Page 42 of Their Pup to Tame

“Umm, that’s a lot to have happen in a short period of time,” Aspen said. “I might have to agree with your uncle on this; it sounds like a jinx to me.”

“Come on, seriously? Not you too.” I groaned.

“Not me too, what?” he asked.

“Believing in all that superstitious stuff.”

“Sweetheart, I grew up in the theater,” he reminded me. “We were the creators of superstitions.”

Poetic and theatrical, he had me chuckling with the way he rolled his eyes. Even Uncle James snickered, and it took a lot to make him laugh. My family had expanded by two. I could already tell that Aspen and Parker would get along beautifully with the rowdy misfits in my bloodline. We could be intense sometimes, especially when we were passionate about something, but we loved hard and believed in forever.

Like the kind I wanted with Parker and Aspen.

12

PARKER

“Oh shit, I didn’t realize you guys had plans tonight!” Phoenix stammered as he stepped through the entryway to the dining room, where Aspen was lighting candles on the table while I arranged decorative metal stands for the covered dishes I had lined up in the kitchen. “I’ll just…”

Aspen bumped into a chair, nearly overturning it in his haste to get to Phoenix, while it took me longer to hurry around the table, since attempting to go over it would have made quite a mess.

“And where do you think you’re going?” I asked, catching hold of his sleeve,

“Uhhh, I figure I’ll work that out on the way,” he admitted, flushing. “Why didn’t you guys text me? I’d have headed over to Dorian’s and hung out with Murry and Raleigh after I finished talking to the guys and walking them through the new zones Uncle James and I came up with. Cutting the middle up into smaller chunks means less chance of bullshit being missed. I wish we’d come up with the idea sooner.”

“What makes you think we want you to leave?” Aspen asked, having moved around in front of him.

“I-I just figured…” Phoenix stammered, gesturing to the room behind us. “Whoever you’ve got coming over wouldn’t be anyone I’d have much in common with. I didn’t want to sit there awkwardly shoving food in my face with nothing to contribute to the conversation.”

Groaning, I scrubbed a hand over my face while Aspen shook his head and tugged Phoenix into a hug. “You’re not going anywhere. First of all, no one is coming over, and even if there was someone joining us, you’d be parking your ass at the table because this is your home too, even if we haven’t made it official yet. Which was, in part, what I’d planned to discuss with you both tonight. Parker started cooking as soon as he finished today’s chapter, and when the scents hit, I couldn’t sit still and focus on911 Lone Staranymore. Since someone kept taking swats at my fingers when I tried to snag samples, I decided to break out a tablecloth and some placemats. Things just sort of steamrolled from there when I realized that I had the perfect silverware to go with the ivy plates.”

“What he’s trying to say is that the meal is for us,” I added. “Just us.”

“Oh,” he murmured.

Aspen gripped his hair and rubbed their noses together before turning him into my embrace. “Sweetheart, I swear to you that we would never plan a supper party with guests and not warn you about it beforehand. That’s not how a household works. Random friends dropping by, that’s different, but an actual dinner affair takes discussion and coordinating our schedules toensure the event won’t be taking place when someone is facing a deadline.”

“Fortunately, there are no more of those to worry about for a few weeks. Once I go through my editor’s recommendations, I’ll fire it off to my agent and be able to breathe easily for a while and work on the new series. I had to stop myself from writing anything beyond the first two chapters before I finished the current book, but the characters wouldn’t give me any peace until I did that much.”

“Sounds like you’re about to be swept along on a wonderful adventure,” Aspen said.

“When they speak that loudly, all I can do is hold on and record the ride,” I admitted. “Now, are we ready to sit down and enjoy supper, or is someone still looking for an escape route?”

“Nah,” Phoenix said, moving in for another hug, “As soon as I opened the door, my stomach started growling.”

“Then it’s a good thing there is a five-course meal waiting to be served,” I declared, before ushering them back into the dining room.

While the table was big enough to fit eight, we sat at the end in front of the bay window, Aspen at the head of the table, and Phoenix and I seated across from one another, once I’d brought everything out from the kitchen. Aspen had filled champagne flutes with sparkling cider while I ladled clam chowder into everyone’s bowls and served it up with three mini garlic butter biscuits.

“Hmmm,” Phoenix hummed after the first bite passed his lips. “Holy shit, there are giant clam chunks in here.”

“There better be, after how much time I spent chopping them,” I declared, proud of the way the chowder had come together.

Diced red potatoes floated in the thick broth, the bowl in front of me dotted with the oyster crackers I’d sprinkled on top of my chowder.

“Someone had surf and turf on his mind tonight,” Aspen said, “which was next to impossible to ignore when the scents started drifting out of the kitchen.”

“See! I told you!” Phoenix said, pointing across the table at me with his spoon. “Mmm, man, this is good! When he starts with that food porn shit, there is no fucking way to get anything done until he’s finished, even a fucking movie. I tried. When I couldn’t focus on the graphic novel, I putFire Islandon. I love that movie, and I couldn’t focus for shit. Every few minutes I’d catch myself sniffing the air and drooling.