Page 80 of Wrestling with Daddy

Maybe he’d tell Lee, and Lee would tell Ken because they were best buddies or whatever.

Nathan’s eyes widened, stumbling to his feet before he was aware of what he was doing.

“Uh, sorry, gotta go. Forgot I have a… work call. Yeah, sorry.”

As far as he was aware, only Ash heard his half-assed excuse, if he was even processing it because Nathan couldn’t always make sense of things when he was deep in pupspace.

Shit.

How was he going to explain this to Ken?

He wasn’t a brat.

He was a coward.

CHAPTER21

ken

Ken had just finisheda video call with the team of younger architects he was overseeing for one of the many projects he was signing on. He was planning on stretching a bit and maybe going down to the resort café to get himself a large cup of tea.

He wasn’t planning on receiving a phone call from Lee before he’d made it out of the door.

“What’s up?”

Lee rarely called unless Ken had gone missing in action and he wanted to check in. But that couldn’t be the case today.

“Is Nathan with you?”

Ken frowned, then checked his watch. The pupnic would still be running for the next hour, if the pups didn’t manage to keep it up longer.

“Why would he be with me?”

The sigh on the other end of the line had his hackles rising. “Because he ran out on Ash… about five minutes ago, I’m guessing. Ash just texted me.”

“He… what?”

Ken didn’t have time to hypothesize what might have happened, or hear what Lee had to say. A disgruntled looking Nathan had opened the door with his keycard and was standing there, not moving, as if in a trance.

“Lee, I’ve gotta go. I’ll text you as soon as I can. Tell Ash Nathan’s okay.”

Nathan flinched at the mention of the other boy.

“Keep me updated,” was the only thing Lee said before hanging up.

Ken took a deep breath, sensing a headache incoming as he placed his phone back on the small table he’d set up as his desk for the day.

“First of all, are you okay?”

Ken watched Nathan nod his head before he took a step forward, shutting the door behind him.

Ken wasn’t too sure that he could believe the guy when he looked like he’d just seen a ghost. Before he could judge, though, he needed a full story. The issue was getting it out of the boy whose eyes darted in all directions.

“What happened at the pupnic, Nathan?”

He saw Nathan take more steps into the suite and drop the bag with his gear on the bed.

“I… I freaked out.”