Page 24 of Hiding From Laughter

Micha

Okay, something had gone wrong and judging by the look on his face he thought I was an idiot if I thought he was going to talk about it.

“One second, baby.”

I could figure it out…and until I could we’d just stay tucked up against the wall.

Mentally retracing our steps from the bar through the club, nothing seemed off. He hadn’t been paying a damned bit of attention to anything except the cookies in the diaper bag and the way he was humming The Star-Spangled Banner again.

So weird, but not stressful.

Even the carpet had been more interesting than anything going on around us.

We’d walked through the lounge area.

We’d walked down the short hallway that led to the large open-space room where the pups and a few littles were playing.

Had he even seen the littles when we’d walked in?

No.

We’d walked up to the doorway and he’d panicked, immediately hiding behind me and going silent. Even the humming had stopped. I’d barely gotten a glance at the littles over on the other side of the room and that was because I’d been looking for them.

They were young, quiet, and I hadn’t recognized any of them, so I thought we were in the clear.

Obviously not.

What hadn’t I been looking at?

The toys…the chairs…the pups?

I crouched down in front of a wide-eyed Ashton who was sucking on his binkie like his life depended on it. “Did you recognize one of the pups?”

Bingo.

A head nod.

It might’ve taken me a while but I caught up eventually.

“From one of the munches?”

God, I hoped not. “Was it someone who was mean to you?”

And I was back to square one.

His head shake was forceful and immediate. It wasn’t one of the drama queens from the munch? “Not even that pup who tried to bite you?”

For some reason that particular meetup had gone spectacularly wrong on a variety of levels.

Another head shake.

Huh.

“You don’t go that many places, baby.”

Where could he have seen someone else in the lifestyle that would shock him? His favorite cashier at the grocery store? That barista who was always bending over and showing off her breasts? “You go from home to work and then—”

Oh.

He started nodding so fast I was pretty sure he’d given himself whiplash.

“I’m going to look in the room and see who it is.”

Hopefully I’d remember them from the handful of office parties I’d been to. “You don’t have to look in the room and you don’t have to say anything.”

Fingers crossed they’d stand out.

“If it’s your boss, I’m just going to laugh.”

Ashton described him as well-meaning but truly strange, and it honestly wouldn’t have surprised me. “I’m sure I’ll see who it is.”

Yep…they stood out.

For fuck’s sake.

How had I not guessed them immediately?

Just peeking around the doorway, all it had taken was one look at the chaos of the pups running around to know who he’d seen. The frowning guy with the two partners. What the fuck was his name? Tom? No. It was something to do with historical fiction. Tom Sawyer.

Sawyer.

“Okay. I can see what the problem is.”

That didn’t seem to make Ashton feel any less stubborn about hiding, but he seemed less panicked and wasn’t trying to hide under me any longer. “I’m going to point out something that’s going to frustrate you.”

He sighed and crashed into me as I stood up again. Since it wasn’t a safeword, I kept going. “He’s here with his two partners and one is a pup. Full gear and everything. He was chasing a ball across the room, baby.”

So at least we could be confident he understood kinks and the lifestyle.

For some reason, most of the office seemed sure the guy was so vanilla they were confused about how he’d ended up with two partners. One of the office admins actually went to HR because she was worried he might not know he was dating two guys.

Strange office dynamics aside, we could now safely say he understood he was dating two men.

Because one was nearly naked and the other had been grabbing his ass.

Ashton was still stuck on seeing someone he knew, though.

“Alright. We’ve got two options.”

I had every intention of figuring them out on the fly, but before I could get one out, a head popped around the corner.

I managed not to jump like we were in a horror movie, but I hadn’t been expecting a masked head to just appear.

Especially one that wasn’t human.

The pup.

God.

I wasn’t good enough with names to play this game.

“Baby, Sawyer’s partner would like to say hello and I don’t know his name.”

Ashton giggled at that and the pup barked, clearly not mad at my lapse in memory.

