I okay with Ian putting me in his lap?
Despite my preference for a subject change, I didn’t mind curling against Ian. He had an arm around my waist, and my ass was more firmly on his thigh than anything else, the heat scorching the back of my neck and likely contributing to the almost sunburnt effect on my face. I gave Jake a little nod, and he relaxed back to lounging on the stack of pillows he’d dragged into the living room.
I opened my mouth to say something when a little humming sound distracted me, and I glanced over toward the hallway leading to the bedrooms as a little circular robotic device rolled out with Tiddles sitting on the back of it, staring down at the machine as it began to hum its way across the carpet.
“What the hell is that?” Not even needing to guess, I switched my glare to Archie.
He wore an absolute unrepentant smirk as he said, “Jake’s and my robot project.”
Bullshit was the first word to come to mind. Coop snickered, but Jake gave me the most butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth smile, eyes twinkling. Even Ian couldn’t mask his laughter. If the shaking of his chest against my back didn’t give him away, the little huffs of breath against my throat would.
“We’re running live tests,” Archie continued, though his own smirk betrayed him. “It covers the vacuuming so we could call it chores, too.”
I rolled my eyes. “Archie…”
“What?” Yeah, not buying the innocence. “I said I’d work on my life skills. Cooking is definitely not there, and why run a vacuum on a schedule when this little guy can do it for us?” He didn’t bat an eyelash as I stared at him.
When I transferred that same stare to Jake, he raised his eyebrows without a trace of a smirk in sight. “It’s our project,” he promised. “It’s not store bought. Nor is it just ‘repurposed.’ We built it.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Before or after Archie bought one and took it completely apart to deconstruct it?”
Not missing a beat, Jake shrugged. “We call that research and development.”
A snort escaped me before I could stop it, swiftly followed by a laugh. Archie spread his hands and then grinned at me. “You’re welcome, babe.”
Chuckling, I shook my head. They weren’t fooling me, and at the same time, it was wildly sweet. “Thank you, Archie.”
He grinned. “My pleasure.” Then he twisted to sit back down, game controller in hand. “Who’s in for the next ass whipping?”
Ian plucked one of the earphones out of my ear and tucked it into his as he shifted me on his lap. It let me elevate my cast arm on the sofa behind him while he balanced me, and then unplugged the headphones from my phone and slotted them into his before he opened the music app. “You guys go ahead, Frankie and I have some homework to do.”
“Thought we were all done with homework,” Coop said, cutting his gaze between us. I gave him a little shrug because I’d been reading. Still, I didn’t move my book as Ian tabbed down to a new list, and I stared at the tracks that had no names.
When I glanced at him, he grinned, then pressed his lips close to my ear without the earbud in it. “I want you to listen to these with me. I think you’ve got the range for all of them. Pick your two favorites, and those will be the ones we practice.”
I grimaced. I couldn’t help it. I was still a little in shock that he’d gotten me to sound so good for Archie’s birthday present song. At the same time, a little thrill curled in my stomach as he hit play. The stretch of his lips as he smiled against me tickled, then he pressed a kiss to my earlobe. It was the simplest thing, and it set off a dozen butterflies in my stomach.
Sprawled out on the floor around us, Jake, Coop, and Archie gave each other hell as they sped through the streets of some European city. I could still hear the game, but I was mostly focused on the soft strumming of the guitar that promised a ballad before the riff of chords took it to another level.
How many songs had Ian worked on over the last few weeks?
When I glanced at him, I found him studying me with a small smile, and I grinned. The song was magic, but then I was pretty