“I hope you taught him a lesson,” Jupiter said with so much menace that Lane shivered, and Kari gawked at his brother.
“Less of that. We do not lower ourselves to that level.” Lane met Kari’s stare and breathed a little easier when what he saw said Kari might have wanted to tear the guy apart, but that was not what he’d done.
“Did you take care of Bowie?” The nature of Kari’s needs made that Lane’s first thought.
Given Bowie’s sensitivity, it was easy to rationalize why he’d not shown up for work and why Kari had spent his afternoon—from Lane’s calculation on his arrival home—making sure Bowie was cared for before leaving him alone.
“Yes.”
Kari gave little away, but Lane would get the rest from Derick later. “Good. I’ll pay him a visit tomorrow with a box of cookies to see for myself he’s okay.”
Jupiter and Kari glanced at each other, and while Jupiter chuckled, Kari groaned.
“Popi—”
Lane held up his doughy hand. “Don’t worry, I won’t make a big thing of it.”
“Popi, you don’t know how not to make a big thing about it,” Jupiter said, choking on his laughter, his hand sweeping the counter and pointing out just how much of a thing Lane was making of it with the sheer number of trays holding cookie dough still needing to go into the oven.
Okay, Jupiter wasn’t wrong, but Lane had good reason because Bowie, like all the other PAs, were family to him. He was wise enough to keep that nugget to himself and just grinned toothily at the two men in front of him.
Chapter Twelve
Bowie
Warm, Bowie snuggled deeper under the covers, a scent tickling his nose. He burrowed deeper, trying to find more of it. It was familiar… safe and made his insides feel all fluttery. He clutched his bear and jerked upright at the pain that came with a stiffness in his elbow, rudely jarring him awake.
He blinked his bedroom into focus as fast as his rapidly beating heart, searching the room, though he wasn’t sure what for. The lamp was on at the side of his bed, revealing a reassuringly empty room. The blinds were shut, though he had no recollection of doing it.
As he sagged, catching his breath, his mind woke up, and it all came flooding back.
“Kari saw,” he whispered and buried his head in his bear, feeling tears prick his eyelids.
He didn’t care. He took care of us.
How can you be sure he didn’t care? We wet ourselves like a baby.
Bowie cringed at that, sniffing back his tears, getting a distinct smell off his bear. He lifted up his head to stare at Boo-Boo. He smelled of…Kari.
More scenes from the day before were there, like the reel of a film, playing over to show just how much Kari had witnessed—had done to help.
Flopping back on the bed, pressing the bear into his face to hide the mortification warming his cheeks, Bowie groaned anew.
The last couple of days were like a bad dream.
Not all of it. We got snuggled into bed with Boo-Boo.
Most of it, not all of it, he agreed, moving the bear to stare up at the ceiling, more than a little lost to understand why Kari had…
His cheeks were on fire and what was happening under the covers left him embarrassed. Why would someone get hard at someone else treating them like…
Bowie couldn’t come up with anything that fit. But he didn’t think feeling aroused was the right reaction. He’d never felt this way over Rex, even the couple of times he’d kissed Bowie.
He was a liar who didn’t want us in that way. He’s a horrible person. You should be glad you didn’t want to—
Please, I’ve already got enough to think about.
Bowie came up to sitting, careful this time with his arm, and put his bear on the covers and moved to get out of bed, only to pause when his gaze landed on a piece of paper with his name on it in Kari’s handwriting.
