Page 22 of Wrestling with Daddy

“Uh, no.” Nathan cleared his throat, looking away as if he’d done something wrong. Ken found himself hurting for the boy. “I just play at the dungeon and use whatever they’re all using. I don’t know.”

“That’s fine, too.”

It wasn’t.

If he allowed himself to slip into full Daddy mode, he’d be buying every toy, Zeus-themed blanket and fort available, and making sure Nathan had everything he could wish for.

He couldn’t do that, though.

It was already bad enough that Ken was going to visit.

“You don’t have to be embarrassed around me, boy,” he eventually said, making sure his eyes stared straight into the camera. “Not about this, and not about wanting a soothing voice when you’re dropping. I’m just glad I could help and you didn’t go through it alone.”

“I just feel stupid,” Nathan mumbled after a beat of silence that had Ken wondering if their connection was sloppy, or if he’d rendered the boy speechless.

“Why?”

“Because I feel all out of sorts,” he huffed, the muzzle forgotten beside him. “Marcus said it’s bad if you don’t feel like this when you’re meeting someone for the first time or something, but we don’t know each other and I’m already…”

“You’re already what?”

Ken didn’t have a problem with listening to boys rant and fumble and talk themselves in circles, but it was hard to get a read on Nathan—the brat who hadn’t been behaving like much of a brat this past week.

The one who was licking his lip, avoiding looking at the screen as if it was going to bite him.

“Can I confess something?”

“Always.”

Nathan took a fortifying breath, his gaze back on his. “I saved your number under Daddy in my phone, and I… I don’t think I did it just for the laughs.”

Logically, Ken knew he had to say something, had to react instead of pretending the camera had frozen.

He just didn’t know how to, the words both being everything he hadn’t admitted he wanted to hear and a bucket of cold water he hadn’t been ready for.

This wasn’t supposed to become real.

“Can I confess something, too?”

“Yeah, sure.”

Nathan was back to looking unsure, though.

Ken hated himself for it more than he hated himself for all the things in his past he had no control over anymore.

“I’m going to be in Sacramento come Monday.”

He’d planned on making it cute, reaching the city and using one of his remaining nine questions to ask Nathan for a hotel near his place.

Ken had needed to give him something, though, to hint at the thing that was building between them. The thing that defied every ounce of logic Ken had always applied to all his decision making.

There was no logic with the two of them, though.

Definitely not when Nathan’s response was to hang up.

CHAPTER6

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