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So what about Coco?
“I was just thinking that maybe…”
He trailed off, not ready to say the words out loud but trying them out in his head.I was thinking that maybe I love her. Maybe she’s the one for us.
“Maybe you were right.”
“Yeah?”
His partner’s face lit up in that bright earnest way that made Ian want to put him in a headlock and give him a noogie for the five seconds it would take before Huds bodyslammed him into the floor and sat on him until he cried mercy.
Course that would make him itch for a beating and maybe a fuck and he couldn’t have either of those things right now. Hudson was the only person he let top him and though he could go down to the club any night and pick up a partner to play with and/or fuck, he’d really rather snuggle Coco until she fell asleep or give her a bath or… Fine, he just wanted to be with her.
“Yeah.”
“You should tell her,” Hudson prodded.
“Yeah, I will.”
“Soon, you dipshit,” Hudson said with another nudge to his arm.
“Yeah, yeah, alright, alright,” he agreed, returning the nudge with a punch.
Then he heard the rumble of Ryker’s voice from the kitchen. Ian hadn’t even seen the guy come downstairs. Not like that was unusual. Sometimes he thought his friend could actually walk through walls because Ry was such a silent, sneaky fucker.
“Don’t worry, these ham-boned idiots like to wrestle.”
Shit.
Coco’s gaze was locked on them, her knuckles white on the seat of the stool she was perched on while Halliday hovered around her like a hummingbird—little snip here, bit of combing there, another spritz of water everywhere.
“We’re not fighting, Coco. Promise. Your daddy’s just being annoying.”
“And Ian’s being obnoxious.”
She looked between the two of them, still seeming uncertain. Yeah, she’d get used to their roughhousing but it was too soon. Too soon to do any impact play or discipline with her because they didn’t want it linked in her mind with any of the pain she currently felt, so they shouldn’t be knocking each other around either.
Luckily, Halliday clucked and shook her head. “Boys, amirite?”
Coco blinked at her but didn’t respond. The only boy she’d known for the past eight years had regularly beat the everloving shit out of her in a dangerous way and fucked with her head and her heart, so no. She was too polite or maybe too embarrassed to say so though.
Then Halli was turning her attention to Ry who was grabbing an apple out of the fridge. “Hey, Ryker. You need a trim too while I’m here?”
“No, thank you.”
“Maybe you want to take a cat to my back and a quirt to my ass?”
“No, thank you.”
Guy didn’t even modulate his tone, like those two offers were equivalent. Didn’t pause to chat, either, just headed back upstairs. Ian would call it his cavern of solitude or whatever because it was possible his partner was Batman but he tried not to mock Ry too much.
“Ugh,” Halli said, stomping her foot and pouting. “He never lets me have any fun. What the hell?”
“Don’t take it personally, he never lets us have any fun either.” Okay, so not too much mocking wasn’t no mocking. “But for reals, he’s been on duty every night at the club so he doesn’t have much time to play. He’s not just being a dick. Or if he is, he’s not just being a dick to you.”
Halli scrunched up her freckled nose and her rosebud mouth that was slicked with a sparkly orchid color. “He’s fantastic to play with. I just wish he were a little more…available, you know?”
Goddamn did Ian know it, and yeah, he wished for that too. But it wasn’t really his place to dish on his buddy’s emotional trauma or even commiserate. That was between him and Ry and Huds. He could validate Halli’s feelings though because she wasn’t wrong.
