life was about to change.
Jack had dropped Chip off on his way to work. Since they’d been in the shower, Chip had settled on the couch with Saint, which was where they found him when they came downstairs. Chip barked excitedly, his butt wiggling as he pranced around Gio and Joker.
“We’re going to pick up your new friend,” Gio told Chip. He grinned at Joker. “So you know, there’s an epic level of boxes arriving. I’ve pretty much bought stock in lint rollers since I’m now buying them in bulk.”
Joker snickered. “Did some research on golden retrievers, huh?”
“Yep.”
“Welcome to the wonderful world of dog glitter.”
“Oh, by the way,” Saint said, turning to Joker, “Jack brought your Jeep over.”
“Great. Thanks. I need to stop by the apartment later and pick up a few things,” Joker said as he headed for the front door, Chip at his heels.
They got into the SUV and headed over to Kendra’s place. When they got there and she brought Cookie out, Joker couldn’t tell who was more excited, the dog or Gio. They were ridiculously adorable together. Gio had already ordered more dog stuff than any dog needed. Cookie was going to be spoiled rotten. When they got back to the house, Gio took Cookie on a tour, showing him his new luxury dog bed inside Gio’s bedroom, though Joker had no idea who Gio was trying to kid. The only place Cookie would be sleeping was on the bed with Gio.
Joker left Chip with Saint and Gio so he could quickly drop by his place and pick up some more clothes and drop off his dirty laundry. He’d taken the day off today but had to check some emails and put through a few invoices. It had been a while since he’d worked overtime, preferring to be with Gio. He was looking forward to the first whole weekend they had together. Maybe they could take the dogs somewhere.
It was nice, sitting in Gio’s living room with his laptop, doing some work while Gio played with Cookie and Chip. Never in a million years would Joker have believed he’d enjoy just lounging around doing close to nothing with someone else. He’d always wondered how Jack and Fitz did it, spent so much time at home together. What did they do when they weren’t having sex? Not that he thought about his brother and Fitz having sex, because yikes, but he wondered how the hell they cohabited. Sounded boring as fuck.
Gio’s loud laugh made Joker smile, and he glanced up to find him on the floor with the two furry beasts attacking him with their tongues. Joker shook his head at them.
“Oh, I have a meeting with King on Thursday to discuss a permanent security team,” Gio said, sitting up.
“That’s great.” Joker reminded himself he needed to talk to King about that. Until the threat to Gio’s life was over, he wanted to be working those events, but he wasn’t sure how King would feel about that, considering Joker and Gio were now involved.
Joker’s email client pinged, and an email came through with what looked like an updated schedule. Gio’s updated schedule. Was it terrible that Joker hoped Gio had canceled an event or two? He opened the attached spreadsheet and frowned. “I thought you said you were cutting back on the number of events you were doing?”
“I am.”
Joker’s heart thundered as he looked over the schedule. Chill. Do not overreact. But the more he studied the schedule, the more pissed off he got. “You added seven new events to your schedule, Gio. And that’s just across the next two weeks.” He glowered at the sheet in front of him. “You’re working the whole weekend, and you don’t have a day off next week.”
“I know it’s a little tight, but I’d forgotten a couple of commitments I’d made and had to move things around. Next week was the only week I could fit them in that worked for the organizers.”
“Gio, you can’t work seven days a week.” He pointed at the screen. “For fuck’s sake. You have three days of back-to-back meetings. You didn’t even schedule time for lunch.”
“I’ll grab something quick in between.” Gio took a seat on the couch across from him, his brows drawn together in a scowl. “It’ll be fine.”
“Really? Is that supposed to happen in the five minutes between your morning and afternoon meetings?”
“I’ve done it before.”
“Yeah, and that’s worked out so well for your health.” As soon as the words were