Total pages in book: 119
Estimated words: 114284 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 571(@200wpm)___ 457(@250wpm)___ 381(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 114284 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 571(@200wpm)___ 457(@250wpm)___ 381(@300wpm)
Clothes could tell me a lot about people.
For Lane, it wouldn’t surprise me if he used clothes to make the lines in his everyday structure more visible. Of course, he could also just be interested in fashion.
“You work from home, don’t you?” I asked.
“Yes, Sir.” He nodded.
Macklin smirked on the other side of the bar. “He’s analyzing you.”
I smiled.
Lane immediately sat straighter and eyed me suspiciously. “You know, it’s your fault I got bored with waiting on other tables. Nobody groped me!”
At that, I let out a loud laugh and gave his leg a quick squeeze. He was funny, this one. “I’m sorry for setting the bar so high.”
He failed to hide his grin behind a fake scowl. “You should be, Sir.”
Adorable.
Unfortunately, I was too full and tired to take the flirting any further. Finding our new office so quickly had meant I’d been up and running the past thirty-six hours—usually with a phone attached to my ear. It was important to me to get settled as quickly as possible, and now I could finally relax. Macklin and I would be in the same area every day. If I didn’t have time to stop by for lunch, he could bring it over to me without becoming stressed out in the process.
I returned my attention to Macklin and asked if he’d be here till they closed.
I knew he enjoyed working behind the bar—sometimes assisting the hostess too. He liked being around people. It wasn’t unheard of that he served food either. Because once he’d created the menus and taught his kitchen staff how to prepare the meals just so, he was ready to work on the next season’s menu.
Unless anything had changed in the past few years, he still kept his daily shifts in the kitchen fairly short.
“Just another half hour or so,” he responded. “You’re still coming home with me, right?”
“Absolutely.” I hated that he felt so unsettled and uncertain about this. Just because I’d been prepared to work hard to regain his trust didn’t mean I enjoyed it. The patching up of what we’d broken only served as reminders of where I’d gone wrong.
I sensed he wasn’t wholly comfortable with our openness either, and it had nothing to do with us actually being sexual with others. That had become abundantly clear. Macklin’s worries stemmed from the not knowing beforehand, promises being broken, and not being certain of where I stood. Where we stood.
The relief in his eyes proved my point, and he got back to work making drinks for a server requesting two Irish coffees for a table upstairs.
I refused to retreat to what we used to have, though. I refused to lock Macklin up. I refused to listen to my own insecurities. They rattled in the back of my head every now and then, and it would’ve been so easy to say fuck it and just go back. Back to monogamy, back to zero flexibility. With just him and me.
So damn easy. In fact, a big part of me wanted to. I wasn’t one of those men who so easily identified as one thing or the other. Instead, I had a world of gray areas, where everything depended on the person and the situation. But at some point, we had to draw boundaries, didn’t we?
I wasn’t worried about Lane. He was in. Because he was who he was. I dare say I’d even started caring for him. His evident problems with his own diagnosis had been on my mind a lot since we’d come home. He seemed to be such an outgoing and confident boy, otherwise.
I turned to him, curious about that homework of his. “You’re not obligated by any means to show me, but I would like to see what you wrote to Macklin in your assignment.”
By the time we’d landed the other day, Macklin had added a question or two for Lane to answer, though I hadn’t seen those.
He only hesitated for a beat. “Okay, but don’t get mad.”
Pardon?
Why would I get mad? That was such a subbie response when he knew he hadn’t followed an instruction properly. I’d certainly heard Macklin say something similar more than once over the years.
“I leave that to your Dom,” I assured him.
It was too soon to lose patience either way. He and Macklin had only just begun.
Lane pulled out his phone and opened up the Notes app, and he showed me the screen.
Q: Is there anything in your everyday life you want Macklin to be in charge of? Such as enforcing rules, structure, routines?
A: It would be nice to incorporate something. Maybe a couple tasks we agree upon.
Q: Would you like to accompany us (Walker and me) to Mclean next weekend? And for future notice, how do you want Macklin to approach you about events? Should events even be part of the dynamic?