Still, I glanced back at him and apologized even though I wasn’t sure that was the right thing to do. “I’m sorry. We’ve only met once and you were human…and dressed…and I’m just not good with names.”

He barked again.

For fuck’s sake.

Neither of them were helpful in the word department.

I could hear human voices whispering behind him, but other than a clearly delivered fuck and a hand trying to tug him back, no one else came out.

“He’s going to get in trouble. He’s as stubborn as you.”

That got a giggle from Ashton but he wiggled his way around me so I was between him and the pup. “He’s not going to bite. He isn’t growling and doesn’t look rabid either. The other one was an anomaly.”

“A pup tried to bite him?”

Sawyer’s head finally came around the doorway and he looked as confused as he should’ve been from that statement.

“Let’s just say we had some interesting experiences at munches that pushed us away from exploring for a while.”

Our luck had been so bad Ashton had started researching curses online. “So this is actually the first time he’s come to the club…to play.”

The fact that Ashton was little should’ve been obvious even if Sawyer was an alien from one of Ashton’s books, but saying it out loud seemed like it would be pushing it for Ashton.

“And we’re here.”

Sighing, he gave up trying to pull the pup back into the playroom and straightened. “I don’t know what to do and our Master is worried that him coming over here would make it worse for Ashton.”

Somehow, hearing his name had my panicked cutie peeking out from around me. I wasn’t stupid enough to move, and froze in place to give him time to process. “He’s nonverbal when he plays, so he’s not going to be much help in the figuring it out department.”

But considering he was still little, I took that to mean that he trusted Sawyer more than he realized. That didn’t help me decide what to do, though. If Ashton had tried to leave or even used his hands to sign no, it would’ve at least given me a clue.

“Um, well, I’m pretty sure he knows that we’re…not vanilla.”

My expression must’ve spoken too loudly because he laughed and shook his head. “Not because of this. He and I talked about two weeks ago. When you guys were…figuring stuff out?”

Sawyer paused, probably trying to figure out what to say, but Ashton’s silence didn’t help him either. “He’d been working too many hours and our boss sent me to be the gay emissary just in case it was something nonhetero.”

God.

“You know you have the weirdest boss, right?”

My question wasn’t relevant to our current situation but it got a laugh from Sawyer and a giggle from Ashton. “Sorry. That’s rude.”

Maybe?

Sawyer waved off my apology as he tried to stop laughing. “No. He’s weird. Ashton and I both agree on that, but he’s mostly well-meaning.”

That had him looking down at the pup and glaring at him. “Like this naughty pup.”

When that didn’t send Ashton hiding again, Sawyer sighed dramatically. “He saw his happy picnic friend and had to come say hello. He’s a very enthusiastic pup.”

He must’ve hung out with littles or highly anxious subs before because he was good at playing up how harmless the situation was, grumbling and pretending to glare at the pup again. “He’s also naughty and didn’t come back when he was told.”

Ashton went still before slowly pretending to spank his bottom and Sawyer understood that clear enough to shake his head and glare at the wiggly pup again. “No. He doesn’t get spanked when he’s naughty. He’d like that too much.”

And the giggles were back.

Sawyer seemed to understand we were moving in the right direction and winked at the pup. “He’s too cute to punish.”

That seemed to be the cue the pup had been waiting for because he did a full body wiggle, sending his tail wagging as he barked. Ashton seemed ready to admit this pup wasn’t going to come after him, but the sight of the pup rolling over onto his back and begging for tummy rubs seemed to be what had him coming out of his shell.

He actually inched out from behind me and pressed himself to my front as he giggled at the pup’s antics. So I slowly knelt down, making him come with me to keep his human shield in place. “I’m going to ask if I can pet the puppy.”

Giving everyone some warning seemed to be the best plan, so I waited a few seconds before looking back up at Sawyer. “Can I pet the puppy?”

Nodding, Sawyer seemed to be fighting the urge to let out a deep breath. He definitely hadn’t been prepared for all the extra anxiety on what was probably their date night. “Yes, he’s an attention—oh well, he likes attention.”

Probably shouldn’t say attention whore around the little.

