Page 52 of The Barn: Frost and Q
Frost glared at Q, who chuckled.
“So we get either four full-time and one part-time, or?—”
“We just hire five full-time people and work out their schedules. That way, you’re covered night, weekends, you know, all the time.” It didn’t have to be hard.
“What if they’re doing something for someone else?” Q was always coming with problems.
“Well, then maybe you have to walk your own dog, or maybe we have a rider who says the dog gets priority. Or maybe we just call down and ask if there’s someone available with the staff who could do it real quick.”
“Yeah. Yeah, I can walk my own dog. I love this idea of my own dog.”
“Yeah, but more than that, I just like the idea of you researching a dog and agreeing to be out and about.” Frost smiled at Q, who nodded.
“It was time to rejoin the workforce, so to speak, I guess. I mean, I don’t know.”
Frost thought he did know, but there was no sense in arguing.
“Let’s go do it then.” It didn’t matter the whys of this. What mattered was that it had happened, and Frost was going with it.
“You sure you don’t mind? I know you just got home.”
Frost rolled his eyes. “Oh, it’s a hardship, I tell you. I dread flying.”
“You’re such a fucker.”
Frost stared. “Do you kiss your momma with that mouth?”
“Nope.” Q held his gaze. “But you? Yeah, I totally do.” Quentin stopped as if he’d just thought of something. “Did you know that Boone called me the worst sub ever?”
Frost only had to think about that for a second. “Totally tracks. Totally. You’re like the pushiest, brattiest, topping from below son of a bitch I’ve ever met.”
“And you love it,” Q said.
“Every second.” He stole a hard kiss. “So is this just a meet the dog or are we bringing the dog back? In other words, do I need to arrange food and bed and stuff?”
“This is me you’re talking about, Frost.” Ah, he knew that look.
“Food, bed, bowls—you’ve already got them all ordered. They’re probably waiting downstairs.”
“No, they’re already up here, you just didn’t notice them last night.”
“Cool. Well, get on that hiring process and try not to take subs from the guest list, please, because I don’t want to have to pay them and lose the money that they pay to come here.” Frost gave Q a cocky grin.
“Jesus, you’re such a picky bitch.”
Frost nodded. “I am, but I do have a bottom line.”
Q reached out and patted his butt. “And a cute bottom line, it is.”
He rolled his eyes, but the touch pleased him, to the bone. “Yeah, yeah, yeah. So why did you pick this one?”
He wanted to put on some real clothes and his boots. He needed to file a flight plan and make sure the guys didn’t need anything, all that happy crappy.
Q followed him, wheeling along. “I watched a lot of videos. There was something about his smile. And, you know, it’s chillier up here than it is down in Seattle, so I wanted him to be fuzzy.”
“No Chihuahua balance dogs, got it.” The visual made him snort, though. “Can you imagine?”
Q tossed his hair and grabbed a heavy sweatshirt. “Well, no, because that’s not a thing. But, okay?—”
