King smirked and scrubbed a hand over his mouth and jaw. “Now that’s somethin’ I didn’t think I’d discuss with one of the winners of an online contest for a cooking class.”

I coughed around a laugh. “I was just thinking the same.” On the other hand, was all this really so weird? We were just talking. I’d been balls deep in a guy five minutes after meeting him in a bar. “I guess it depends when you think about it. The time and place—I didn’t think in a million years I’d be discussing BDSM with August King today, that’s for damn sure. But when I was young and dumb, going to a bar and introducing myself as ‘Hey, wanna get outta here?’ was kinda my style.”

King’s eyes lit up with laughter. “Young and dumb, huh?”

I inclined my head. “Now I’m old and dumb.” I grunted as I rose from the lounger, as if to prove a point. “Where can I find a bathroom in this castle?”

He stood up too. “There’s a guest bath in each entryway. I might as well check in on Camden.”

“And like I said, youse don’t gotta hide for my sake,” I said on the way in. “Let the boy be a boy if that’s what makes him happy.”

“Youse,” he chuckled under his breath. “That has to be the most New York thing I’ve heard.”

I made a face. “I usually clean up my language a bit more and leave the slang to my brother.”

“I find it endearing.” He brushed a hand over my back as we reached the kitchen, and he gestured toward the entryway. “Bathroom’s right around that corner. I’ll be back in a minute or two—without Camden. I appreciate what you said, but if he wants to be there at the festival tomorrow, he’ll need to decompress today.”

I nodded in understanding.

King and I got another hour of chilling outside before he said it was time to prepare for the barbecue. During that hour, he’d steered the conversation to me and what I did for a living, and he seemed genuinely curious about the Initiative, which I wasn’t used to. Though, that was mainly my bad relationship with Shawn speaking. I had supportive friends and family. It was just my ex who’d never given a shit.

Family happened to be the next topic, once I’d mentioned that I now ran the Initiative together with Nicky. King learned that my family consisted of my father, grandmother, and brother. And I found out King had two older sisters, one who lived here on Littlefield, and one who lived with her family in Chicago.

Their parents had passed away, but I got the feeling the only parent who’d mattered was their mother.