Page 247 of As The Shifter World Turns

I picked it up and started answering each one of his questions. Looked like it was going to take a while.

As I was closing out, I saw a message from Toby and Neil. Toby wanted to talk to me and I threw on a shirt and hit the video chat button and waited forhim to pop on the screen. Toby and Neil were wearing matching shirts with sloths wearing hats on them. They looked adorable and like they were having fun. I was glad for that.

“Hey guys.” I waved at the screen.

“You okay, Dad? You don’t look so good.” Toby’s worry reached his eyes. Shit.

“It’s bad lighting and I worked really late last night for a magazine thing.”

Neil didn’t look like he believed me. He’d been less trusting as of late and it was starting to bug me. I’d never done anything to break his trust and he was injecting something into this that wasn’t there. Maybe it was me gaining recognition or maybe it was the money… I didn’t even know but things weren’t great.

“Tell me about your day.” I slapped on my happiest looking face.

Toby told me all about rides and Charlie’s giggles at the elephants and a train that went around the park. He sounded like he was having a blast.

“I’m so glad you’re having fun.”

“It’s not as much fun as if you were here,” he said almost too softly to hear.

“I know, son. But I’ll be done soon. And when I am, we won’t have to worry about money anymore.”

“I never did, Dad.” He looked behind him. “I gotta go. It’s almost time for the show. Love you.”

He ran off as I was telling him I loved him too.

“You really should be here.” Neil didn’t pull any punches. “And don’t think I don’t know what a hangover looks like. Working my ass. You were out drinking with the guys and there’s no rule that says you can’t have friends and have a few beers but fuck you—this is a family vacation and your sons are on it without you.”

“That’s not fair and you fucking know it. I’m doing what I need to do to keep this family afloat and you're just jealous because I’m making more than you.” I hated the words as I said them, but wasn’t able to stop myself from continuing the venom. “And I was working, which you would know if you bothered to fucking trust me. My shoot was at a bar and I’m not hung over. I’m just tired.”

“You look like shit. You’re hungover and no. I’m not jealous of you. I got to spend the day with two amazing kids making a lifetime of memories. That’s worth more than any paycheck.”

He hung up and a text came right after:Message me when you get in tonight. We need to talk when you're not hung over.

I’ll message you when I get home. Love you.I might be pissed, but I learned my lesson long ago that any day might be the last and if something happened to me, he needed to know I loved him. It was messed up thinking, but what wasn’t messed up?

I love you too. Don’t forget to message me.

Spoiler alert: I fucking forgot.

111

NOT THE ALPHA I MATED

Neil

“I’d love to. Thanks for inviting me.”

Martin’s voice was grating on me as I cleaned Charlie’s butt and put on a clean diaper. Glancing through the open doorway, I eyed him tapping away on his phone and then posing for a selfie. What I wanted to do was grab that freaking phone from his manicured hands and jump on it. Over and over and over again.

Recently, he’d had a closer relationship with that device than he had with me or the kids. And it beeped incessantly as I carried our little boy into the living room.

“Neil, I need to go for a fitting. Everything under control here?”

I didn’t answer him, worried I’d explode because I was a single parent lately and my mate was acting like a giddy teen who’d just gotten his license or discovered beer!

“Where are you going? I thought tonight was date night. Ivor and Ryder have agreed to babysit.”

Toby hated the word babysit. I needed to remember that and say “stay with the kids’’ instead. But I was pissed at my mate and forgot.

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