Page 44 of Learning to Run

“Oh, good question.” Yep, there were a lot of good reasonswhy we needed Bates in our life. “How about we just go right to kissing allover him and skip the sticky bits? You can do that to me when it’s my turn tobe special but not pup special. If we’re ranking things, pup time beats whippedcream, unless it's your turn to be special and that’s what you want.”

No matter what everyone said, the hardest part of dating twopeople at once was the scheduling bits.

“I will keep that in mind.” Bates leaned back against thekitchen counter and pulled Cash into his arms as he paced by. “I’m not sure howI would categorize it but I do like whipped cream.”

Since that was good to know, I tucked it in the back of myhead and focused on Cash. “So we’re starting at the beginning again. I didn’twant you to pick the dessert since it feels like part of it being specialshould be us making it for you, but I’m not sure that’s going to work.”

It was time for Plan B.

Cash leaned his head back against Bates and sighed, but whenI just smiled at him, he gave me a cute glare.

If he thought I was going to apologize for making himembarrassed he was nuttier than I was.

“How about I thaw out some of the cookies I froze last weekand we have those with ice cream?” Cash seemed to like having something otherthan sex to think about. He was so weird. “I think that sounds good.”

Cookies then sexy times.

Got it.

But where were the cookies?

“Did you freeze those here or upstairs?” All I rememberedwas being sad that he’d only let me have five before he’d frozen the rest.

My question seemed to be smarter than I’d expected becauseCashel went very still before looking over at Bates’s freezer. “I don’t know.”

“I do.” Kissing Cash’s cheek, Bates grinned. “They’reupstairs. I remember because Gareth stole one of my cookies.”

Oops.

That’d been how I’d ended up with five.

Aiming for a Brady look, I widened my eyes and tried to lookconfused. “You make the best cookies, Cash, but I’m a good boy.”

Ha, one frown and one snicker.

And no punishments for cookie theft.

But it might be time to make myself useful. “But I’ll go getthe cookies.”

Because my clothes looked the most like real ones and it’dbe nice if they had a cuddly moment together since I’d gotten all the attentionearlier.

“Be right back.” As I grabbed my keys off the table andhurried toward the door, Bates stopped me with important logic.

“Shoes, cutie. Don’t run barefoot through the building.” Hehad a good point, so I made a detour and grabbed his slippers.

“Thank you for thinking about me. Have fun kissing while I’mgone.” That had Bates letting out a naughty chuckle as I headed out the doorand Cash squeaked.

I was hoping Bates had squeezed Cash’s ass as I bounded upthe stairs, but there were a lot of other things they could’ve done thatwould’ve gotten the same noise. I’d gotten to nibbles on Cash’s ear as Igot to the other apartment, but making my list got sidetracked as I headed inand found Brady and Jude cuddled up on the couch watching cartoons.

That didn’t tell me anything about Brady being little ornot, because he always liked cartoons, so I just waved and tried not to disturbthem as I went into the kitchen. “Freezer run. Just ignore me.”

I was really hoping they’d just ignore me.

They didn’t.

When I came back out with the rest of the cookies, Jude andBrady were looking at me funny. “The cookies were in the wrong freezer, but ifyou want dessert, there are some brownies hidden at the back that I think Cashforgot about. I won’t tell if you eat those.”

Ha.

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