Total pages in book: 58
Estimated words: 56560 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 283(@200wpm)___ 226(@250wpm)___ 189(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 56560 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 283(@200wpm)___ 226(@250wpm)___ 189(@300wpm)
Which to me meant we’d spent entirely too much time together growing up.
“He works all morning and his brain slows down in the afternoon. It’s not his fault he’s loud.” At first, I thought he’d been doing it for attention, but he hadn’t seemed to realize any of us were bi until recently.
We’d all gotten variations of the you know men can date men, right question, so he’d finally pieced that together.
Clearly, Orlando telling Terrence that his ass looked great in his favorite jeans hadn’t been enough of a clue.
Yep, I was never going to get to be his Daddy.
The kitchen reno was interesting and Terrence was fascinating, though, so there were some upsides.
“I’m not going to take his toys.” Any of them.
I wouldn’t have to.
“I just need to figure out a way to get him to play along instead of trying to fuck with us for attention.” That had been my strategic mistake.
I’d forgotten that he was an attention whore.
“He might be grateful if his Secret Santa found his earbuds.” Orlando’s words were sweet but his smile was devious.
Yep, I wasn’t going to have to hide the toys.
“In the next note, it might be a good idea to include a promise that his Santa would let him use his kitchen to make Christmas cookies.” Carlo shrugged when we all turned to him. “What? He likes baking. It’s one of the only things outside of work he actually pays attention to.”
Okay, Carlo had a point.
Terrence was some kind of think tank rocket science smartie and he didn’t function well outside of work.
It was why we’d all decided fairly quickly that he needed a keeper and why I’d been glad when we’d figured out he was a little.
Not that he’d made it difficult to figure out.
Subtle was not Terrence’s middle name.
Hot mess was.
“Fine. Santa will promise him time in the good kitchen and will offer up cookie decorating treats.” Terrence was a sucker for stuff like that.
Nearly giggling, Sergio nodded. “The little balls too. He wants to decorate the trees so they look real.”
“Fine.” They were all ridiculous. “But go back to work. We’re getting this kitchen done before Christmas come hell or high water.”
I wanted Christmas off before we got started on our next big reno in January. They’d all been in full agreement for a long break over the holidays until they’d realized how much fun they’d have fixing Terrence’s kitchen.
So I was basically herding cats trying to get anything done.
“He’ll love having his kitchen done so much he might do a lot of baking.” Tempting the slowpokes, I shrugged as they perked up. “And once we’re finished, I can work on actually romancing him.”
Because at the moment, we were easing into the mixing business with pleasure thing and it could backfire spectacularly.
“As long as you put some effort into sexy glares and stop dancing around what you want.” Carlo wasn’t worried when I aimed a pissed-off glare in his direction. “I’m right and you know it. Heat things up or he’ll go back to talking about climbing me like a monkey.”
Asshole.
“You know, monkeys hide in trees and pee on them, so I’m not sure that’s the compliment you think it is.” Wandering back toward the kitchen and frowning, Orlando was giving the ridiculous comment entirely too much attention. “Maybe it’s a compliment if he’s saying he could use Carlo to hide from Enzo?”
I did not scare Terrence enough to make him want to hide from me.
Confusing him was a possibility, but the troublemaker saw things his own way.
“Hey.” Carlo was trying to decide if he was offended or not as he followed Orlando, and Sergio was just trying not to laugh.
“What? No opinions on trees?” Or trying to drive me crazy.
“Nope.” Rocking back and forth on his toes as he grinned, Sergio shrugged. “I’m all for finishing the kitchen and having a bit of time off.”
And he didn’t seem to have any desire to seduce my cutie away from me.
“Then let’s work on that goal.” Because I had a smart drama queen to seduce.
****
I was never going to get to seduce my drama queen if I had to keep telling him to put real clothes on.
“No. We’ve got several subcontractors coming over this afternoon and we’ve talked about this. You have to put real clothes on and stay in your office.” He’d scared off the last one we’d tried to work with and I wasn’t going to go through that again. “Do you remember what happened?”
Terrence froze mid-step then sighed defeatedly. “Fine. But it wasn’t my fault he was wandering around unescorted. How was I supposed to know that he was so delicate?”
Ignoring the snickers coming from the kitchen, I stayed focused on Terrence. “You were wearing pajamas that said Fuck the Cook while you wandered around with cookies shaped like penises and those funky hot dogs.”