Page 227 of Daddy's Pride
Juan grinned. “No, I’m encouraging you not to give up on something before it even gets started. Not to give up on someone who you’re finally showing an interest in. Especially since you’ve already got him calling you Daddy.”
“He didn’t call me Daddy.”
“Eh,” he said, holding his hand out, palm down, and waggling it back and forth. “Mas o menos. But why didn’t you reply to him after he gave you that cute little goodbye?”
“My battery died.’
He raised his eyebrows. “Seriously?”
“Yes!”
He laughed, then clapped me on the shoulder. “You, and I say this with love, are an idiot. Message him. Be a good Daddy. Even if it goes nowhere, a needy boy like that? He’s probably got himself all twisted up about the way you dropped him. At the very least, you need to let him know you accept his apology.”
“Apologies,” I corrected him, my lips trying to twitch up into a smile. “There were… a lot of them.”
Juan laughed again, but then sobered. “There were. And the odds are you’re right. He’s probably not your future boy. But how do you think he feels right now, worrying that conversation over and over in his head? Because you can see by the way he was going on that he overthinks things. Feels responsible for what isn’t his fault. Needs some reassurance.”
“Shit,” I muttered. If Juan saw it too, then maybe I wasn’t just being a fool about things. The boy really did need a Daddy, and even if that wasn’t ever going to be me—not in a permanent way—the reason I hadn’t been able to let this go was because I was a Daddy.
And I’d let him down.
Juan crossed his arms over his chest, chin nodding toward my phone. “Do it, hermano. Just check in and give him the reassurance he needs. Get some closure, if nothing else. For your own sake. You deny this side of yourself too often.”
I snorted. We were both members of the same kink club. “You know I don’t.”
He cocked an eyebrow at me. “I know that a scene every few weeks is the bare minimum, and that you deserve more than that. Message your boy.”
“Fine.”
He gave me a devilish grin, and I groaned when I realized the trap he’d walked me into.
“You know what I meant,” I grumbled as I opened the text thread again and finally gave in to what I’d been wanting to do all week. “He’s not my boy.”
A high-pitched mechanical whine interrupted us, accompanied by a faint hissing sound that yanked my attention off my phone and back where it should be.
“Shit,” I muttered. “The pump?”
“Sounds like it,” Juan agreed with a sigh as Karl called out to us from the other side of the slab.
“Mr. Wexler? Mr. Ruiz? Can you come take a look at this, please?”
Juan clapped me on the shoulder again, holding me in place as he answered. “I’ll be right there. Mr. Wexler has something else to take care of.”
“What I need to take care of is that hydraulic line, if it’s leaking,” I grumbled.
“No, what you need to take care of is right there in your hand,” Juan said, giving my phone a pointed look. “If Karl is going to earn that foreman position, this is his chance to prove it. So how about I go take a look at the pump with him, while you check in with your boy.”
“He’s still not mine.”
“Aún no,” Juan threw over his shoulder as he walked away. “But sometimes you don’t have to be ready for something in order for it to find you, my friend.”
• INTERLUDE •
FEBRUARY 20th
TUESDAY 2:08 PM
Hey there, sweetheart. Thank you for your (unnecessary) apologies on Friday night. I’m sorry I wasn’t able to reply at the time, but please let me know that you got home safe and sound from the club you were at.