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“I could stay at my own house,” Carver pointed out.

“You just promised to be back,” Dante retorted.

True. Carver just hadn’t said when he would come back. It was going to take time to get Owen and Kenny not to be mad at him. Carver still didn’t know how to explain himself. What he could say to make his friends understand.

Dante sighed and tapped his nose. “Scent doesn’t lie, baby.”

This just wasn’t fair! Carver lifted his foot again.

“No!” Dante barked.

Very carefully, Carver set his foot back down.

“This is a situation of your own making,” Dante told him. “I suggested we leave hours ago.”

Carver hadn’t been ready hours ago. Jesse had offered to show Carver his playroom and that sounded like way more fun them going home to face his best friends. “Daddy…”

“As adorable as I find you, we don’t have time for this,” Dante responded before placing a tie around his neck.

“Why are you dressing all fancy?” Maybe Carver didn’t want his friends to see how good Dante looked in his suits.

Dante stopped fiddling with his tie.

Uh, why had Carver asked that? He sounded jealous to his own ears.

When Dante didn’t say anything as he crossed the room, Carver was worried that he’d really made his Daddy mad. That hadn’t been his objective. Carver was just nervous to go home.

Dante sat on the end of the mattress and patted his knee.

“What?” Carver wiggled in place.

“Come here, boy,” Dante ordered.

“Are you mad at me?” Carver should have just gotten ready like Dante had been doing.

“I’m not mad at you,” Dante replied. “But we are going to talk about this.”

“That’s even worse!” Carver stomped his foot again. They’d gone to bed talking. Woke up for more talking. “Talk. Talk. Talk.”

Dante rose and zoomed across the room in a flash. Like, seriously, Carver was surprised there wasn’t a zoom-zoom noise before he was thrown over Dante’s shoulder.

Carver screeched and received a hard smack to his ass. “Ow! Daddy!”

“I have given you plenty of warnings,” Dante said. “I also said not to stomp your foot again.”

Oh yeah, Dante had told him that. “I forgot.”

Dante flipped Carver back over and sat on the mattress again before placing Carver on his knee. “Now tell me what is wrong. I know that you are nervous about how your friends will respond to us being together, but we talked about that. You putting this introduction off isn’t going to help make them feel better.”

“I know.” Carver dropped his chin to his chest. “I just don’t want them mad at me.”

“Ignoring their messages and not responding is only going to worry them more,” Dante pointed out.

“I don’t want to hear logic!” Carver responded grumpily.

“Do you want a spanking?”

Maybe he did. Carver huffed and crossed his arms over his chest.