Page 67 of Dead Serious with Benefits
“Er,” Dom began slowly, almost nervously. “Drugs aren’t really my thing anyway.”
“This is why I said it would probably get me into trouble,” Ward huffed. “Look, if you’re not going to add variety to what you’re doing, maybe it’s time to start thinking about doing something different.”
“You could try getting to know these women, maybe go on an actual date, telling yourself to wait to sleep with them,” I told him with a shrug. “That would be different.”
“Do I need to point out the hypocrisy and irony of you saying that to me?” Dom asked dryly.
“It would be more ironic coming from Ward,” I said with a shrug. “This isn’t a common thing for me.”
“He just called me a whore without calling me a whore, didn’t he?” Ward asked Dom.
Dom grunted. “You get used to it.”
“Are you telling me he does that thing where he says something that sounds like judgment, but doesn’t have the tone to fit it to everyone?”
“Yes, yes, he does. Like I said, you’ll get used to it. After this long, I’m almost sure he’s not secretly been judging everyone for years. He doesn’t know how to say something, just puts it bluntly.”
“At least I’m not the only one,” Ward said with a chuckle. “And I’m not sure if I should be comforted or concerned.”
“You get used to it,” Dom said with a smirk when he saw me glaring at them. “What?”
“I am not judging either of you for your sexual habits or appetites,” I told them with a roll of my eyes. “What you get up to in your bedrooms or...otherwise, is completely and absolutely your business and not mine. If you make it my business, we’ll have to talk.”
“And here I was thinking my business had become yours,” Ward said with a smirk. “Or are we not there yet?”
I stared at him before raising a brow. “And if I said your business had become mine?”
His eyes flickered for a moment, but his grin remained. “And what if you did?”
I thought that perhaps he would be equally overjoyed and unnerved by the thought. As far as I could tell, Ward was interested in more between us, but he was also unnerved by the entire thing. At least, that was the only explanation I had for his hot and cold behavior. In fact, I wouldn’t have been surprised if he had gotten up today and decided to head home rather than linger.
After a moment, he let out a scoff. “Fine, fine, I get it.”
“I’m glad you do,” Dom said, looking curiously between us.
I flipped the bacon and eyed him. “The bigger question is, what have you been doing in my back yard?”
“Getting that tree stump that’s been out there forever out of the ground,” he said, gesturing toward the yard. “You kept talking about getting someone to do it and never have. Well, guess what? I had a couple of hours, an ax, a shovel, and some pent-up energy to take out on it. So it’s gone.”
“Oh...well, thank you,” I said, feeling a twinge of guilt that I hadn’t taken care of it myself. It had been over a year since I said I was going to have the stump taken care of, and I felt bad that Dom had done it. “You didn’t have to.”
“Yeah, well. You let me stay here whenever I want without making me pitch in; it’s the least I could do.”
“Not requiring you to pitch in also covers not being required to guilt yourself into doing my yard work.”
“Who said anything about guilt? It needed to be done, and I was able to do it, simple.”
“And I appreciate it.”
“Good, then shut the hell up. You, uh, want me to fill in the hole?”
“Um,” I began, unsure if I should be worried about the damage he might have done to the yard or just curious where that was going. “Why do you ask?”
“Well, I did have to go pretty deep and out a bit,” he admitted, rubbing his neck in a nervous gesture I knew. “But I know you’ve also talked about having a better fire pit than that crappy metal one.”
Ward chuckled. “Now there’s some good thinking. Take the mess you made to help create something else. I’m actually impressed.”
“It’s...not that impressive,” Dom said, looking away from Ward, his lips thinning.
