“You didn’t talk Dax out of this craziness,” Grant said. “And you let him dial my number at two a.m. We talked about the rules for that.”

Ollie nodded. “Hospital personnel, law enforcement personnel, or criminals and duct tape have to be involved before we call after midnight.” He looked at Dax. “What did you do?”

“You weren’t with him?” Grant asked before Dax could respond.

“No. Are we talking last night?” Ollie narrowed his eyes, studying Dax. “He was out at the bar last night and spent most of his time with a certain sassy, gorgeous redhead.” Ollie leaned forward in the beanbag. “Did you marry her or something?”

“How did you know I was with Jane last night?” Dax asked, ignoring everything else.

Ollie shrugged. “Someone told Piper, who told me.”

“Who told Piper?”

“I don’t know. But the entire factory was there last night, right? I mean, it’s not like you were sneaking around. But seriously, did you go to Vegas or something?”

“Why would I be here right now with you if I’d whisked her off to Vegas and convinced her to marry me?” Dax asked.

Not that he wouldn’t do that. And they all knew it. It just didn’t make sense that he’d be here now with them if he had.

“The private plane could have gotten you there and back,” Ollie said.

“Technically,” Dax agreed. “But that doesn’t take into account the twelve hours straight I would have her naked in a suite at the Waldorf Astoria.”

“Ah.” Ollie nodded. “That’s true.”

“So you had nothing to do with the call?” Grant asked Ollie.

“Nope. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Well, he…” Grant looked around. “For fuck’s sake, Dax, is there a regular chair anywhere?”

Dax grinned and crossed to the office door. He ducked around the corner to Aiden’s office, grabbed one of his chairs, and brought it back in for Grant. “Here you go, old man. I forget about your aging back and knees.”

“Fuck off.” Grant took the chair and pushed it up to join the beanbags.

“Cappuccino?” Dax asked. “Gummy bears?”

Grant hated everything about Dax’s office in Chicago, and this one was very much like it. To Grant, coffee, dry erase markers, and leather chairs should all be black.

“I’m good,” Grant said with an eye roll. “Piper is going to get me a muffin and coffee at the bakery.”

Ollie perked up. “I want a muffin from Buttered Up.” He shot to his feet and started for the door. “Piper!”

Piper appeared in the doorway before he was even halfway there. “For God’s sake,” she told him. “I’m not your child or your dog. Stop yelling for me.”

Dax wished he had a dollar for every time their executive assistant scolded Oliver. Ollie didn’t actually mean anything with the yelling or even the “Get me a muffin” type demands he made. He just didn’t think. He got excited, and as thoughts and ideas were crashing around in his head, they just kind of fell out of his mouth sometimes.

Ollie was the dreamer and the visionary. If you could pull his head out of the clouds and get him focused, amazing things happened. But the focus was generally short lived, and the ideas were usually a little crazy. At least until Dax formed them into something other people could see and understand. Then Grant would crunch numbers, tell Dax to tone it down or pull back on a few things. Which he would do. Usually. And once that all happened, Aiden could sell it to anyone. Cam would make sure the contract was very lucrative for Fluke. And they all lived happily ever after.

Honestly, the hard parts of the process were getting Ollie’s ideas from his head to paper and giving up on things on Dax’s wish list like life-sized troll dolls in their merchandise line. Everything else seemed to fall into place, and all five of them ended up being happy.

“Sorry.” Ollie did manage to look slightly contrite. “Just wanted to catch you before you left for the bakery.”

“I’m already back from the bakery,” Piper told him, stepping into the room with a cardboard tray of coffee cups and four bakery bags.

“Oh, I just was hoping for some lemon poppyseed muffins in my life,” Ollie said with a dramatic sigh.

“I got you lemon poppyseed and an orange muffin,” she said, handing him the bag.

“Do I like orange?” he asked, taking it and peering inside.

“You will,” she said confidently.

“You’re the best, Piper.” Ollie looped an arm around her waist and pulled her close, planting a smacking kiss on her cheek.

And in a very, very rare moment within the offices—in Chicago or Appleby—Piper Barry looked flustered.

Only Ollie could do that to her.

Dax grinned. He could have kissed her right on the mouth, with tongue, and she wouldn’t have done anything but laugh, push him back, and tell him to knock it off.

Ollie was the only one who made her blush and not be able to find her words right away.

He was also the only one who made her grind her teeth.

She had a bottle of ibuprofen in her desk too and Grant wrote OLLIE on it for her as well.

The only problem with any of that, was Oliver was completely clueless about his effect on their pretty, capable, amazing assistant.

Grant, Aiden, Cam, and Dax knew, though, and Grant jumped in to cover Piper’s blushing before Dax could.

“Dax wants to sell his part of Hot Cakes.”

Oliver let Piper go and swung to face them. “What?”

Aiden sat forward in his beanbag with a frown. “What’s going on?”

Dax sighed. “I’m not leaving Fluke. I just don’t want my share in Hot Cakes.”

“Why not?” Aiden looked not only confused, but a little offended.

Hot Cakes meant a lot to him. Appleby was his hometown, and the people working here were friends and neighbors. He felt strongly about saving the factory and the jobs as well as making it all even better than it had been before.

“Because he’s in love,” Grant said.

Dax shot him a look.

Grant sat back in Aiden’s office chair and opened his Buttered Up bag. He looked smug.

Every once in a while, Grant succeeded in one-upping Dax and making him the eye-rolling one who had to deal with a bunch of chaos and questions. It was rare, but Grant enjoyed it immensely.

“You’re in love?” Aiden asked.

“With someone other than yourself?” Ollie quipped, reclaiming his seat in the beanbag and digging into his bakery bag as well.

“I didn’t say love,” Dax told them. Though he wasn’t really protesting the term.

Jane was amazing. He wasn’t sure he was in love with her yet, but he wasn’t a dumbass. Not falling in love with her would be pretty stupid.

Especially after that kiss. That kiss was why he’d still been awake at 2 a.m. and had decided to fix the “you’re my boss” protest Jane kept offering up. There was an easy solution, and he was more than willing to do it to have her.

“You said you had met someone and that you’d never felt like this before and that the only way to be with her was to give up your portion of Hot Cakes,” Grant said.