By the time the dogs had eaten, everyone started trickling in. They helped Fitz get the dinner table ready. When Mason and Lucky arrived, everyone made a fuss and hugged them. Red figured they’d want to take their dinner upstairs, so he’d prepared them two covered plates. It had been one hell of a day, and everyone was physically and mentally done.
After dinner, Colton sat on the couch, Ace stretched out beside him, his head on Colton’s lap, asleep.
“Leave it,” Sacha told Chip.
They both knew Chip would have dive-bombed Ace otherwise.
“I didn’t expect him to be asleep,” Gio whispered to Sacha as they made their way upstairs. Considering how close Ace and Lucky were, he’d half expected Ace to have been hovering over his cousin.
“Everyone handles extreme stress differently. In our case, we’re trained to react, and back when we served, if we were facing an extremely stressful or dangerous situation, we got an adrenaline rush and became more alert because that’s how you survive. Now, we just crash. Also, I get the feeling that if he tries to smother Lucky tonight, he’s going to get a cowboy boot up his ass.”
Gio chuckled. “That makes more sense.”
As they closed the bedroom door behind them and watched the dogs trot over to their beds beneath the window, Gio was glad to be home. It had been one hell of a day. Time to change into his pajamas and crawl into bed with his beautiful boyfriend.
As he lay propped against his pillows, his arm around Sacha, who lay snuggled against him, and a Christmas movie on TV, their dogs decided they didn’t want to be left out. They darted over and jumped on the bed, dropping onto the mattress at Sacha’s back, and were fast asleep in seconds. Gio’s heart swelled with pride and love. He would cherish this moment. The jingling of sleigh bells coming from the TV, the snow falling outside their window, and the faint scent of cinnamon had Gio drifting off to sleep with a smile on his face.
CHAPTEREIGHT
“¡Madrecita, mía, Ace! I’m fine!”
And so it begins.
Joker glanced up from where he sat on the floor with Cocoa. He couldn’t see the cousins, but he sure as shit could hear them. People all the way in town could probably hear them. How was Mason still asleep? Then again, he was dating Lucky, so he was probably used to it by now. Sounded like Ace and Lucky were coming downstairs.
“You could have died!”
Cocoa popped his head up when he heard his daddy. “Brace yourself, buddy,” Joker warned, laughing when Cocoa let out a little whine and tilted his head, one ear flopping against the other. Ugh, he loved those puppy ears.
Gio was still out with Fitz. The two had taken Cookie, Chip, and Duchess for a walk while Joker stayed behind to do a little training with Cocoa. Ace was supposed to have been training with them, but he’d disappeared a while ago, and now Joker knew where he’d gone. To annoy the shit out of Lucky.
“I’m sorry I scared you, but I’m fine now, so you can stop trying to suffocate me. Like, literally. I couldn’t breathe under the ten sherpa blankets you covered me in. And why were you even in our room, bro?”
“I was checking on you,” Ace replied with a huff.
“We were sleeping! That’s just weird. Stop being weird!”
Joker snorted.Yeah, that ship has sailed, pal.It was somewhere in the Bermuda Triangle and never coming back.
Ace rounded the couch after Lucky. “Eduardo Morales, let me take care of you!”
With a snicker, Joker lifted Cocoa. “That’s right. Your daddy’s a giant dork. Get used to it.”
“I cannot have you and the Boyfriends trying to take care of me. I won’t survive.” Lucky tried to run when Ace threw his arms around him from behind to stop him.
“Why won’t you let me love you!”
“Stop it. Damn it, Ace. No, don’t do the thing. Don’t—¡Me cago en diez!”
Ace let himself go limp so he was dead weight, his arms still around Lucky’s waist. Lucky tried to walk, dragging Ace with him. Joker looked around the room. Why was no one recording this? Then again, he doubted Colton wanted evidence of his husband’s ridiculousness, and King, well, he was King.
The cousins started shouting at each other in Spanish, and Joker held back a laugh. Ace hadn’t just gone into protective mother-hen mode. He’d gone into Cuban mother levels of protective mode, and it was terrifying. Good thing they weren’t back home because if they had been, the Cuban Mama Mafia would have been on the first flight from Miami to St. Augustine.
“Go back to trying to take care of Joker,” Lucky growled. “He is still injured. Which, by the way, is kind of your fault.”
“What? You asshole! I can’t believe you’re throwing me under the bus!” Joker said???
“Better you than me, bro.”
