TeenDad2: Wait, if you’re dating my best friend it means we’re going to meetirl
TeenDad2: omg everyone else is going to be sojealous.
Despite the severity of the situation, Laurencelaughed.
Gwynning: Let’s not tell them right away, okay? I want to get things ironed out with Alexfirst.
TeenDad2: That’s totallyfine!
TeenDad2: I’m Gage, btw. That’s my irlname.
TeenDad2: I need to get back to work, but if you need me, just send me a PM, okay? I may not be able to reply if I’m in the middle of a session, but I’ll get back to you rightaway.
Gwynning: Will do.Thanks.
TeenDad2: You’re welcome. :)bye
Laurence left the general conversation unread for the time being. He set his phone down and took a moment to sort out everything he’d justlearned.
First, and most problematic, Alex was Samantha Harper’s son. If word made it up the command chain that he was sleeping with Alex, Laurence was afraid that his job would be jeopardized. Samantha was fair in all matters, but after what had happened with Matthew, Laurence was able to easily imagine himself in Samantha’s shoes. How would she feel to find out that her son had been sleeping with a much older employee of hers? One who’d recently petitioned and been granted a raise. His only saving grace was that Alex wasn’t pregnant—not that they were doing much to prevent that from happening. Laurence had no clue when Alex generally went into heat, and he’d been tempting fate so far by giving into instinct and taking Alexbare.
That would have tochange.
Second, Alex was friends with TeenDad2, which meant that Laurence had lost his avenue for talking about his relationship issues. It wasn’t right to talk about Alex if someone else in the chat knew him. Laurence wasn’t in the business of breaking up friendships or making things awkward, and the last thing he wanted to do was drive a wedge between TeenDad2 and Alex, or disturb the social balance of the group by pushing TeenDad2away.
He’d lost his support network tonight, and if he wasn’t careful, he’d lose his job, too. Laurence wouldn’t let that happen. He picked up his phone and sent Alex a simpletext.
I want to see you again. Does tomorrow work foryou?
He received a reply no more than thirty secondslater.
Tomorrow is fine. I’ll be at the studio. Do you want to meet me thereagain?
The studio would do just fine. It was quiet, private, and out of theway.
Sounds great. I’ll see youthen.
Unable to take any more conversation tonight, Laurence sent the Single Dads an apology message, turned off his phone, and did his best to let go of his troubles. What he’d learned tonight didn’t have to spell the end. As long as he and Alex approached the situation in a delicate and sensible way, there didn’t have to be anydrama.
Laurence was sure ofit.
Just like he was sure that if things went wrong, he’d have aplan.
It wounded him to think of leaving Alex, but he had a family to think of, and a grandchild on the way. If it came down to it, he’d make hard choices to protect the ones who depended on him—but he trusted his head to protect his heart. As long as he remained calm and rational, he’d find a way around this. Solving problems was what he did for a living, after all. He’d see it through with the same cool logic he alwaysdid.
24
Alex
At eight the next morning,Alex stumbled out of bed to use the bathroom. Eight o’clock was painfully early, but his bladder was full, and urine waited for no man. A narrow, simply packaged box sat on top of the toilet lid. He scowled at it, rubbed the sleep from his eyes, then worked the top open and emptied the box’s contents onto his palm. The pregnancy test he’d picked up on his way to the studio the day before was supposed to be accurate a week after conception. Alex’s underwhelming heat had stopped abruptly about a week ago, and he figured that he’d waited long enough. If the test came back negative, he’d check again in a week to see if anything had changed, but if it waspositive…
Well, that was going to be aconversation.
He removed the clear plastic shield from the test strip, then unceremoniously tugged his dick through the slit on the front of his pajama bottoms and said a silent prayer that everything would turn out okay. He was worried—he knew that by the color that flooded his field of vision—but he wasn’t sure which result he was more worriedabout.
He didn’t like kids—except for Bo—and if his kid was anything like Bo,then…
But at the same time, he wanted to keep Laurence in his life. Having a child so soon into their relationship would spell theend.
