Kari didn’t know what to make of it when he wasn’t disappointed. He loved children, he did, but for now he just wanted to dote on Bowie. Make him the center of his world.
This was where things got tricky. He’d never had so much trouble holding back his wolf side when he was with someone intimately. Kari felt every one of his years, and it wasn’t allbecause of the sex. He was stressed and tired of fighting to keep control.
If you just listened to reason, we wouldn’t be fighting.
Kari’s back molars ground together in irritation. It was a state he was getting very used to.
This isn’t a black and white situation. It isn’t a case of listening to you. We must listen to Bowie.
He wants us.
I know he does, but he isn’t talking about our relationship to anyone.
Kari was sure of that, or his brothers would know what was going on by now. Running a hand over his jaw, he cursed under his breath at how his animal growled at him. In part, Kari understood his animal’s angst. He wasn’t sure how much longer he could keep up the pretense that there was nothing going on between him and Bowie. Things had become increasingly difficult to manage while at work when Kari had to resist behaving as he would in Bowie’s apartment. There, they were in their own little bubble. Kari loved it because he got to be himself, but he was finding it more difficult to act like Bowie wasn’t his universe in front of others.
His phone alerts went crazy, and he reached for it, looking for something else to think about. What he got instead was a sense of dread when his gaze skimmed over the group chat.
We’re all going to Silas’s ranch, fuck me!
How was he going to cope on the ranch, unable to be with Bowie—at all?
Why the fuck did he need to go on a team building excursion to the ranch? He had always been a damn team player. The door hit the wall with a loud thud, and Kodi came stomping in.
“I fucking hate the ranch!” he exclaimed, loudly enough to be heard by everyone on the floor.
Kari’s secretary appeared in the doorway, and he gave her a smile to say it was fine, then met Kodi’s furiousness with indifference. “That may be so, but Dad wants us to do this, and are you going to argue with him?”
Kodi slumped into the seat in front of him and groaned. “Of course not!”
“It’s a week, what’s the worst that can happen?”
Kari was a damn fool to have spouted that at Kodi when he drove home later that evening, sensing Bowie’s distress when he didn’t wait for Kari to help him like usual. His gaze never strayed from the window. Withdrawn and quiet wasn’t Bowie on their journeys home. He was seldom like this, always eager to talk about things that happened with Emmy, mostly.
The radio silence between them was deafening and Kari was uneasy enough to remain silent after his attempts to coax Bowie to talk failed. Was this to do with the lawyer’s visit this afternoon? He couldn’t see how, when the pending court case was now more of a formality when Rex had finally pleaded guilty. If Rex was hoping for a reduced sentence for admitting to what he did, then he was plum out of luck. Dad’s investigator had found two more of Rex’s victims who had spoken out. It added weight to the sentencing and Bowie’s testimony. They should be riding a high, only that wasn’t what he was happening.
The second they were inside the apartment, Kari had no time to try and get Bowie to talk to him. When he turned around, mouth open to ask Bowie what was wrong, his boy buried his face into Kari’s suit jacket, clinging on. When a sob escaped, Kari automatically dropped the bag that held paperwork to go through and held Bowie close.
“What is it? Talk to Daddy. Let me help fix whatever is wrong.”
“What if they separate us?”
Kari blinked in confusion, his mind racing to find the connection to what was worrying Bowie.
“At the ranch?” he finally guessed.
Bowie nodded, another sob escaping.
Kari never gave false promises, and as much as he wanted to, he just couldn’t. “It’s only for a week, and I’ll be right there with you. We can always find some place to sneak off to for a cuddle,” he suggested, adding as much enthusiasm as he could muster, because Kari didn’t want to be separated either.
That suggestion got Bowie to lift his head, his doe eyes drenched with tears. “Really?”
Kari absorbed the sucker punch at seeing Bowie like this and held him closer. The temptation was to offer a solution he wanted Bowie to come to on his own terms. Because the answer was to tell everyone they were a couple. Bowie avoided conversation on this subject, and Kari had already decided to stop mentioning it. Everyone went at their own pace, and he couldn’t rush Bowie, as much as he wanted to.
“Yes. It’ll be fun. Like a holiday, with fun stuff to do. You like animals, we might get to cuddle some of them, too.”
Bowie visibly perked up at that. “You think so?”
Kari would ask Silas, and if he said no then Kari would check out the surrounding ranches. He did not want to wipe away the hope if they were going to be separated.
