Page 118 of Redline Baby

I shift.

Adjust.

Shift again.

Soren chuckles.

Bastard.

I redistribute my weight onto my thighs. This solves nothing so much as slightly renegotiating the terms of my suffering.

The waitress arrives with menus. Soren takes one, glances at it, then sets both menus aside. When she comes back with water, he orders eggs, toast, and coffee. Then, without even looking at me:

“The same for him.”

She writes it down and leaves.

I stare across the table.

“I might have wanted the pancakes!”

“Did you want the pancakes?”

I consider this.

“No.”

“Then we’re fine.”

I make another attempt at finding a viable sitting position. The chair has no flexibility to offer on the matter, and my efforts produce nothing except a faint creak from the wood and renewed awareness of everything Soren has done to me since sunrise. Eventually I give up, put both feet flat on the floor, and sit with the situation the way he keeps teaching me to sit with things: directly and without excessive negotiation.

He is still smirking. Loving this. My cheeks are warm.

The eggs arrive with the coffee. I focus intensely on breakfast in the hope that concentrating on carbohydrates will make my body less interesting.

It does not. The waitress comes back with the coffee carafe. She tops up Soren’s mug, then mine, and gives us a professionally warm smile.

“Everything all right?”

“Great,” I say. “Superb. Amazing. Thanks.”

She smiles and moves on.

Soren chuckles. He sets his mug down and cuts into his toast. I shift on the chair again. The chair communicates its position on the matter. I settle.

“It seems like someone is a very sorry boy today,” Soren says.

I narrow my eyes at him. Unfortunately, a wave of pleasure runs through me anyway. Being a brat is an eternal balancing act: pushing enough to earn the fun consequences without pushing so far that we need a serious, out-of-dynamic conversation about my behavior. Fortunately, this is the first kind.

Soren reaches across the table and takes my hand. He’s still amused.

But then his expression changes a little bit. His thumb moves once across my knuckles. “You’re doing very well,” he says. “You make me very proud.” My chest tightens. “My good boy.”

Oh.

Then:

“I love you.”