Page 1 of Hiding From Laughter

Chapter 1

Ashton

“Did you need to work tonight?” Micha’swords were casual but there was a hint ofdon’t bullshit mein his tone.

Fuck.

“Um, no.” Clearly, pretending to have towork late on nights it was supposed to be my turn to pick hadn’t been as subtleas I’d hoped. “I’m done for the weekend.”

The fact that I was slightly frustratedabout that said a lot about my state of mind because I loved my big lug morethan life itself and he was starting to give me hisI’m pissedlook.

It was subtle. He wasn’t the type to getloud and angry. No, it was worse…he got disappointed. Ugh. I was such a dick.

Micha looked relaxed as he leaned backagainst the couch and flicked through the options on the TV, but his twitchyfoot gave him away. It was one of his only tells and I’d been careful not topoint it out, so to see his foot shift up and down made it clear he wasn’t ascalm as he appeared. “You know, there’s probably a new movie out we could gosee if you want.”

Ugh.

I was a royal dick.

“It’s Friday.” Frowning, I glanced over atthe jar on the bookshelf. “And it’smyFriday. I get to pick.”

After a night of kinky crafts likedecorating a jar with penis ribbon, the silly game of pulling kinks and BDSMtopics out of the jar had started off as something ridiculous we’d done tospice things up without it being too stressful…but now it had gotten stressful.After a year of us alternating picking one out of the jar each week, we weredown to only a handful, and somehow they’d ended up being the ones I was mostnervous about.

I should’ve never crafted drunk.

After more than one drink, I lost allinhibitions and actually answered things honestly.

It was fucking dangerous, and while I hadtoo much self-respect to cheat and go fishing for the ones I wanted to hide, Ihad questionable enough morals to try to avoid them.

Which was how I’d ended up with afrustrated partner looking at me like he didn’t believe me for a second.

He was really smart.

“Ashton, do you understand why I’mquestioning what you want?” His unfortunately very reasonable question had metrying not to look too innocent. He wouldn’t believe it at all and I’d just endup looking more guilty.

“Um…” Ugh. He kept asking questions thatwere going to get me in trouble. “Yes. But there’s nothing to worry about.”

Trying to subtly work in the truth didn’thelp the situation.

Nope.

He picked me up off the couch and sat me onhis lap.

Sometimes one of my favorite things aboutour relationship was our size difference but sometimes it made me want to poutlike a disgruntled five-year-old.

“I tried being patient.” Micha looked likethat plan wasn’t in play any longer. “I tried asking you open-ended questions.”

Oh, yeah.

“Sorry?” I hadn’t exactly been a dick withthose but I hadn’t been helpful either.

He huffed.

Ugh.

“I gave you space to work through yourthoughts.” His gaze narrowed and he glared at me. I had to remind my dick thatit wasn’t supposed to be sexy and he was an idiot if he thought Micha wastrying to play with us. “Those plans didn’t work.”

Duh.

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