Page 88 of The Best Bad Decision

Which was definitely what I should’ve done earlier…yes, we were going to need a different plan for next Sunday.

Practice made perfect, though, and we had a lot of Sundays in front of us for me to get it right.

Chapter 26

Atlee

“You might be angry at me but I’m not going to apologize.” Casimir shrugged off any wrongdoing as I stepped onto the porch. “That would be lying and I’m not going to do that to you.”

What had he done?

The last week and a half had gone entirely too smoothly, though, so maybe Wednesday was just the day he decided to take over the world?

He’d finally confessed how much he liked those old monster kaiju movies…had he accidentally summoned something weird?

Deliberately stirred up drama in the neighborhood like that time he’d tried to get everyone to pitch in to hire a circus for the barbecue? I hadn’t been around for that one but it’d sounded interesting when everyone told the story.

I glanced around, trying to see if I could figure out what chaos he’d caused but it just got a snicker from him. “I didn’t do anything to the neighbors. Well, not much anyway.”

So he’d done something to them?

Was this an everyone’ll be pissed situation?

“Am I going to get accosted at the mailbox again? I didn’t know what to say when that weird guy from two streets over wanted the TLDR of my divorce because he’d somehow missed the last round of gossip.” I only knew who he was because he kept crashing the neighborhood barbecues the street had every summer.

He brought really good desserts, so we’d taken a vote and agreed to pretend we didn’t know where he lived. His street sucked and the cannoli dessert-casserole thing he brought every year was amazing.

Maybe we were too nice?

Was that why we had so many of those odd people around us just showing up?

“He needs to work on his subtly.” Casimir shook his head before pushing off the doorframe and letting me inside. “Confession time first.”

And then what second?

He was being very cagy.

Okay, not going to even think about that word because it seemed like I was going to need all brain cells functioning for our conversation.

“Did you take over the world or something?” His sigh and adorable glare had me trying not to smile as we went into the house and he locked the door.

“No, but I’m not going to lie and say I’m sorry.” Casimir was patient until I sat down on the couch, but he quickly plopped himself down on my lap. Drama was radiating from him like he was expecting me to go postal at any second.

What was this about?

Did I even want to know?

“Are you feeling cuddly or just keeping me pinned in place?” His face scrunched up as he tightened his legs around me, answering my question. “Never mind.”

What could he have done?

It didn’t seem dating-related because we had similar views on restaurants and behavior. He also didn’t need any personal space or time apart, so it couldn’t be one of those I need space things that I’d heard other couples fighting about.

It couldn’t be a Dom thing because he was damned near religious about sticking to our lists and having conversations about issues. He was also really good at reading me, even when I didn’t know what the problem was, like figuring out how to get me out of the cage headspace without it feeling like the world was weighing down on me.

Was it something outside the box?

“Did you put in a job application somewhere weird?” Was he going to move to another country? “I’ll admit, I like having you close and my licenses for work are state specific.”