Page 44 of Overstaying His Welcome

“Oh would you shut up, Emmett. There is no amount of polling that will help this. I allowed you to entertain a few liberal ideas for the campaign. The research proved it might be beneficial. But this — this is a joke. They’ll filet you for being with a man. This isn’t the ideal family values we want to portray. Your mother is going to be devastated.”

“My mother barely speaks to me. She’ll be fine. This has nothing to do with either of you anymore.”

Before the tension in the room could grow anymore, Ronan stepped forward. “Sir, I think it’s time you leave. It’s clear your presence is upsetting the patient.”

“Who are you to tell me that? You’re not his doctor.”

“No, I’m not,” Ronan smirked. “But I am one of his closest friends. And trust me, if we were in any other situation, you’d be as pitiful as your sidekick there. Now leave before we have to get building security involved. I could just imagine the headline.”

At that possibility, he finally turned on his heel. He was gone in a blink, leaving behind Emmett to stare at us all.

“I’m… I’m sorry. It’s not right of him to tell you who to love. I can look into how this might affect the polls if you want, Mr. Chance, sir.”

Taking pity on the young man, I nodded. “Sure, Emmett. You can email them to me. I’m not sure when I’ll be back in the office since I’m out on leave.”

He nodded once, then left after my father. It was strange to see him in a different light. In the short time I’d worked with Emmett, I found him to be damn near a clone of my father’s ideals. For him to have somewhat of a conscience was nice.

“What a grade A piece of shit. No offense, Chance,” Memphis said with a touch of remorse.

I waved his words away. “It’s the truth. No need to sugarcoat it. I have no idea why it wasn’t clear to me before now.”

“Probably because you have some daddy issues tied to praise and approval. It didn’t manifest into a kink, but damn if you didn’t stick to his prescribed life for you for far too long.”

Everyone turned to Orion with wide eyes. He didn’t seem to care that everyone was looking at him like he’d grown a second head.

He shrugged. “What? I’ve been reading a bunch of psychology books to help with Sol. Most of it is parenting related, so I’ve got insight.”

That broke through the others, and soon they were all laughing. It was as if the interruption from my father hadn’t come. Like we weren’t facing down the unknown or dealing with an injured Tank with no clue of exactly what happened to him.

I wasn’t used to this world. I had no clue how to navigate what came next.

Tank squeezed my hand. “They’re going to find him. And they’ll make him pay, ok? You don’t need to worry anymore. We’re going to be ok.”

For just a moment, I let myself believe it. Worrying wasn’t going to help.

Besides, I had Tank with me. That was what mattered most. The rest could fucking wait.

CHAPTER 12

GODRIC

“Anyone else findthis entire thing to be fucked up?” Cohen asked the group when we were back at the office.

Tank and Chance were still at the hospital with Takeshi while they waited to be discharged. We all offered to stay, though the couple refused.

I still found it odd to say couple where Tank was concerned.

“Why would it be fucked up? Boss man is happy. Let’s let it be.” Memphis took a big gulp of the coffee we’d grabbed on our way back. I knew it had partly been an excuse to see his boyfriend, though none of us would deny him the caffeine either.

The man simply functioned better with it. Taking it away was like sticking your hand into a pit of vipers and expecting not to be stung.

Dumb as hell.

I leaned back in my chair, putting my arms behind my head as I stretched and waited for the others to chime in. We were all dealing with new information. This time, it wasn’t bad news though.

It was good. Happy even. We all wanted Tank to have someone special in his life. Since we’d found our people, ithad come up numerous times to maybe try to set him up with someone.

Except we all thought he was a raging manwhore.

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