“He has no reason to be,” Brad replied, feeling a little exasperated. “I’m a grown man who runs a successful business, can’t he see that?” It wasn’t the first time he’d asked this question.
“He sees his little boy and your teacup poodle.” She gave a wistful smile. “He thinks we’re defenseless, and though it’s frustrating as heck, it comes with how protective he is of us.Why, I can still see his expression when they placed you in his arms for the first time. So tiny, and he was so careful not to hurt you.” She sniffed and wiped her eyes with the edge of her apron.
Brad groaned. “I hope I’m not like that when we have children.”
“C-children,” Dad blustered as he came in at the end of the conversation, slamming the files on the countertop and making the cutlery bounce. “How can you be pregnant if you only”—a blush highlighted his embarrassment—“mated last night?”
“Hold your horses, Dad.” Brad roared with laughter, rocking back and nearly toppling off the seat. He had to grab the counter to keep seated. “I was talking about how overprotective you are,” he managed to say between snorts when he got himself back under control.
“I’m not,” Dad insisted, a glint in his eyes that suggested arguing was pointless.
“Whatever, Lionel and I haven’t… gotten to that stageyet.”
“Why ever not?” Dad demanded, shouting.
“Charlie, we’re not deaf, and that is none of our business. What Brad does or doesn’t do with his mate is his business, you hear me?”
Brad took off his jacket when he could see Dad was about to argue. He threw it onto the back of the seat in his haste to prevent Dad and Mom getting into it, tugging at the neck of the collar of his T-shirt. “Mated in the genuine sense, Dad. We’ll do the other stuff when we’re ready.”
I was ready last night,chimed his poodle side.
That may be so, but you aren’t the one who’s going to have to…
Dad’s eyes lingered on the claiming bite. “So where is this… Lionel? Why didn’t he come with you to meet us?”
“This is a business meeting, Dad, as well you know. Why would I bring my mate so we can bore him with figures, building plans,and projections of delivery dates for supplies? I’m sure he’d be riveted,” Brad added sarcastically. He didn’t bring up that he’d never considered asking Lionel in the first place. Now he was here, he wasn’t sure he should have mentioned it and given Lionel the opportunity to choose, despite the disasters of the day.
“Don’t you take that tone with me,” Dad growled with enough snap to give Brad a reprimand.
“Sorry,” he muttered, sinking into his seat and letting go of the collar he still held. “We can arrange for me to bring him when we aren’t discussing business. How does that sound?”
“That would be lovely,” Mom answered, giving Dad a hard stare that rivaled Dad’s. “Now, are we eating first or getting the business out of the way?”
“Business,” Brad said.
“Business,” Dad replied at the same time. He grinned at Brad, and Brad gave him an answering smile, the tension in the room disappearing. “There seems to be several extra files in the bundle you gave me this month.” He tapped the pile before moving the cutlery to pull them closer to him.
“There are, we got the bid for the new sports center development.”
Brad rocked in his seat as Dad gave him a backslap, beaming with pride. “Good job, so how will that fit with everything else?”
And they were off.
Chapter Thirteen
Lionel
“What the hell? Where are you? Have I got the number wrong? No, I can’t have.” Lionel barely resisted crushing his phone into a million pieces as he clicked off from hearing the never-ending ringtone. Four times he tried to call Brad’s number. Four times it had just kept ringing. Didn’t go to voicemail, didn’t get picked up. Just ringing into a void.
Lionel stared at the wall, wondering why the hell his mating, and indeed his whole life, had gone so wrong in the space of a day. His biggest concern was Brad. They hadn’t made any plans,but Lionel truly believed his mate would turn up at his house after work. Lionel didn’t have Brad’s address, so it wasn’t as though he could go there. It was late, well after nine. Dinner was well past. Lionel made do with a sandwich, his plans of taking his mate out for a meal smashed to pieces like the rest of his day.
Be reasonable. Think about it. He could just be working really late. He’s got to get that job finished,and he said there’s still a lot to do.
Fine, Lionel could accept that, but it didn’t mean he had to sit around at home, waiting to see if his mate was going to bother to return his calls. If Brad was busy, he was going to have to put up with having a visitor, because Lionel couldn’t handle being apart from him a second longer.
His skin felt like it was about to explode off his body, and he didn’t know whether he wanted to cry or laugh. His day had been a shitfest from the moment Pennington had walked into the room, and it hadn’t gotten any better when he got home and realized there was no message or voicemail left from the man who was supposed to be his forever.
Grabbing his keys, Lionel stalked out to his car and got it going in record time. Brad had told him he lived three blocks down from where Lionel’s house was. Lionel wasn’t sure which one it was, because Brad didn’t say, but he figured it should be easy to find because everyone in his neighborhood parked their cars on the driveway outside their houses.
