Page 96 of Hiding From Laughter

“Sawyer’s a pup. That was what he said,right?” Okay, so I might’ve been at the easily distracted point of tired, butit was still a legitimate question. “I don’t want to say something I shouldn’t,so you need to tell me if I’m remembering that correctly.”

Micha chuckled, reaching over to run hishand over my head as he pulled up to the stop sign at the end of the parkinglot. “Yes. You’re remembering that correctly. I’m not sure he really wants totalk about that yet, but I think it was more about being very private insteadof being embarrassed by it.”

“Okay. No talking about the pup thing, butI won’t be surprised if it comes up.” It probably wouldn’t come up at work, butwho knew. “What did I miss when I was out…napping or just distracted?”

Playing with Cooper’s pup had been fun, butI could honestly say I had no idea what they were talking about most of thetime.

“Oh, um, Sawyer’s other partner’s humanname is Cooper.” I wasn’t sure I could remember hearing Micha use his name andhad to chuckle when he huffed.

“No one uses real names enough in thelifestyle. Everyone is pup or baby or boy. It’s confusing.” Huffing, Micha tooka minute to brood before he switched back to being weirdly worried aboutsomething. “You’re okay, though?”

What had I missed?

“Okay, you’re going to have to explain whatyou’re worried about because you’re more psychic than I am and I have no ideawhat I’m supposed to be upset over.” I’d really missed something big. “You toldConner everything was fine. Were you lying?”

“No.” Micha seemed honestly startled bythat question which didn’t make any sense at all. “I’m worried you’re going tobe upset once you start worrying.”

That sentence hadn’t made any sense at all,but after a moment, I thought I’d sorted through it. “What am I supposed tostart being upset over?”

Sometimes it took my brain a while to catchup to the panic, but nothing was coming to mind right off the bat. “Sawyer wasokay with me being little.”

Ha.

Said it.

Wow.

Even admitting that out loud hadn’tstartled Micha out of his funk.

“He knows I’m okay with the pup stuff. Hedidn’t seem to be jealous that I played with Cooper’s pup.” What else? “Um, noone was mean to us. The bartender didn’t try to make small talk with me when Ihad my quiet toy in.”

Pushing away how good my toy sounded at themoment, I couldn’t think of anything else I was supposed to be worried about.

“You’re going to have to fill in the blanksso I know what I haven’t realized yet.” God. I was starting to sound likeMicha.

That must’ve been what startled him out ofhis weirdness because he barked out a laugh and actually pulled over into a gasstation parking lot. When he had the car in park, he let out a deep breath andleaned over to kiss my head. “Okay. I will stop giving us problems we don’thave.”

That would be really helpful, but it wasprobably rude to say that so I kept my mouth shut.

I was occasionally smart.

It made Micha chuckle again and he shookhis head before giving me a soft peck on the lips. “Our contracts say that wewon’t play with other subs or Doms when we do scenes. It wasn’t until you werecurled up asleep with Cooper’s pup that I realized we’d never thought aboutplaytime like that before.”

Oh.

Interesting.

Chapter 26

Micha

“When you give me something to worry aboutyou do a bang-up job.” Ashton sighed, closing his eyes and reaching for myhand. “Okay, first of all, I’m not going to feel guilty about anything I do inthat little headspace. It’s fuzzier than just subspace, so unless I’m throwingshit at someone then I’m in the clear.”

His logic was always amazing.

“I’m going to need more examples of issuesthat could come up before I go with that level of immunity, but I understandwhere you’re coming from.” When he was little, he didn’t want to talk to peopleand he didn’t really notice what was going on around him. That combinationmeant we were bound to run into some interesting issues eventually.

But that didn’t mean I was going to givehim a free pass no matter what he did.

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