Page 36 of Wrestling with Daddy

“Not intentionally, of course!” the boy protested, his mouth forming a perfect O as his eyebrows scrunched up in exaggerated disbelief. “I’m just… clumsy, and impatient, which I’ve been told is not the best combination.”

“Remind me of that if you ever visit me down the lake.”

The truth was, Ken was already wishing he would.

He was just going to play that card very close to his chest for the time being.

“I’m actually going to be there next month.”

Ken cursed—inwardly, because he had manners.

He should’ve kept his mouth shut.

“You are?”

“For the Pet Play by the Lake event.”

“Your boss accepted your pitch, then?”

“To be honest, I already had the gig when I first talked to you,” Nathan admitted, throwing a shrug in there as if that was going to make it a small detail without importance. “I didn’t want to tell you and then find out you’re a creep. Besides, I’m supposed to go incognito.”

“So I shouldn’t tell Lee?”

Ken hadn’t planned on it, but he couldn’t say he didn’t enjoy the way Nathan’s eyes widened, or how he almost knocked the glass with the drink that had just arrived to the floor.

“You mean, Lee Petrovsky, owner of Mountain Lake Resort?”

“You’ve done your research,” Ken teased before taking a sip of the virgin cocktail, the freshness hitting his mouth much needed after the nerves and then the shock of the day. “Lee’s one of my closest friends.”

His best friend, indeed, but sometimes saying that sounded weird once someone was over forty and looked their years.

“Wow.” Nathan swallowed. “Well, yeah, don’t tell him, please?”

He even batted his eyelashes at the last minute.

The move didn’t do much to sway Ken one way or another, but it was still endearing.

“Do you think we can meet, if you’re not tired of me by then?”

Ken took a sharp breath. He’d already spotted the waitress carrying their food, so he wasn’t too ashamed to admit that he used her as an excuse to buy himself more time.

The question had come out of left field when things already felt like they were going too fast.

There was nothing wrong with the speed, but Ken hadn’t pictured a quick, rushed hookup in his near future, and the notion threatened to give him a headache.

Once the food was on the table—smelling amazing, Ken might add—there wasn’t a reason to bide his time no longer though.

Nathan’s worried gaze had started to turn panicked, too.

Ken might still have reservations, but panic wasn’t an emotion he liked to see arise in his boys.

Boys in general.

Not his.

For fuck’s sake, he sounded like a newbie.

“I’d love to see you at the event,” Ken said. He thought that was good enough. “So long as I can see you in full gear.”