Page 36 of The Best Bad Decision

“Hmm…” Taking who he attracted into consideration, I shook my head as I typed out my reply.

Then I would probably be slightly offended but not enough to call him out. If it gets worse you need to tell him to stop as long as you like the guy at all. If he’s competition for something then let him sink his own ship.

Atlee took a moment to type back, but I was pretty sure that was because he was trying not to smile and didn’t know what to say. He was so polite sometimes it was adorable. “You must’ve been confused to ask me about it.”

He’s the sink-his-own-ship type, so you’re probably right about how to handle it. Okay. I’m off to my meeting but I wanted to tell you that I’ll get the current round of paperwork back to you tonight. I had to work over lunch. I’ll talk to you later.

Again.

He’d worked through lunch again.

Once he gave an ending statement like he’d see me later, I’d learned he’d completely tuned out his phone, so I didn’t bother texting a reply as I got out of the car. Atlee’s mental shifts weren’t just strong during a scene, they were a big part of his personality in general.

Without experiencing the good side, it might’ve bugged me, but I loved seeing how he was throwing himself into understanding his submission better. My only issue was that he seemed to have an unhealthy relationship with failure, but that was something we could talk about in the long run.

Nothing that he was doing at the moment seemed too unhealthy for him, but if he stopped communicating about it, I’d push more. While he was clearly explaining his thoughts, and at least attempting to understand my point of view, I wasn’t going to be a pain in the ass.

I’d pull that out later if it became necessary.

Rolling the options around in my head, I climbed out of the car and shut the door before heading to grab the mail since Atlee wouldn’t be checking his until late. It was silly but I liked doing it at the same time. I wasn’t going to obsess over it, though.

I had other more fun things to obsess over.

“Casimir.” The slightly frustrated tone of the voice calling my name had me trying not to laugh but I couldn’t quite control my smile. “Casimir.”

Gerald and his sidekick Paul.

Somehow the two men were just as nuts as their wives but were in complete denial about it. Normally, people living like ostriches drove me crazy, but they were accepting and entertaining, so I let them ignore reality as much as I could.

“Hello, gentlemen.” Pulling out my mail, I did my best to look pleasantly neutral as the two men scurried down the street like they’d just escaped prison.

They’d managed to get away from their wives.

“I need to be able to run errands again.” Paul’s starting point wasn’t logical to anyone but him, so I just nodded vaguely as they tried to catch their breaths.

“I haven’t had an uninterrupted dinner in two weeks. What are you doing?” Gerald made a bit more sense but only because I knew his wife. “I can’t take this much longer.”

I loved my street.

Blinking, I shut the mailbox and cocked my head. “What’s going on with your dinner? Is everything alright?”

Ha.

They both sighed like I was an idiot.

“We have five minutes tops. You were supposed to be home ten minutes ago and the girls didn’t get distracted at the bookstore as long as we expected.” Gerald seemed offended by everything going wrong because he crossed his arms over his chest and glared at me. “They’re almost here.”

Lord.

“Then you have to ask better questions.” There wasn’t enough time to fuck with them and keep them on my side, so I had to behave.

I hated it when they took the fun out of gossip.

“Why have you been going out to dinner with Atlee so much?” Gerald’s question didn’t make any sense and he must’ve realized that. “We know you’re going out on dates. That’s not what I mean. Valerie came over to try to talk the girls into having coffee.”

Oh, that was a fun new twist.

“We need to know what to tell her and we need you to stop doing interesting things around dinner.” Paul shifted to glaring at me the same way Gerald was. “Switch up the timing because we haven’t had uninterrupted meals in two weeks.”