Chapter 10
Chapter
Ten
W hen Hayden realized that Daniel was gone, he freaked out just a little bit.
Which, of course, meant that Jacks freaked out a little bit, and they were still putting out a scorch spot on the rug, making sure there were no burning embers left when Daniel got home. The scent of burning rug was awful, but at least nobody had gotten hurt.
Daniel strolled in the door with an armful of packages on a blast of cold air, and Hayden immediately went to take some of them away from him. “Where were you? I couldn’t get a hold of you.”
“Well, I went down the mountain to do some shopping. I started with Halloween and I worked my way through Christmas.” Daniel chuckled, shrugging a little bit self-consciously. “I thought this might be my last chance before the big snows came.”
“You should have said something. I would have taken you down myself. Your car isn’t exactly safe now that the light snows have started.
” Hayden knew he was snapping, but panic was making his heart beat like crazy and he didn’t like it.
He could hear Jacks starting to wail from the kitchen where the ladies had taken him.
Daniel frowned at him. He saw a light kind of shining in the back of those pretty eyes.
“Be nice,” he said. “I’m fine. Took me a little longer than I had anticipated, but I got all sorts of things.
I wasn’t sure when your birthday was, but I know mine’s coming up, and- I’ve got stuff for the baby.
I just wanted you to know things that aren’t normal like lube.
I got lube and condoms. You still wanna yell? ”
Hayden kind of did, actually. His mate, his omega, had been out and about in the snow, and he hadn’t known where, and he wasn’t sure he was safe.
Daniel drove a terrible little car that?—
He was going to have to get Daniel a better car. A safer car. A big solid beast that could handle deep snow.
Daniel just stared him down. “I’m serious. Be nice. I don’t need this nonsense. It’s okay. I brought fun stuff in here. All sorts of goodies to get through the snows.”
“Okay, I’ll be nice, but we need a better car for you if you’re going to be going down the mountain. Of course, once it gets deep, we don’t go unless we go together, all right? Promise me.”
“I don’t want to make any promises. What if I have to go get something for Jacks? Speaking of which, I’m going to go get Jacks.”
Hayden fought not to roll his eyes because that little beast of a baby was screaming louder, knowing that Daniel could hear him and knowing he wanted to be with them instead of with the ladies in the kitchen.
“Jacks, Jacks, what’s the matter? Why are you screaming so loud?”
Jacks stared right at Daniel and roared, “Da!”
“I’m right here, buddy.” He scooped Jacks up and snuggled him. “You’re so silly. I went down, and I got your dragon costume at the store. It’s going to be so much fun. I got candy, so you can go trick-or-treating.”
Jacks was getting it told, wailing and jabbering and fussing.
Hayden wasn’t sure what exactly the baby was saying, but the hard sobs were easing up into little hiccups as Daniel gently danced him around the room.
“Oh my poor little baboo, you’re all right. I’m right here. I would never leave you. I just wanted to get some goodies before the snow gets too deep tomorrow. I think it’s supposed to snow really hard. We should go out and make a snow dragon, or a snowman, or a snow fish in the courtyard.”
Slowly, Jacks relaxed, clinging and dozing, his lips parted.
“Hi, ladies.” Daniel told the women. “Are you all right?”
“We’re fine.” Rita smiled. “Someone was very upset. He was worried that maybe you had fallen off the mountain.”
“No, but I did get some fun stuff. When I get a chance, I’m going to unload the car. It’s packed to the gills. I got a turkey. I didn’t know if we needed one, but I thought we should have one. So I got us one.”
“We always have room in the freezer for a little more protein.” Denise gave Daniel a thumbs-up, and Hayden tried not to laugh.
“I’ll go start on the car,” Hayden said.
“No!” Daniel waved him off. “You can’t do that. There’s all sorts of presents and stuff out there, so you’re just going to have to wait. Even the turkey won’t thaw out sitting out there in the car. It will be frozen solid.”
“Okay, but when you’re ready to unload the car, let me know, and I will help with what I can, yeah?” He was trying not to be a grumpy butthead, but he was. He was itchy and growly, and he wanted to burn holes in the carpet too.
“Of course, I think that’d be great. Thank you.
” Daniel grinned at him, and that expression eased him some.
“So, it was wild going down to the store. You would not believe some of the stories people were telling me about this place. That there was a scary hermit, someone dangerous. I even called my serice to make sure that you all were safe…”
He blinked at Daniel. “You did?”
He’d have to find out what Declan had told Daniel. It had to have stressed Dec out.
“I mean I haven’t seen anybody scary.”
