Instead, I finished my smoke, drank my coffee, and kept my mouth shut.Sundays at the house were calmer, especially after lunchtime when most of the overnight guests had left. River and I were still on the sunbed with the umbrella overhead, rain continuously falling down around us, but now we had Reese with us too.
The nearby town, Mclean, apparently had the best pizza place on the East Coast, according to River, and lunch had just been delivered to us.
I didn’t wanna leave this spot, ever. The three of us formed a triangle of sorts, with Reese sprawled out across the foot of the bed, deliciously naked, and he was discussing the next Game with River. I was on speech restriction, not that I cared. I was busy devouring one of the best pepperoni pizzas I’d ever had.
“I’ll send over the details to Luke today,” Reese was saying. “He said he’ll only need an hour or so. They don’t have anything planned.”
My God, the pepperoni was amazing. I licked my lips and chewed, my mouth exploding with greasy, salty pizza goodness. A guy could get used to this.
“Shay, sit up when you eat,” Reese said.
Dammit. I’d felt like a prince lying there with a pizza slice over my head. Fine. I dragged myself up and took another bite of my slice.
“You’re such a Daddy,” I mouthed silently.
He chuckled. “And you’re a Little and don’t even know it.”
I was not! I was not a fucking Little. I didn’t regress into some kid, nor did I like any typical hobbies for children. I didn’t draw, I didn’t like Disney, I fucking hated glitter, and I had no interest in wearing diapers or superhero pajamas.
Kit was a Little. Not that he wore diapers to my knowledge, but he built model planes and geeked out over ice cream and sprinkles. His online profile had recently become a shrine to the Little Nation. Just yesterday, I’d seen him running around here in his Ironman PJs while Lucas had called for him to come back and finish his vegetables.
Cameron liked diapers sometimes, if I wasn’t mistaken. But his fetish life was too involved and complicated for me to grasp, though mostly because I hadn’t listened to him enough. We weren’t that close.
Reese handed me a napkin before I could reach for my Coke, and I guess that was a good idea. My fingers were greasy.
“Have you decided what you wanna do today, pup?” River asked.
“I—” I quickly slapped a hand over my mouth and widened my eyes at him. Why? Why would he do that? Why would he set me up to fail? Sadist!
He laughed, a rich, gorgeous sound.
Reese looked equally entertained and impressed. “You may speak.”
I huffed and wiped my mouth and fingers. “No, I haven’t decided. I’m too busy trying to figure out what you’re up to.” After discarding the napkin in an empty corner of the pizza box between us, I took a gulp of my perfectly chilled Coke. Rain or not, Virginia was hot as fuck. I was going for a swim after lunch; that was for certain. “My guess is, when I approached you guys at the club, you saw an opportunity to get to the bottom of my, uh, infractions in the community. That’s why you want me to stay longer, so you can work your sadist-y magic and make me talk.”
Reese lifted his brows and exchanged a mildly amused glance with his twin.
“Am I close?” I asked.
Reese merely lifted a shoulder.
“You could be much further from the truth than that,” River settled for saying. “As we’ve told you, that’s where the fight comes in. If our only way of keeping you here is for Reese to challenge you in a fight, so be it.”
“But we’d like to avoid it,” Reese said. “So what’s it going to be, little fighter? Can we get you to stay without raising your fists?”
I didn’t want to answer. I wasn’t ready to face the reality back in DC—or my convictions and my guilt. Out here, I was given a break. I could postpone the inevitable and pretend.
Problem was, they wanted to drag out anything that wasn’t pretend.
No longer hungry, I dropped my forehead to River’s shoulder and asked if I could bum another smoke.
He grabbed his pack from the table and handed it to me with a lighter.
Reese averted his gaze, squinting toward the cabins with a contemplative look on his face.
When I’d lit up my smoke, he looked back at me with a barely there smile and said, “If you belonged to us, I’d make you quit smoking.”
“River does it,” I protested.
“I can’t control him,” he murmured. “He doesn’t care about pleasing me.”
“I’ve told you I’m quitting before we turn forty-five,” River bitched.
I peered down at the smoke between my fingers, then snuck a glance at Reese, who was busy berating River.