Page 115 of Carver’s Craving

Baxter reappeared with another towel. He held his arms open to take Walter.

Styx handed him over. “I’ll take my boots off then relieve you of Poppin.” He gave her a quick scritch before bending over to untie his laces.

“I should just—” Seth held up the bag.

“Are you on duty?” I was trying to reason this out.

Seth shook his head, looking past me at Baxter. “I didn’t want you to have to wait to get your phone back. In case there’s someone you need to call.”

“I told you—there’s no one. I don’t have anyone. Oh sorry.” Baxter’s gaze shot between me and Styx. “I told him that he needed to find you. Well, Styx.” He gave me a sheepish look.

“You had no way of knowing we were together. All good.”

Styx held out his arms for Poppin. I handed her over and bent to untie my laces. Have we decided if Seth’s staying or not? I didn’t really care if he brought melted snow into the house. That’s what the mop was for.

“I should be going.” Seth tried to hand me the bag.

I evaded by scooping Walter from Baxter. “We need to take them into the laundry room. We’ll be back in a moment.” I decided to leave the next step up to Baxter. He could come with us, or he could deal with Seth. Perhaps that was unfair of me. But the cop had come up here on his own time, and Baxter was a grown man, however traumatized.

Styx followed me and we rubbed down the dogs until they were dry. Then we tossed the rather smelly towels into the washing machine.

“Do you think we’ve given them—” My words were cut off by Baxter appearing in the doorway.

“I’m going out for a couple of hours. With Seth. I’ll be fine and I’ll be back.” He stalked away.

Styx and I hustled back to the great room.

To find Baxter putting on a coat and Seth looking distinctly uncomfortable.

“What’s going on?” Somehow, I felt like I needed to intervene. To me, Baxter was here under my protection. I was responsible for his well-being.

“You guys deserve some alone time for Christmas.” Baxter didn’t meet my gaze. “I’ll be back. Like I said.” He threw open the door and headed out.

Seth, still holding the bag, shrugged. “I’ll get his phone charged so you can call. I’ll bring him back safe. I promise.” With that, he was gone as well—closing the door behind him.

“What the fuck just happened?” Styx moved to the couch.

I followed him, and we deposited the dogs.

He turned to me. “I love you…but we don’t need alone time.”

“No, we don’t.” I was prepared to be pretty much celibate until Baxter left. As much as I craved Styx physically, we had the rest of our lives. Baxter was the priority. “Do you want to call Cody?”

Styx frowned.

“Just…to see if he has advice. Do we wait an hour and call? Or text? What’s the right thing to do?”

“I have no idea.” Still, he stepped toward me.

Without hesitation, I pulled him into my arms. “Whatever you need. Okay?”

He cleared his throat. “Okay.” He stepped back. “There is one thing.”

I cocked my head.

“Well, I finished the second song I was working on. I’ve wanted to share…but not around Baxter. I don’t know how he’ll cope.”

“That makes perfect sense. We have a bit of time. So how about now?” Because we had to do something to pass the time before we reached out to Baxter to let him know we were concerned and would love for him to come home. Fortunately, Chinese was Baxter’s favorite food and Styx had the makings for beef broccoli. I was still stuffed from Lorcan’s party, but we could pretend hunger. Hell, with Styx’s metabolism, he probably would be hungry.