“Boone,” I called.

He was sliding the omelet on a plate with the sausages.

Now, this might be gross and far too gushy for some, but at breakfast, we ate off the same plate.

We were both eating the same thing, and we did it close, so why dirty another plate?

That said, the smoothie he poured into two glasses, because even if he’d had his tongue down my throat and up my pussy, and vice versa (switching out my pussy for his cock, obviously) no one wanted to court someone else’s backwash.

He looked to me.

“You want a blowjob while you eat breakfast?” I asked.

He smiled huge.

Then he brought the food over to me, saying, “No, but you could find some creative way to show your gratitude tonight.”

That was oh…so…totally…happening.

It was me who smiled huge then.

He bent in and kissed me before he set the plate down by me and went to get the smoothies.

I pulled out utensils thinking every love language was Boone’s love language.

He was touchy and affectionate. He gave compliments easily. He cooked, but also (yes, it was a Boone thing, not a Dom thing) he loaded my toothbrush for me if we hit the bathroom together in the morning. We talked and we did it often, and when we did, he listened. And he’d shown at my pad on Wednesday night to pick me up and he’d had a bouquet of flowers he said he was “out and I saw them, and they reminded me of you.”

It was a big bunch of pale peach, true peach and orange roses.

They were gorgeous.

All this was awesome.

But making it better, it made it easy for me to do all of that too (though I’d never given him anything, which was cause for concern, because he seemed like a man who had it all and what did I do when it was his birthday?).

It made it easy to do it and it made an us that wasn’t lopsided.

Like I liked to cuddle, and he didn’t (I did and so did he).

He was hot and he probably knew it, but it never hurt reminding him (and he was always telling me how gorgeous he thought I was).

He was fucked up, and had his ways of coping, I was fucked up too, and had mine, but now that we’d gotten over that hump, neither of us had a problem with talking shit out (though, it must be said, I had not broached the Jeb subject yet).

We weren’t dark and light, fitting perfectly.

We both had our dark.

We both had our light.

We just fit.

Perfectly.

“You’re in a daze again,” Boone noted.

I focused on him to see he was eating and watching me.

Then I looked at the roses that were still beautiful and on the end of his counter.

Back to him, I said, “Did I tell you how much I liked those roses, honey?”

“Yeah,” he replied softly.

“Just making sure,” I muttered, then forked into the omelet.

He slid some of my hair behind my ear.

And that was that.

Us.

Perfect.

* * *

It was Axl on my security detail that day, the first time he’d been on it since Boone lost his mind about his buds being mean to me.

Mag had apologized, though I didn’t think that was necessary.

Mo hadn’t needed to apologize because he’d always been cool.

And Auggie had given me a big hug that I took as an apology.

But clearly, with the eye contact that was happening between them when Axl showed before Boone took off, Axl had been cut off from me as penance for being a dick.

I had a feeling with the way they were with each other, the other guys were on other jobs that day and Axl was the only one who was free (ish, I suspected I wasn’t easy on their schedule).

But before Axl showed, I also suspected Boone did not know he was coming, and further, when Axl showed, Boone did not like it, but since he showed, Boone had no choice about it.

And I had a feeling with Axl’s body language, today was going to be awkward.

Boone gave me a kiss before he left, and whispered in my ear, “He isn’t cool with you, you let me know immediately.”

I was oh so never going to do that.

“Gotcha,” I whispered back.

He looked in my eyes, sighed, and I knew he knew I was lying.

He took off.

Axl put me in his Jeep so he could take me to the dance studio where Hattie had booked space for us to work out our moves.

We rode in uncomfortable silence, mine heightened by the fact that I’d become an issue between Boone and his bud.

I totally had to fix this.

Pronto.

“Axl—” I started.

“It’s about Jeb,” he announced.

When the specter of Jeb was raised, I shut right the hell up.

“I know you didn’t now, but when he talked to me about it, he thought you were blaming him for falling down in keeping you safe. He’s talked about Jeb with us and he carries guilt about that. He sees Whitney and her daughter a lot. She has a problem with her tub draining or her garage door opener fucking up, he’s on it like it’s an infestation of black mold and it’s killing them. He takes them out to dinner. He’s on the list at Muriel’s daycare to go get her if something’s up and Whitney can’t get there.”

Okay, I knew it was going to be rough, but I was going to have to prioritize our discussion about Jeb because Boone had told me none of this.

And if this was true, which it undoubtedly was, either Boone was still taking care of Whitney and Muriel and for some reason not telling me, or they were hanging in the breeze while we were stuck in new-relationship bliss. Because as far as I knew, when he wasn’t working, or trying to figure out what was happening with dirty cops in the DPD, he was always with me.

“He’s a good guy, but this is also about Jeb not being here and Boone breaking his back so Whitney doesn’t feel that as much as she would,” Axl carried on.

Another impossible endeavor Boone had taken on.

“Bottom line, I don’t know you all that well,” Axl continued. “But I do know you’re a straight talker and you’re tough, so I thought you loaded shit on him. He’s my boy and I was not down with that. But it wasn’t cool, me being a dick to you when it was none of my business. Then it was more not cool because you didn’t actually do that.”

“Axl, I got it then and just to say, as much as it wasn’t fun, I also liked it because I’m glad Boone’s friends are loyal to him.”

“Right.”

“And you weren’t a dick to me, as such. You were just not as friendly as you usually are.”

“Right.”

I turned to look at him as he drove. “Axl, let it go.”

He didn’t say anything.

“Is Boone up in your shit about it?” I asked.

“We had words.”

Fabulous.

He glanced at me. “We’ll get over it, Ryn.”

“Okay, so, even if, really, Boone is your business, I understand how you think we’re not your business when we hit a rocky patch. In the same vein, your friendship with Boone isn’t my business either, but still. Do you want me to talk to him?”

“We’ll get over it, Ryn,” he repeated, then his voice dipped. “Promise.”

“Are we good?” I asked.

“Yeah,” he said.

He punctuated that by reaching out and giving me a brief knee squeeze.