Page 95 of Up in a Blaze

Henri and I had talked about it earlier that we thought Sawyer wasn’t happy at Polished. He just always had to work. Now he had us, so he didn’t need to. Made me proud that he was confident enough to tell us.

Henri gasped. “Imagine all the things we can do together. You can help me get the Playhouse up and running.”

Sawyer grinned, even with a tremble to his bottom lip. “I’d like that.”

EPILOGUE

HENRI

MONTHS LATER

“Arlo, are you getting ready?” I asked, tapping on his door. I didn’t want to be too loud since his brother was still asleep in the next room. Sawyer had worked until three in the morning at the Playhouse; he needed more hours of rest. But Arlo was another story. “I’m coming in,” I said as I twisted the handle and pushed it wide.

Only there was no sign or Arlo.

My heart jumped up into my throat. I turned and fled, running downstairs, I passed the living area, the kitchen, and down the back hallway, where our bedroom and bathroom were, then to the stairs that led to the large basement below.

I threw the door open and called frantically, “Mon amour!” His music always played loudly while he worked out, so he probably didn’t hear me, which was why he didn’t answer. I quickly stepped down the stairs and stopped.

Arlo sat on the weight bench with a small dumbbells in each hand, curling them up to his chest with intense concentration on his face.

The sight made me all melty on the inside, even as I tried to catch my breath.

“This right?” he asked, loud enough to be heard, looking up at Blaze.

Blaze hit a button on his phone, and the music quietened. “You got it, kid. A couple more and then you’d better go get ready for school.”

Quietly, I snuck back up the stairs and into the kitchen where I started cooking some eggs and bacon. Surely, I couldn’t mess those up. Blaze had been teaching me a few things, and Sawyer, but I was thinking of taking a cooking class to learn more.

Maybe one day I would have some spare time to do so. But for now, the Playhouse had only been opened for a couple of weeks, and we were still working some kinks out. But I wasn’t alone in managing the strip club, thankfully, so I had plenty of time to spend with Blaze and the kids.

Plus, there were still some boxes up in the attic that needed to be unpacked.

“Morning,” Arlo called as he raced by. “I’m going to get changed.”

“Keep the noise down. Your brother is sleeping.”

His loud footsteps lessened their noise when I felt an arm sliding around my waist. Lips touched to my neck.

“Did you have fun spying?”

“You saw me?”

He scraped his teeth over my skin. “I always see you.”

“I was worried when Arlo wasn’t in his room. It was cute to see him wanting to lift weights. Did he come and ask you?”

He grunted. “Yeah. There are some kids at school picking on him for having spaghetti arms. I told him there was nothing wrong with his arms, but he still wanted to make them stronger.”

He went quiet.

I guessed where his thoughts had gone. “Mon amour, you can’t break little kids’ fingers for picking on him.”

“Can’t I?”

I grinned. “Non, but I’ll let you collect him from school this afternoon so you can glare at them.”

“Done.”