Total pages in book: 143
Estimated words: 138844 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 694(@200wpm)___ 555(@250wpm)___ 463(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 138844 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 694(@200wpm)___ 555(@250wpm)___ 463(@300wpm)
“It feels so darn good in the sun!” Cam dove for the sofa and fanned out a big blanket.
I smiled at his littleisms emerging and planted my feet on the floorboards, then gripped the armrests of my wheelchair.
“Oh—I’ll help you, Sir.” Cam scurried off the couch to offer me a hand, and I nodded in thanks and pulled myself up.
“Thank you, baby,” I grunted. “Did you give Archie that dough thing?”
“The sourdough starter—yes.” He smiled.
Right. Sourdough starter. A chunk of bubbly dough that lived in our fridge or occasionally in the kitchen window.
In the corner of my eye, I caught Reese and Walker heading toward me, so I pressed a kiss to Cam’s temple and told him to sit down again. Then I grabbed my cane from the chair and stepped over to the edge of our little porch.
“We have a slight situation,” Reese said.
“It’s not a situation,” Walker disagreed.
Reese threw him a look. “Buddy, I don’t know what strategies you picked up in Boston, but in Mclean, we pride ourselves in keeping the drama down.”
I lifted my brows.
Walker sighed and faced me while adjusting his cuff links. “We were trying to figure out the brats’ angle for a potential prank. More accurately, we were trying to pin down the location they didn’t want us in earlier when Macklin acted out.”
I nodded, with him so far. “Greer and I figured it was the office, mostly based on…where else would it be? In the office, they have access to the admin pages of the online community. They can replace the header with one that says House Mclean or—fuck if I know. It’s probably bigger than that if Macklin’s willing to face Colt’s paddle.”
Reese nodded with a dip of his chin. “That’s what we were thinking too. But instead of a prank on the forum, we’re theorizing it could be about the cruise. Shay and Macklin know I’m handling everything about our trip on that computer—and I’m comfortable, okay? I don’t always log out. Besides, Shay knows the passwords anyway. Macklin knows some of them too. All founders do.”
“All right, the cruise would be a good target,” I agreed. “Is that the drama situation?”
Reese and Walker exchanged a look.
“It could be,” Reese answered. “The other day, Walker and River had lunch, and they came up with the brilliant idea of inviting Ash on the cruise.”
I frowned. Clearly, Reese didn’t think it was a brilliant idea, but why? We loved Ash. It sucked that he’d left our community when he’d separated from Nathan, who had never been that close to any of us. Mainly because he had his own group of friends in our Shibari crowd. Although, lately, Nathan had joined us more and more. He was one of the monitors for today’s event. He was actually really nice.
“And how’s that a problem?” I asked, noticing Shay and Macklin were watching us from the pool. “If Ash is coming back, I’m all for it. By the way, Shay and Mack are watching us and trying to be subtle about it.”
“And cue laughter,” Reese said.
I grinned and let out a laugh, as did they, and we took a step closer to one another.
Reese turned a little too, so that he didn’t have his back to the pool. He wanted Shay to see our lighter mood. The grin stayed on.
“I’m not calling it a problem, just a situation,” he went on. “If you recall, Macklin and Ash had a special relationship.”
Oh shit, I’d forgotten.
By special, he meant deranged. They’d acted like bickering brothers. As far as I knew, they’d liked each other as friends, but if they spent too much time together, they could argue like sworn enemies, and it was always about dumb shit.
Walker closed the distance between us and draped an arm around my shoulders, presumably to uphold the illusion of us Tops getting our flirt on.
“In short, Macklin misses Ash, but given their history, Ash returning to us is the perfect reason for Macklin to pull a prank,” he said. “And y’all know he needs a reason to be part of a stunt, unlike some of the other boys.”
True enough. Noa definitely didn’t need a reason.
“Okay, so we might have our motive…?” I asked.
“Bottom line, a cruise ship ain’t our turf,” Reese replied. “If they plan somethin’ there, it’s harder for us to anticipate their next move. Chances are also that they have more than one target in mind, because even though the Littles don’t necessarily need a reason to pull their shit, they prefer it when said shit spreads to several Tops.”
That was fair. Macklin targeting Ash wasn’t enough. When the brats teamed up, they would’ve agreed on their targets.
“In that case, we’ll…” I trailed off as I saw Greer heading over to us. “Uh, we’ll be extra observant. I can talk to Cam. Greer, you should talk to Archie,” I said as he reached us. “Our slaves are our scouts in these matters. They won’t defy us.”