His utter lack of subtly made me laugh as I picked up my cup again. “How long have you been waiting to corner me and figure out what’s going on?”
“Days.” He groaned as his sub side peeked out. “You’re torturing me. You were supposed to just randomly be hanging around so I could see how you’re doing and figure out why you’re not angry anymore, but you’ve been gone all week. Like all day, every day.”
And he clearly hadn’t appreciated it.
“I’m sorry I made your life difficult.” And sorry I’d taken out some of my bad moods on him. “I will confess…well…not all but a lot for a breakfast I didn’t make.”
Wearing an ear-to-ear grin, Gary leaned back against the counter. “Teddy doesn’t cook?”
My wince made him laugh. “He probably can but he doesn’t…and because he doesn’t his friend who stole him keeps bringing him stuff from her work. But she works at that godawful place with the terrible soup you had to fix. So needless to say, I do all the cooking.”
As Gary shook with silent laugher, I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, haha. They don’t even have proper cooking equipment. They only have one cookie sheet and it looks like it’s a thousand years old. They don’t even have a real stock pot.”
His eyes went wide as he realized how dire the situation was. “That bad?”
“They have one pot that’s big enough to make spaghetti, but it’s so small if you walk away from the stove everything boils over. It’s a fucking mess and their frying pan can only make twopancakes at a time.” I sounded like a kitchen snob but Teddy’s living conditions were ridiculous.
Swallowing back a mix of horror and giggles, Gary took a second to figure out how to respond. “I can’t decide if I should offer to help you pick out some stuff to get him for Christmas or bake you a few things once in a while to make life easier.”
“Bake.” Pretending to bow down to him, I decided to take him up on his offer before he changed his mind. “He’s an easily distractable little and keeps trying to talk me into playing.”
Snickering, Gary nodded. “Got it and glad to help.”
Hmm.
“And you’re more than welcome to come hang out sometime too.” What had he been up to lately? “He’s an outgoing little so playing with someone else would be fun or you could just watch movies with us if I can keep him in a grown-up headspace.”
“That hard, huh?” He seemed to ignore the offer, so I let him.
“Yep. Every time I stress him out or he gets nervous or tired or bored because he agreed to a movie he didn’t actually want to watch.” Gary was back to trying not to laugh again, but I couldn’t blame him. “He’s adorable and really outgoing in that headspace but it’s funny.”
Slowly inching his way over to fridge, he kept glancing back at me. “What would you say if I pointed out how serious this sounds?”
“Ugh, I’m sorry I’ve been a dick.” It seemed I owed everyone around me an apology. “I will not make a snarky response or walk out on the conversation. It’s a legitimate question considering how much time I’ve spent with Teddy over the past week.”
Smiling wider, Gary looked lighter as he bounced the last couple of steps. “So is he a magical little or just really cute and distracting?”
“Really cute and distracting…we’re basically neighbors back home.” I was pretty sure that would make him less worried and I was glad when he looked happier to hear that answer. “I might’ve mentioned that the other day when I wanted to go strangle him, but we grew up around each other.”
“Oh, that’s what you meant.” Gary snickered and pulled out eggs and a container of what looked like cutup vegetables. “That explains what you said and why you came back so…relaxed.”
“We hung out and had fun.” Leaning back in my chair, I focused on enjoying my coffee and not giving myself anything to stress about. “We were always a good fit together. I can see that now, but our families are polar opposites and he’s a bit younger than me. So we were in different circles.”
And I’d just never imaged him as a little.
In my head, no one I’d been around as a kid would want the same kind of relationship that I did. I still felt mostly right about that, but Chipmunk was different. Very different with the way his mother had tried to raise him, so I should’ve taken that into account.
“Is that whole different circle thing going to help or hinder things going forward?” As Gary finished pulling out a few more things, I realized he was making some kind of breakfast potatoes and was glad I’d hung around.
“If I was still trying to make my parents happy it would be a big problem. My mother thinks his is insane.” I wasn’t sure she was wrong but Teddy’s mother was at least a nicer person thanmine. “But I’m kind of done with her nonsense and I just don’t care.”
Gary glanced over and lifted one eyebrow. “Okay.”
It was more of a question than statement, so I shrugged and took another drink. “Honest. I think she’d be done with me if she could do it without social consequences. She’s a bitch and I’m just done with it all. I want to be happy and if she can’t deal with that, oh well.”
As he turned on the stove to start browning sausage, he turned and gave me another look. “I can’t tell if I approve of the change in attitude or if it’s making me nervous.”
“Both.” His Dom side wouldn’t like it for different reasons than his sub side, but neither side was stupid. “But in my defense, I’ve been working through a lot of this in the background and seeing Teddy again just put it all in perspective.”
