Page 11 of Claiming Their Kitten

A date?

“You said last week that you wanted to go out and either get Thai food or steak.” He glared at me like he was daring me to say no, but I couldn’t because he was right. I did want either of those and Ender was kind of picky about restaurants.

Who didn’t like Thai food?

When I got distracted, he just kept going like the decision was already made. “So they’ll pick one of those options. You’re going to have a grown-up dinner on Friday or Saturday and then we’ll decide from there what the next move is.”

He was so bossy.

“You have to go through the checklist first.” Now I was the one crossing my arms and glaring. “I’m not going on a date unless I know they’re not going to turn into assholes.”

They’d been so nice that I didn’t want to deal with that. I was perfectly happy just reliving the fun from the playroom and how cute they’d been when Poppy had been grumpy and Daddy Harper had been smiling at him.

They’d even had a cute argument about goats.

They were dirty romance novel level perfect and I didn’t want to ruin it by seeing what they were really like. I might have to admit that serial killer status was probably statistically low considering the background check, but I wasn’t going to hold my breath about everything else.

Besides, there was nothing wrong with wanting to know sooner rather than later why it wouldn’t work out.

“Trouble… what am I going to do with you?” Ender’s question had me shrugging again.

It was a damned good question.

“Buy me ice cream?”

Oops, the glare was back.

Chapter 4

Gaylen

“Hello?” The deep, almost flat voice that answered the phone was definitely the guy we’d met last weekend but he still hadn’t said his fucking name.

Refusing to point that out, I pushed away my frustration so I didn’t sound like a pissed-off asshole. It wouldn’t help the discussion with guardian guy and it would just make Harper curious enough to come see what I was doing.

That would be bad.

He didn’t know what I was up to other than we’d agreed that calling to touch base with the people who ran the group might be a good idea.

I’d done that but what he didn’t know was that I’d requested to talk with Tabitha’s guardian from the other night. I hadn’t actually lied about anything. If he thought I was just working late, well, that was his fault for not asking enough questions.

Pushing my perfectly reasonable justifications to the back of my mind, I focused on the conversation at hand. The weirdest fucking conversation I’d probably ever have. “This is Gaylen. We met the other night? I was told it would be okay to contact you about Tabitha?”

Yep, weirdest fucking phone call ever.

There was a split second of silence before his sigh came through the phone. “Yes, I’m definitely the one to handle this.”

I could relate to that sentiment.

Chuckling, I tried not to sound like a dick as I nodded to myself. “Yep, I’m the person for this conversation too.”

At least we both knew this was stressful and weird?

I actually got a huff of laughter from the reserved man and I pictured him flashing a smile. “Yes,Happy Daddy, as Tabitha keeps calling him, didn’t seem like the type to handle the stressful things that come up with dating.”

Wait, did that mean there was a possibility of us dating Tabitha?

Had they thought we’d already gone on a date with her?

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