Page 63 of Hat Trick
And as I laid here in this room last night, listening to the two of them, alone, I started to think that was the last place I wanted to be.
Alone.
On the outside.
But knowing that I’m in love with them, and admitting it out loud, are two entirely different things. If my feelings become words then they become real. Every impulse to run, every instinct to keep people at arms length goes right out the window. And it’s hard to rewire your brain when you’ve spent so many years making it that way.
Lil starts wiggling against me before a dramatic groan spills from between her closed lips. I can’t help the smile that takes over my face. Every worry that was running through my head seems wholly insignificant.
And when she blindly slaps Emerson’s arm, he lets out an equally dramatic groan. If mornings weren’t already my favorite part of the day, watching the two of these crabasses groan about would make it so. It’s never not funny.
“Emmmm,” Lil groans. “Tell Dom to make us some coffee.”
A string of literal gibberish leaves Emerson’s mouth, and I chuckle even louder this time.
“Good morning, Honey,” I say before kissing her on the top of her head. “You know you could just ask me to make you coffee.”
“Mmmmm. I’m afraid if I speak to you you’re going to want to have an actual conversation with me, and I can’t handle that right now.”
Eyes still closed, Emerson moves his hand up my torso until he finds Lil’s face. He places his large hand over the entire thing. “Shhhhhhh.”
She grabs his wrist and throws his arm back to his side of the bed, and I continue to laugh as I slide downthe bed, untangling myself from the two of them. “I’ll go make copious amounts of coffee, then what do the two of you say about having ourselves a day? We have no classes. No games. No practices. And Lil doesn’t have to work.”
Honestly, this literally never happens, so I’ll be damned if I don’t take advantage of the opportunity and my new found look on life.
Lil mumbles into the pillow. “Ten more minutes.”
“I will go anywhere with you as long as you leave me alone right now,” Emerson adds.
Smiling ear to ear, I pat both their legs before heading to Lil’s kitchen to make them their coffee.
If I’m going to be spending more mornings with them, I should probably look into the possibility of injecting coffee directly into one’s bloodstream.
CHAPTER 39
DATES ARE IMPORTANT
DOMINIC
“You cannot have the chocolate one, Dominic! It’s mine!” Lil attempts to take the cupcake from my hand, but I stretch my arm over my head, well out of her reach. She crosses her arms, raises her brow, and purses her lips at me, doing her best to silently intimidate me. But it won’t work. I’ve had too good of a day to be deterred by her glares.
“I know chocolate is your favorite, Honey, but you picked the cookies and cream one.”
She looks genuinely offended that I would say something so proposterous. “I absolutely did not. You give me that cupcake right this second or I’ll?—”
I can’t help it. My grin is so wide it’s starting to hurt my cheeks. “You’ll what? Hmmm?”
“I’ll-I’ll?—”
Emerson reaches over and taps my dick with the back of his hand. I fold over and he snatches thecupcake right out of my hand. “Here you go, Darlin’,” he says as he hands it to her, followed by a wet kiss on her cheek.
“My hero,” she replies before sticking her tongue out at me.
I’d argue some more, but when she swipes at the frosting on top of the cupcake with her tongue, she lets out a satisfied moan. The sound goes straight to my dick, and I look over at Emerson to see if it’s having the same effect on him, but he’s just looking at me with a smartass look on his face that screams “I knew that would happen you moron.”
“A smack to the stomach would have sufficed,” I say as I stand up straight. I subtly adjust myself to make sure the tip of my dick is still intact.
Emerson shrugs. “Yeah, but that wouldn’t have been as satisfying. Here”—he hands me the cookies and cream cupcake before taking a bite of his vanilla bean one—“eat your damn cupcake.”
