“That’s weird, right?” Barely frowning, Rhodes shifted so his back was to most of his family. It seemed to be an instinct learned from years of crazy. “I mean, even using my family as a scale, that’s still odd.”
“Incredibly so, but we’re not his parents and we’re not fucking him up worse.” That meant we weren’t going to getworked up about it. “He seems to be enjoying himself and that’s the most important thing.”
Well, that was what I was going to convince Rhodes was the most important thing.
“You’re right.” Looking brighter, he took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “They’re all watching us again, aren’t they?”
“Yep.” Every single one of them. “So kiss my cheek so they’ll know we’re serious about each other and then head inside to get the brownies.”
A neighbor wouldn’t have any impact on their behavior, so this castle guard had been labeled a special friend right off the bat. “So far so good, no one has found the hiding place. I’ll guard the door. Then it’s dessert, cleanup, and we send them home.”
It’d been a long fucking afternoon and I was tired of guarding the castle from the idiots who’d basically put it under siege.
“I get to kiss you?” Perking up, he smiled for a moment before his eyes widened as he thought about how that’d come out. “I mean, thank you for helping me?”
“Yes, you get to kiss me.” Thankfully, Rhodes was as subtle as a sledgehammer when it came to his attraction to me once we’d spent more than five minutes together. “You’ve been very good today and I’m going to read you books later too.”
“I’ve been good.” Barely holding back his obvious desire to bounce around like a ping-pong ball, he stretched up and brushed his lips softly against my cheek while we both ignored his family. “I’ll be right back.”
“I’ll save you from the invading hordes and do my best to keep them from setting up scaffolding to scale the castle walls.” No matter what Axel’s oldest thought, that trellis would not hold his weight.
Nearly giggling, Rhodes nodded and did his best to act seriously. “Thank you, Knightly.”
He was going to owe me a bigger thanks than that later and we were both looking forward to it. I’d not only defended the playroom but I’d also defended him from very strange questions on what dating between men looked like.
My “looking straight” was fucking up their ability to be rude to Rhodes and had actually put most of their nonsense on hold for the time being. They’d still done their best to nose around his house at every opportunity, but we’d held back most of the waves of attack.
It was actually more exhausting than I was expecting, so we were both looking forward to peace and quiet in the playroom after the castle and surrounding lands were safe and sound again.
Only then could we go upstairs and play, but that would come with all new issues.
Because I wasn’t completely sure what a Daddy did and I was pretty sure faking it would only work for so long.
Chapter Four
Rhodes
“All done, Daddy.” Oops. “Um, my Knight. Yes.”
Caught it.
My Knight smiled as he went crash into the couch. “You are about as subtle as fireworks, Bouncy.”
Oh.
“They’re pretty.” Climbing onto my Knight’s lap, I smiled and kissed his cheek because he already said I could. No take-backs on kisses. “And sparkly and they have lots of colors.”
“Just like you.” My Knight pretended to be a Daddy and kissed my cheek as he wrapped his arms around me. “So, little firework, should we go play or read books?”
Hmm…
“Grown-ups who take care of Little people and help them and watch out for them sometimes get tired. Are you tired?” He looked like a very tired Daddy. “It’s not grown-up late but we had a big day. Big. Big. Yes.”
Because the invaders had stayed a long, long time.
My not-yet-Daddy groaned. “Don’t even think about saying the word nap or I’ll fall asleep and then we’ll be up half the night.”
I liked naps.
