Page 15 of Their Pup to Tame

“I will end you!” Aspen replied.

“And I’m staying the fuck out of it,” I declared as my fork glided through the eggs slow enough that I could pause to admire their smooth consistency.

Between the savory sweetness of the sausage that had a hint of spice at the end and the combined bliss of red onion and spinach, every bite was an explosion of creamy, silky deliciousness. Alternating between a scoop of eggs and my tart was absolutely game-changing, especially when I added a sip of vanilla-mint tea between rotations. The last time anything had tasted this good was an edible a friend had baked and brought over while we listened to theTattered Angelalbum that had just dropped.

When Aspen came rushing back into the room, gaze darting to the coffee table and his plate, Parker started laughing. Just like I’d thought, Parker got a kick out of deliberately winding Aspen up and always seemed to know what buttons to push at the perfect moment to trigger the desired response.

“Relax, princess. I swear, no knaves have absconded with your tarts yet, but when you leave such a tempting morsel lying unattended that way, you have to expect the ravenous beasts to come sniffing around.”

“What I expect is for the ravenous beasts to remember how to act in civilized establishments, especially when there are more tarts in the kitchen,” Aspen replied as he lifted one to his lips.

“Huzzah!” Parker declared before holding up his drink. “A toast to the maker of the tarts!”

“To the maker of the tarts!” I declared, lifting my glass too.

“Don’t forget to stick your pinky out like the fancy folks do,” Parker declared, waving his extended finger at me, so I stuck mine out too, though it felt silly to do it. Who the hell thought it was a good idea to let go of delicate-ass cups like these?

I spent as much time focusing on not spilling or dropping it as I did on keeping the damned finger out when my instincts screamed at me to grip the china handle as tight as possible so that tiny teacup wouldn’t wind up on the floor.

Why he hadn’t made the tea in a coffee mug like most people, especially when serving it to large men like me and Parker, was anyone’s guess, but Aspen made it look graceful when he sipped from his, so I attempted to do the same.

“Did you guys decide on the first movie?” Aspen asked once he’d finished a tart.

“Night of the Twisters,” I replied.

“Good one,” Aspen said as he reached for the remote. “Anyone need anything else before we hit play? We will not be pulling this movie over for bathroom or drink breaks once we get started. Consider the next rest area 105 minutes away, so speak now or be prepared to wait.”

“Yes, Mom,” we sing-songed, though I did decide to get up and take a piss before he threatened me with his house slipper.

In the bathroom, I stared at my reflection in the mirror, hating that the gash had been bad enough to require stitches, because that meant another scar, and I had enough of those as it was. The longer I stared at myself, the dumber I felt for ever thinking the two men out there would want me as more than a passing diversion. Fucking Parker was a former model, for fuck’s sake; I was sure he’d had nothing but beautiful men on his arm all his life. Aspen, living beneath those theater lights for decades, had to have known more than his fair share of gorgeous actors to spend his nights out on the town with.

What the hell was I doing?

The new one on my face wasn’t even the worst one I’d gotten over the years. Those I kept hidden beneath my shirt, though Aspen had seen them when he’d been helping me into my gear for Dorian’s fashion shows. The first time, he’d gasped, fingers hovering inches from my side, and growled,Who the fuck?with such intensity that I’d feared he was about to ask me about the incident right there in the back of the showroom.

I needed to get a grip and keep my thoughts and my lips to myself. If I’d had even one more Dragon Gin, that brief kiss when Aspen had been draped across the table would have rapidly morphed into something X-rated. I turned the water off but couldn’t make myself leave the bathroom, not while I was second-guessing my promise to remain at his place until Wednesday, when we were both slated to go back to work.

I kind of wished I was going to the fetish-gear shop to work with him instead of back to the club to deal with drunk assholes. My inner voice kept screaming at me to stay in my lane, but my soul longed for something different after the long line of losers I’d wasted time with. There was so much I wanted that maybe I shouldn’t, because despite the violence, I had a family who loved me, even if we all had some fucked-up ways of showing how we felt about each other.

There were just times when I craved a world far softer than the one I’d been born into, but at this point, the only way I could see that happening was if I somehow managed to create one.

The knock on the door startled me, and I turned the water back on and washed my hands again, buying time before opening it.

“You okay?” Parker asked when I stepped out.

“Yeah, sorry. Didn’t mean to make you guys wait on me.”

“I decided to use it so I didn’t get voted off the island,” Parker declared. “The food wasn’t too rich for you, was it? Sometimes that heavy cream he uses can take getting used to when you haven’t had any in a while.”

“Nah, I probably put just as much in my coffee,” I said before he shut the door.

I sprawled on the couch across from the one Parker had left his notebook sitting on, since Aspen seemed to prefer sitting in his easy chair over anywhere else.

“Have you ever wondered if we’ve already been invaded and it’s just been kept so hush-hush that no one’s come out and told the public yet?” Aspen asked while we waited for Parker to join us. “Look at all the movies that have been made about what an invasion would be like. That has to come from somewhere. What if all those filmmakers have been trying to tell us something.”

“What if our lives are just one long serial soap opera and earth is just the set?” I replied. “There could be planets filled with aliens kicked back in their easy chairs watching the stupid shit we get up to. That’s why there haven’t been any invasions. Who the fuck would want to come here? We’re a bunch of idiots. We are literally a combination ofSaturday Night LivemeetsBill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure. Death is just someone getting voted off the island after a huge audience participation event.”

“They did that with a comic one time,” Aspen murmured, playing with his hair. “I don’t remember which one; I just remember my aunts talking about how the readers got to choose whether a character lived or died, and they chose death.”