* * *
ProtoSynthesis:I need your help.
KnotMyProblem: Who the hell are you?
ProtoSynthesis: Have you heard from Gage tonight? He’s missing. I don’t know where he is.
KnotMyProblem: Oh, fuck. It’syou.
Aaron’s lips pinched at the corners. A combative, primal part of his brain urged him to cause trouble. KnotMyProblem was a threat to his future, it said, and needed to be dealt with accordingly. But right now, being the bigger man was more important than getting into a fight. No matter how much KnotMyProblem antagonized him, Aaron would play nice.
ProtoSynthesis: Look, I know we’re not friends. I’m not asking you to be nice to me. What I want to know right now is if Gage is safe. He left the house and took our son, and I don’t know where he is, or who he could be staying with. If you’ve heard anything, or if he’s with you, please tell me. All I want is to know that he’s safe.
KnotMyProblem: TD is missing? It’s two in the morning. I guess one in Aurora. But still…
ProtoSynthesis: You don’t live in Aurora?
KnotMyProblem: No.
KnotMyProblem: Not yet.
Those last two words were ominous in a way that crept through Aaron like frost across a window. He found himself hesitating before he replied.
ProtoSynthesis: So you don’t know where he is?
KnotMyProblem: No. I’m sorry. TD and I are part of the same online group of friends, but he hasn’t been online since he chewed me the fuck out for talking to you. I didn’t realize that he could be anything other than blissfully cheerful.
ProtoSynthesis: Do you have any idea where he might go? I’ve been out of the country for almost half a decade… has he talked to you about any friends he’s made, or any places he likes to go?
KnotMyProblem: I probably know about as much as you do. I don’t live in Aurora, either. I’ve never met TD in person.
It was hard to know whether to believe that statement or not. Why would KnotMyProblem want to marry someone he’d never met? Aaron understood online attraction—his parents had met through a dating site before taking their digital relationship into a private chat app—but the more he found out about KnotMyProblem’s connection to Gage, the more troubled his preconceived notions of what had happened between them became.
If it was true, and KnotMyProblem had never met Gage, then Gage hadn’t physically cheated on him, and there was no doubt that Bo was his. But as far as emotional cheating went? Aaron didn’t know where to draw the line.
What had gone on between them?
There was only one way to find out.
ProtoSynthesis: I’m so confused. What is Gage to you? If you haven’t met him, why were you getting married?
KnotMyProblem: Typical TD, flaking out on the details. Next time I see him, I’m going to give him hell.
ProtoSynthesis: You haven’t answered my question.
KnotMyProblem: You’re right. I haven’t.
KnotMyProblem: TD and I belong to a group of online friends that call themselves the Single Dad Support Group. It’s a long story, but basically, TD and I were going to commit insurance fraud so your kid wouldn’t have to die.
Aaron stared at his screen in disbelief. When he pulled himself together enough to reply, his fingers moved sluggishly across the touchscreen.
ProtoSynthesis: You were going to marry him so he could get on your insurance… so he could save Bo?
KnotMyProblem: Listen, I get it. You’re an alpha, I’m assuming. TD’s too soft and sweet to brag about your knot, but the way he’s been hung up on you for all these years makes me think that you’ve got to be packing something that’s got him hooked. Whatever. That’s cool. And you obviously feel something for him, because you wouldn’t have fought me if you didn’t. If you didn’t care about him at all, you would have let the message go and gone on with your life.
KnotMyProblem: But the truth is, yeah, you were right to come at me. I want TD. I won’t lie to you and tell you that my only motive was to make sure your kid gets better, although that alone would have been enough to get me to tie the knot. I figured that if we got married, I could show him how he deserves to be treated. Every time I try to open up and get close to him, he shoots me down. I figured that this would be my chance to show him that we could work as a couple irl. Then you waltzed back in, all money and power, and whisked TD off to some enchanted castle so you could be a family, and now I’m salty af.
KnotMyProblem: So yeah, I was going to save your son by committing insurance fraud. At least, on TD’s end, it would have been fraud. I wanted to give it a shot. So, here’s the tl;dr on TD and me: I want him, and he wants nothing to do with me, because his heart’s too set on you.
