Page 2 of Their Pup to Tame

“I’ve got half a mind to start going down to that strip club and hanging out,” Parker declared. “And I don’t mean for the entertainment.”

“You just remember one thing,” I hissed.

“What’s that?”

“If we both get arrested, we’ll have to deal with Dorian when he comes to bail us out,” I reminded him. “Knowing him, he’ll take great pleasure in never allowing us to live that down, so if something does happen, you feel free to jump in; I’ll come sign the bond if you get hauled out of there.”

“And why am I the one elected to throw hands?” Parker asked.

“Because mine are far too delicate, as you well know, and besides, you know how,” I reminded him, feeling smug when the smile slipped off his face as his shoulders slumped, mere inches away from admitting defeat.

“Uh-huh,” Parker remarked, glowering at me, “and you have taught classes in how to disarm grown men armed with all kinds of instruments of pain and destruction.”

“True, but shhhh…that’s supposed to be a secret.”

“From the bad guys, yes. From your friends, why hide it?”

“It just hasn’t come up yet,” I grumbled.

“Well, maybe it should,” Parker declared. “At the very least, he might let you teach him a few moves to help get the idiots out of there faster.”

“I wouldn’t want to overstep,” I explained. “Not when I’ve finally gotten him to stop calling mesirfor all the wrong reasons.”

“You do know you’ll have to retrain him all over again to get him to say it for the right ones, if he chooses you, anyway. Personally, I’m holding out hope that he’ll choose me. Just thought I should mention that formally so there would be no miscommunications between us,” Parker explained. “I’m coming to enjoy my chats with him as well as our game nights together, and I can tell by how flustered you are over those bruises that you feel the same.Once, I’d have almost thought that he…well, that’s neither here nor there now, is it?”

“Hard for me to say when you didn’t finish your statement,” I reminded him.

Our eyes met, and his lips parted, but before words could spill out, his expression changed. I’d spent enough time in enough theaters to tell when something was taking place just out of view, so I smothered my frustration beneath a grin, because if he’d been about to say what I hoped he was about to say, the answer wasyesand a long time coming.

“Do I even wanna know what fuckery you two are hatching over here?” Phoenix asked when he reached us. “And please say it’ll help us deal with the threat of the flying fox and trash panda brigade if they show up.”

“Something like that,” Parker muttered as he hit the button to summon the lift.

“Are you in a hurry to get home tonight?” I asked Phoenix as soon as the door closed behind the three of us.

“Nah, I’m off tomorrow, so I’m probably gonna flop on the couch and watch television until I pass out with it watching me,” Phoenix admitted.

“In that case, would you mind giving me a lift?” I asked. “I’ve got Cherry 7-Up cake in the fridge and a whole unopened jar of maraschino cherries if you’d like to have some with me.”

“Whoa, that sounds delicious.”

“I’ll even whip up cherry-blackberry refreshers and spike them to sweeten the deal,” I offered. “We can see what’s streaming if you’d like to stick around for a while?”

“Why does the whole Cherry 7-Up cake thing feel like a ploy to get another ride on my Harley?” Phoenix muttered as the door to the lift opened to let us out.

Parker snorted and moved aside to let us leave first.

“No one asked for your two cents,” I muttered, elbowing him in the side as I stepped past him.

“Doesn’t matter,” Parker replied with a grunt. “I felt that the moment called for it anyway.”

“You two used to date, didn’t you?” Phoenix asked, a knowing smirk on his face as he leaned against one of the display racks, watching us.

“If you knock that thing over, you’ll be the one rearranging it in the morning,” I warned him, prompting him to straighten up and check to make certain he hadn’t displaced anything.

“Date, as in actually keep the plans we made to go out one on one?” Parker grumbled. “No, we were never mature enough for that. But we’ve known each other for what feels like forever and spent enough time together that people have occasionally mistaken us for an old married couple.”

I held my hand up, pointing at my ring finger. “You see this? Total blank canvas. Until it’s sufficiently adorned, I’m nobody’s house queen.”