Out of the Ashes (The Game 5)

That explained why I’d seen Franklin and Lily speak in sign language at the pond.

“I saw her at lunch yesterday, though,” he went on with a slight chuckle. “She was so adorable. I asked how she was feeling, and I swear she snarled at me. ‘I have to learn how to like Daddy’s new place so I can live there!’ She hates being away from him. But I heard from Tiana that Franklin’s in the middle of turning Lily’s bedroom into a replica of what she already has. I think that will help tremendously.”

We can pitch in, was my first thought, which caused the proverbial sound of screeching tires in my head. Help Franklin with something so personal? I didn’t know him well enough.

However, it was in my blood to volunteer where I could play handyman. I’d been there to help Tate’s sister move in to her own studio apartment a couple years ago. I’d assembled furniture and installed her computer and a haptic aid system.

“By the way, Franklin is definitely avoiding me,” Tate said.

“Oh yeah?” I checked on the pasta and fished one piece out with a fork. No, a few more minutes. “He never responded to your text?”

I’d asked Tate last weekend to let Franklin know we were back together, as an attempt to coax him into telling Tate what’d happened between us at the bar. I wanted an opening, an opportunity to take the next step, ultimately resulting in the three of us being in the same room.

It was turning out to be a lot harder than I’d anticipated. Tate was still kinda angry with the man, and Franklin was evidently hell-bent on avoiding the issue altogether.

“Nope, and he was supposed to pick Lily up today, but Tiana said her mother showed up,” Tate replied. “Picking up Lily is Franklin’s thing. Like, something he detests missing.”

“Hmm.” After preparing the skillet for the scallops, I turned around and faced Tate, and to be honest, I was done with the careful approach. “I think we should invite him over for dinner. Stat. We need to confront the problem.”

Tate closed his laptop and took off his glasses. “Define stat.”

“As soon as he’s available.” I grabbed my wine and set it on the bar. “Tomorrow or Friday?”

The weekend was out. Unbeknownst to Tate, we had a brat boot camp to attend.

He smiled nervously. “You wanna get this show on the road, don’t you?”

“I don’t know what we’re waiting for anymore,” I admitted. “Is there a social standard for an appropriate period of waiting? What’s considered pacing ourselves—and to what end—if we’re ready?”

We weren’t vanilla. We didn’t use kink to spice up a missionary-position sex life. We made love whether we fucked brutally or we had lazy cuddle sex on a Sunday morning. But we needed that component. We needed BDSM, and we’d gone without it for far too long. I wanted to say we hadn’t managed to squeeze every ounce of satisfaction from a kink session in over six months.

I aired my thoughts on this to Tate, adding that I, without a single doubt, would give up everything for him, including kink, but we weren’t in that position. We didn’t have to exclude the things that made us happy, that let us be who we were.

Lucas and Colt came to mind. Two Daddy Doms who’d been unable to resist each other. They’d made it work. For several years, in fact. They put each other first, they chose one another, they prioritized their relationship—and found a third to complete their dynamic almost ten years later.

“I would do the same for you in a heartbeat,” I said. “But we don’t have to wait ten years.”

Tate left his side of the bar and joined mine, and he hugged my middle.

I wrapped my arms around his shoulders and kissed his temple.

“I don’t think I’ll be brave enough to take the first step,” he murmured. “I know I’m ready. I miss us—the way we are when we play—but I have to ask you to guide me through things.” He peered up at me. “Part of me worries we’ve been away from kink for so long that I want everything at once, and it makes me too cautious.”

I knew that feeling well.

I kissed his nose. “Do you want to play with Franklin?”

His gaze flickered with hesitation, shifting to different points on my face, and he swallowed audibly. “I don’t know if I want to go near him with a ten-foot pole, but that’s my annoyance talking. For some fucked-up reason, I really wanna see you with him. And…I don’t know, if he apologizes—if he and I can solve this—then maybe… I mean, I know there’s something there, buried underneath.”

I understood him.

I saw the shift in his eyes too. He was thinking about something else now. His mind was seemingly conjuring scenarios he didn’t quite understand yet, but they turned him on.