Page 63 of Daddy's Lesson

It felt weird entering the club tonight after storming out last week. Especially since I hadn’t seen my friends since. I’d been so focused on Zoe all week I hadn’t gone into the office much. Most of them had given me space, undoubtedly waiting for me to come around and go back to my happy-go-lucky, party-animal self. I wasn’t sure that was going to happen. In my mind, that outburst had been a long time coming. But I also wasn’t going to throw away a decade of friendships and successful working relationships, either.

I strode into the club, nodding to the desk receptionist for the night, a submissive named Eve, and the bouncer, Zeke, and headed for the back. Stopping outside the owners’ lounge, I drew a deep breath, squared my shoulders, and flung the door open.

My friends were all already there, drinks poured and chatter going. When I entered the room, though, everything stopped. It became so quiet, I could have heard a pin drop, and truthfully, I would have been grateful for the disturbance.

“Hi guys.” I smiled ruefully and hightailed it for the bar.

Tonight I wanted something strong, and lots of it. I was busy pouring myself a double neat scotch on the rocks when Nyla came up behind me and latched her arms around my waist, resting her head on my shoulder blade. I twisted to look at her over my shoulder, which was a feat in itself because she was that much shorter than me. I couldn’t see her, so I finished pouring my drink and twisted my body to bring her in underneath my arm.

“Yes?” I smiled down at her, unsurprised that she would be the first one to approach me and try to break the ice.

She smiled up at me and squeezed my waist. “Lennon, I’ve thought all week about what you said, and I’m really sorry if you’ve felt that way for this long. You’re right; we’ve all grown so much, and to act like you were the only one that hadn’t, or that you were incapable of growth, was really shitty and unfair of us.” She paused to draw in a breath, and I stayed silent to let her continue. “It’s not like we really think that, it’s just that… I think you’re comfortable. Like, I think seeing you as not having changed was almost… reassuring in some way. Like it made the rest of the world less scary. But it wasn’t fair to you, and I’m sorry.” She stretched her arm out to indicate the room at large. “We’re all sorry.”

My friends and their spouses nodded and murmured their agreement.

“We love you, bro,” Archer called out.

I squeezed Nyla back before she disentangled herself from my embrace and took a seat on a barstool in front of me.

“It’s cool. And I’m sorry, too. I overreacted.”

“You really didn’t.” Nyla reached out and laid a hand on my arm. “We were not being cool, pressuring you to drink like that, and acting like you deciding not to get shithoused was some sort of affront. We are not in college anymore and this is not a frat party.”

I nodded, clicked my tongue, and said nothing, pouring another drink. “Well, I’m drinking tonight, and I haven’t had a drop all week, so I intend to get good and sloshed,” I announced, raising the glass to my lips. It was a sipping drink, but I pounded it just the same, much to my friends’ amusement.

“Hear, hear,” Theo called, doing the same with his own drink.

The others just nodded their heads, raised their glasses, and finished their drinks, bringing them up to me one by one for refills so I could play bartender like I always did.

When everyone had a full drink and I was on my third, I grabbed the bottle from the bar and carried it over with my glass, joining them across the room. “So, any business that needs to be discussed?”

Archer shrugged. He didn’t spend a lot of time at our office since he was busy doing his hotshot lawyer stuff most of the time.

Nyla shook her head.

“We missed you at the office this week,” Bain offered. “Are you gonna come back on Monday now that we’ve all made up?”

I scoffed. “My absence this week actually had not a thing to do with you guys,” I informed him. “Zoe had the week off, and I’ve been busy with her. But she’s back to work on Monday, and I will be, as well.”

“Zoe, huh? Not Professor Kramer?” Jasmine teased, waggling her eyebrows.

I answered with an eye roll. “Of course it's not Professor Kramer. I need to make sure she remembers that the power dynamic has shifted. That’s not going to happen if I call her the same thing I called her back in college.”

“Good point,” Bas agreed. “But that still doesn’t answer the question.”

“I know,” I replied succinctly, raising my glass to my lips and sipping with a smile.

“It’s crap,” Archer surmised. “She’s all business, and he’s searching for threads, hanging all over, desperate for any scrap of interest she throws him.”

Do not be childish enough to need to respond. Do not be childish enough to need to respond. Do not be childish enough to need to re—oh dammit.

“It is not crap, and it’s going very well, Just because I’m not behaving like the overgrown child you all seem to think I am, and needing to dish like I have something to prove?—”

“Whoa, whoa, hold up.” Audrey got physically between Archer and I, holding her arms out between us as if to separate us, like we were about to square up for a fight or something. “You guys, we are not doing this again this week. Archer, knock it off. You’re kinda being a dick.”

I sucked in my teeth as Audrey threw herself to the wolves on my behalf, leaning back to watch the fireworks that would probably ensue.

Archer responded as I’d expected. His eyebrow arched and his chair scooted back as he sized up his submissive. “Excuse me? Is that how you talk to me?”

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