Page 56 of Learning to Run

I was curious about how Bates was going to fix it.

He was always a surprise, though.

He looked at me. “Do you think we need to work onrelationship boundaries?”

Oh, was this tattle on myself time?

“I might need to.” I shrugged, not quite sure on that one.“Brady still kind of walks all over me sometimes and I think I might be alittle pushy when it comes to you? You don’t seem to mind, so I’m not stressingover it, but if anyone is a bit rough on boundaries it’s me.”

I just never realized I was doing it until I’d already doneit.

Bates’s lips turned up at the corners, but he managed not tolaugh. “I can see where it might feel that way to you sometimes, but I don’tmind helping more with the Brady boundary situation, and I really like knowingwhat you want. I promise that if you were shoving my boundaries around toomuch, I would let you know.”

So I was just wiggling them sometimes?

I could live with that.

“Okay, good.” I looked over at Cash because it seemed to behis turn. “So how do you feel about my wiggling Bates’s boundaries? Oh, do Iwiggle yours too?”

Cash shook his head making me feel better, but it took him asecond to get his thoughts organized. “No, I like knowing what you want and Ilike it when you drag me into things. Most of the time it’s stuff I wouldn’thave done on my own.”

So helpful wiggling was good.

Got it.

“Like Bates.” I couldn’t help smiling as his smile gotwider. “I think that turned out pretty good.”

But he’d kind of wiggled the boundaries first…not that I wasgoing to throw him under the bus.

“It did.” Whatever Cash was thinking made him blush, but Iwas glad he hadn’t lost his words that time.

“And this might sound like a dick thing to say, but wereally shouldn’t be taking relationship advice from the average collegestudent. They’re kind of stupid and they’re generally sleeping with everythingin sight.” They were all on hookup apps and doing dangerous shit that Brady’smom would’ve killed us for doing.

Cash’s face scrunched up. “I hate it when you make goodpoints.”

Aww.

“Not terribly polite, my curious boy, unfortunately, it’skind of accurate. But…” Bates let the word trail off as he glanced between usand seemed to have decided that we needed to stay on track. “But it feels likeyou’re still thinking our boundaries have somehow been pushed around a bit.What specifically are you worried about?”

Oh, that was probably good to know.

Cash’s blush got really bright for some reason, but heseemed to know that Dom Bates had asked that question…just still reallynicely…because he wiggled and sighed but eventually got the answer out. “Um,well, Gareth kept talking about our next apartment together and I didn’t stophim and with the way everyone was staring when I was talking about ourrelationship, it seemed like I should’ve done something.”

Good grief.

“Are you responsible for me being pushy?” I answered beforeCash could respond. “No, that’s Bates’s responsibility as my Dom. You’re Domnumber two, so you don’t have to worry about that one. The internet said so.”

“That’s ridiculous logic.” Grumbly Cash was back but Batesdidn’t seem to mind.

He smiled and shook his head at me. “Questionable logicaside, he had a good point. You are not responsible for Gareth’s desires or hiswiggly boundaries.”

No, Bates was.

“I’ll tell him if he’s rushing me and I will do a better jobof making it clear that I don’t feel rushed.” Leaning back in his seat, Batesgot a very thoughtful look on his face. “I haven’t been going through ourrelationship like there’s a template we should fit or a plan we should beworking through.”

Good, because we weren’t template people, we were BDSMchecklists kind of people.

“I never expected it to be…let’s call it traditional.” Batesshrugged like he felt bad for not being able to find a better word. “Betweenthe questions about lifestyle topics and wanting to date both of you, Iexpected the unexpected.”

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