Page 29 of Learning to Run

“Jude is a…he’s a natural worrier.” Bates’s understatementhad me trying not to laugh. “But he’ll get used to the changes sooner or later.We’ve got the seal of approval from the big boss, so I’m not worried.”

Brady’s mom.

She’d liked Bates and that’d been obvious to everyone.

Chuckling, I nodded and thought about my phone. “Andhopefully by all the weird text messages I got from Brady, he’s finally stoppedworrying and has moved on to the inappropriately curious phase.”

Bates cocked his head. “I’m not sure if I should wish youluck on that or not.”

“Ugh. I’m going to need more than luck. I have no idea howI’m going to answer his questions.” Or even what was appropriate to answer.“And…I’m going to need to know your Brady limits.”

When all I got was confusion from Bates, I sighed. “Youknow…the what can I tell Brady and what do I just tell him to mind his ownbusiness on?”

“Ah.” Bates scrunched up his face. “I hadn’t thought ofthat.”

He should have.

“Definitely a strategic error.” Mostly seeming to be talkingto himself, I just waited while he made thinking sounds and shifted in his seatagain. “Okay, I don’t think I know enough to have good limits on this. So I’mgoing to use yours and let you know if that changes. If you don’t want to talkabout it, then tell him that.”

This could get interesting.

“You’re sure? I don’t know exactly what he’s curious aboutbut this is Brady.” An unsupervised Brady. “He’s probably been looking shit uponline.”

I wasn’t going to downplay the chaos I could be walkinginto.

Bates sat straighter and looked like a soldier going intobattle. “No, I’m brave. I can handle it.”

He was such a drama queen.

“Alright, but you were warned.” Now it was my turn to leanback and study him. “And I think there’s something you should be warning meabout. Gareth said you have a surprise for him and I had to look like I knewwhat he was talking about.”

Bates laughed, not looking apologetic in the slightest. “I’msorry. The rest of the puppy gear came in yesterday and I was teasing him aboutit. I meant to tell you, but I got distracted planning our date.”

Alright, I could forgive that because they’d planned awonderful day for us.

“You want to do his first scene as a pup tonight?” We weretucked away in the corner by a window with a beautiful water view, so I wasn’tworried about being overheard.

“Is that alright with you?” Bates seemed to be questioningsomething, but I wasn’t sure what he was worrying about. “I probably shouldn’thave made the decision without you.”

Oh.

Because I was going to be the puppy Dom.

Handler.

Yes, Handler.

“I’m not offended or anything, if that’s what you’rethinking.” It must’ve been because just that simple statement had him lookingmore relaxed. “I honestly expected you to be the one to make that call, so itnever occurred to me to talk to you about it.”

And that had the confused face coming back.

“Um, I kind of see you as the higher Dom and me as the lowerone. Dom 2.0?” How was I supposed to say that?

As he started snickering, I glared at him. “I don’t evenknow how to look that up online. What do I call myself? I have no desire to bethe primary Dom and Gareth doesn’t expect it. You’re the head Dom.”

He managed to stop laughing but the effort had him shakingand he had to bite his lips to keep the giggles from escaping. After a few moments,he managed to take a breath, but it was a lot of work. “That sounds like we’rein some kind of dirty version of Harry Potter. Head Dom.”

And the giggles came back.

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