Page 92 of The Best Bad Decision

God, he was fucking sexy.

“I can’t wait to see it.” Even if I had to get into one of those getups.

Atlee in a tux…mind-blowing.

Me in a tux…painful.

“One of the partner’s wives wore this almost tux-looking outfit with a flowy shirt like that beige one you’ve got. I’ll have to ask him wear she got it from.” Atlee’s absentminded-professor tone had me shaking my head. “I don’t think anyone mentioned that, but for whatever reason, I had to hear about where half of the men got theirs from. It was weird.”

There was definitely some social cue he’d missed just like he was missing the whole they might not want me there in women’s clothing thing.

We’d come back to that later, though.

“Stop teasing me about you wearing that tux, brat.” And his giggle was back. “Come home. Get ready. Got it?”

“Got it.”

And he was gone.

At some point I was going to teach him how to end a call or a text conversation appropriately. But since it wasn’t going to be anytime soon, I headed inside and followed my own advice to start getting ready.

The goal had been a nice dinner and evening out, so we’d both promised to leave work a few minutes early to make sure it would happen. That was mostly for Atlee, though. I knew how to draw boundaries. He didn’t.

Atlee had me, though, and I knew how to get what I wanted when I put my mind to it.

“Alright. Reservations are double-checked.” Tossing my keys on the table by the door, I kicked off my practical shoes and headed to the bedroom to get dressed up. “Tickets are printed and saved on my phone.”

Just in case.

“Dessert list is ready just in case we decide to go out after the play.” I wasn’t really a theater kind of gay, but Atlee loved it and hadn’t been in years because his witch of an ex hadn’t liked it.

Was I giving him his favorite night out to show I was a better partner than she’d been?

Absolutely.

It wouldn’t be subtle for most men, but my boy wouldn’t connect the dots until we’d been together for years, so I didn’t feel embarrassed about it in the slightest.

I also didn’t feel the least bit embarrassed about planning out all the restaurants near the theater downtown with the best desserts. I wasn’t sure how our evening would go but I wanted us to have options.

Coming home to open his special presents was probably going to be his pick, but if we were having fun I’d drag it out and then surprise him when we got home. Collaring my boy didn’t have a time limit, so I was going to play the date by ear.

Everything else around that spontaneity was planned out thoroughly, though.

Like the fact that I was going to wear one of Atlee’s favorite outfits.

“Get a shower…don’t get distracted.” Ignoring everything else, I headed into the bathroom and got thoroughly clean as quickly as I could.

The notification on my phone from Atlee made me think he was letting me know he was home, but I had to wait to confirm that until I was clean. “Alright…wonderful.”

No traffic and no problems.

“This is going to be perfect.”

As long as the fucking doorbell stopped ringing like the house was on fire.

It started as I was almost done, and by the time I was dressed it’d started to drive me mad and I’d ordered one of those stalker doorbells online. Half the neighborhood already had them just to spy on each other. I’d never thought about buying one for actual security, but Atlee’s family changed my outlook on stalking my neighbors to that degree.

And it could only be Atlee’s family.