Giggling again, Ashton decided that was hilarious and didn’t even remember he was supposed to be nervous until I ran my hand over the pup’s head. “Good pup.”

Going very still, Ashton watched the pup’s mouth like he was going to attack at any second, but the cutie just wiggled and let his tongue hang out. That got another happy sound from Ashton and he slowly reached out to pat the pup’s belly.

It seemed like he wasn’t going anywhere near teeth, but the pup didn’t seem to mind. Sawyer’s attention whore definitely liked the pets and having everyone fawning over him. “See he’s a nice pup.”

They should only come in nice, but Ashton got strong reactions from everyone.

“Would you like to come throw the ball for him?”

Sawyer nodded toward the bottle that’d been left on the floor. “After you get a drink?”

More.

Okay…more drink? More pup?

Both.

Ashton tapped the puppy again and then pointed toward his bottle before making the more sign again.

“I think that’s a great plan.”

Wrapping myself around him, I whispered in Ashton’s ear. “And maybe you can share your cookies with the pup?”

Sharing seemed to be questionable but he liked being a good boy and he liked the idea of getting his cookies faster, so I got a quick nod to the idea. “Perfect.”

Taking his hand as I rose, I let him give the pup one more careful tummy pat before helping Ashton stand up. “Let’s go find some place to sit.”

Because after all that even my anxiety was through the roof and I needed to relax for a minute. Ashton didn’t seem to notice and just started making gimmie fingers at his diaper bag as I gathered everything up, but Sawyer flashed me an understanding smile. “There’s a couch by where we were sitting on the floor. That should work perfectly. And I’ll introduce you to our Master again. Jackson. You guys met at the barbecue but there were a lot of people.”

“I remember that.”

But again, names were hard. “He runs a dog training business, right?”

Wait.

Blinking, I glanced down at the wiggly pup who was now doing tricks for a giggly Ashton. “Maybe I’m not remembering that right. Sorry.”

Had I hallucinated that because one of them was a pup?

For fuck’s sake what had—

Sawyer laughed and a voice behind the doorway started coughing. “Oh, there’s a story there, but yes, he runs his own dog training business.”

Well, at least I hadn’t fucked anything up.

“Would it be rude to say I bet that comes in handy?”

My dry response got another laugh from Sawyer and a giggle from Ashton.

And more coughs from Jackson who seemed to still be waiting out of sight.

I admired the restraint when he’d probably been worried about Sawyer and the whole situation, but Ashton was so distracted with the pup and his ability to sit, bark, and beg for his toy…and possibly the cookies…I didn’t think he’d notice another boring adult at all.

“Let’s get you a drink so you can share your snack.”

More cookies would definitely need to go in the bag next time, but I felt better for having overpacked for our first club trip. “He seems hungry.”

Jackson stepped back from the doorway as we followed the pup into the room. “Don’t let that desperation fool you. He’s always ready for cookies and never as starving as he looks.”

Ashton registered he heard the words when he giggled but all his focus stayed on the pup as he rolled over and started begging for pets from his Master. Jackson shook his head, but leaned down and gave the pup enthusiastic tummy rubs. “Behave. Don’t shock your little friend.”

Oh.

He was a happy pup.

Ashton snickered but the binkie stayed firmly in place.

“While the pup isn’t as hungry as he looks, Ashton is not as easily shocked as he looks.”

Or as innocent. “Even in this headspace, nothing you do with the pup will shock him. His first interaction with pups just didn’t go well, so seeing how happy they can be might not be a bad thing.”

If we could replace his stressful image of pups with happy little humpers who were excited all the time, that would be much better than the aggressive version he pictured since the munch gone wrong.

Jackson seemed to understand the logic and maybe just the fear of dogs in general, even pretend ones, because he nodded.

“That’s good because he’s always happy even when he isn’t wearing his inside tail.”

That got a bark from the pup and an evil villain snicker from the little.

And it seemed like we were finally going to be able to sit down and have someone to hang out with.

Maybe the night hadn’t been completely derailed.