why don’t you call Jesse and ask if she wants to stay in our guest room tonight? Makes sense. She can leave her car and her stuff here.”

Chris sat up. “You serious?”

“Justfor her to sleep here.Notto try to get her in bed with us, okay?”

“You don’t think she’s cute?”

“I think she’s adorable but this is work. The three of us might be ready to kill each other by the time we return.”

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