“I think it’s such just a rumor,” Denise said, shooting him a glance. “Just to keep everybody away. This would be a prime pickings for squatters if no one was living here, you know?”
Daniel’s eyes went wide. “Oh my gosh, yeah, I hadn’t thought about that.”
“Of course you didn’t.” Rita patted his arm. “I’m making potato soup.”
“Anyway, I had fun. Like I said, I got presents, decorations, just weird activities for us all to do over the winter. I filled up the whole car, and there’s going to be a delivery or two also because?—”
That was absolutely unnecessary. Sweet, but unnecessary.
Hayden shook his head. “There’s nothing that we need that I won’t get you, you know that?”
Daniel nodded. “I know, but I wanted to get some things for you too and for Jacks and Rita and Denise. Yeah, everyone.”
“You should make sure you give me a bill for anything that you bought that’s for the entire household, okay?
Not presents that you want to give us.” He held up his hand when Daniel’s cheeks darkened, and he frowned.
“Not saying I want to buy you. I just think you probably put it on a credit card that you probably shouldn’t have. ” He raised an eyebrow question.
Daniel said, “Okay, I can do that. I’ll give you an itemized receipt, but I had fun. I wanted to make sure we had plenty of stuff up here to do. Jacks has outgrown quite a bit of the stuff he had as far as toys and games.”
“I love that you think of him.” Hayden reached out to stroke Jacks’s downy hair, and the little guy hiccupped. “I know it’s your job, but you also love him.”
“Of course I do.” Daniel beamed, and Hayden could feel it.
The commitment and sheer joy he felt when he thought of Jacks.
Then Daniel met his eyes and a more adult emotion pushed toward him, not the same at all
No, this was darker and hotter and a hell of a lot more intense. It made him want to scoop Daniel up and take him to the bedroom, and disappear for hours, buried in Daniel’s body.
But then again, if they did that, Jacks might eat him.
Daniel winked at him, then glanced over at Rita. “One of the things that’s in the cart is a big bag of tater tots. I thought maybe we could have loaded tater tots for dinner.”
Rita beamed at him, “Oh yum! Did you just get one bag?”
Daniel shook his head. “No, I got four because I thought tater tot casserole is a thing, but I know that we can order them any time. There are some in the car.”
She grinned. “As soon as you put Jacks down, you can go get them.”
Daniel grinned at him. “Hayden can go get them, they’re in the front seat. It won’t be a surprise.”
Hayden rolled his eyes. “Okie dokey, I’ll go get them. So potato soup for insanely late lunch and potato goo for dinner?”
“Hayden, be nice. We all love potatoes.” Rita gave him an arch look. “Besides, the potato soup is supper, and tater tots can be our late-night snack.”
Jacks murmured, “Tato.”
“See?” Rita giggled at that.
“I bow to popular opinion.” Hayden literally took a bow before striding off to go grab whatever he needed out of the front seat of the car.
When he got back, Jacks was sound asleep, and Daniel had put him down in his pack ‘n’ play so they could all sit around the table with mugs of steaming soup and hot chocolate.
He was super glad Daniel had gotten back when he had because big fat snowflakes were already falling out there, and he was really afraid that he would have lost his shit if Daniel had gotten stranded.
“You keep glaring at me.” Daniel raised an eyebrow, licking soup off his lip.
“I am not glaring at you. I was just worried, and it’s starting to snow, and I was thinking of all the terrible things that could have happened to you.” He was trying not to raise his voice because he didn’t want to wake Jacks up again. But really, Hayden wanted to roar.
“But nothing did happen! I promise. It’s like it was so much easier to do the drive today. I think now that I know the road, I’m more confident about it.” Daniel’s eyes were flashing again, and he would swear he saw a smattering of scales popping up across Daniel’s nose and cheekbones.
Hayden held up his hands. “Fine. Sure. Don’t wake Jacks up. He had a really rough time of it while you were gone and had a bit of a tantrum.”
“I don’t intend to wake anybody up. It did take longer than I thought. I mean, two hours down, two hours shopping, two hours back. You know, I was pushing.”
“Well, it worked out fine.”
Denise snorted really loud, and he glared at her too.
Daniel looked back and forth between them. “What happened? Did Jacks just scream himself sick?”
Rita waved a hand in the air. “Oh, he had a little accident on the floor, but it’s okay. We got it cleaned up just fine.”
“Oh, dude, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare him like that.” Daniel sighed. “I should have thought it through more. But I really wanted to do something nice.”
“You did. Thank you.” Hayden couldn’t stay mad.