Total pages in book: 119
Estimated words: 114284 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 571(@200wpm)___ 457(@250wpm)___ 381(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 114284 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 571(@200wpm)___ 457(@250wpm)___ 381(@300wpm)
“Right.” Macklin sat down at the head of the table and addressed me. “Look, Ty, I’m not gonna pressure you. I already did that with Lane, and I feel horrible. Not only did I cause a rift between Walker and me, I shook the ground Lane walks on. All I’m asking is, don’t repeat my mistake. I went too fast and couldn’t hold up my end of the bargain, so the last thing I want you to do is rush into something. Believe me.”
While he rambled, I got stuck in the compassion in his eyes. He was all but desperate, and that desperation stemmed from somewhere.
He was worried. “Slow and steady wins the race—I get it—but at the same time, Lane is already on his way out the door. As soon as his world gets unstable, he looks for the nearest exit. And I’m not saying he’s a guy who splits,” he added quickly. “The fucking opposite—but he’ll stay only if he has someone to latch on to. That’s when he’s with you for life.”
And right now, Lane had no one to latch on to.
I peered at Walker and found him lost in thought. He was concerned, maybe even troubled, and that didn’t help me at all.
Macklin shifted in his seat, the chair creaking. “Whatever you do, don’t bail when his foundation is shaky. If your talk doesn’t go well, stay and make sure he lands with some cushion. That’s all. Forget what I said earlier about you getting to where I might want you to be—that’s the dumb romantic in me. Don’t get me wrong, I have high hopes, but not as high as the stakes are right now. Lane firmly believes his best course of action is to stay away, and if we wanna flip that—if we want him to stop pulling away—we have to show him the ground beneath our feet is solid. Or so someone wise told me recently.”
By the look of Walker’s slight smirk, he was the wise one. It was also hard to miss the affection in his gaze as he watched Macklin.
Macklin cleared this throat and tossed us both dry looks. “Your public display of announcing a dynamic online wasn’t the smartest route where Lane is concerned. Just sayin’.”
Hm. I pinched my lips together and let my mind race with everything Macklin had said.
“It was effective with you,” Walker pointed out. “I reached your breaking point.”
Macklin nodded once. “Absolutely, and then you drove right over to me. If Lane breaks, no one’s there to catch him.”
Walker and I looked at each other, probably thinking the same thing. We’d discussed this last night. I wasn’t willing to say we’d screwed up, but I probably had some cleanup to do, which I hadn’t made room for.
I’d wanted Lane’s mind spinning, for better or for worse. Walker and I had determined it might force Lane to face any attachment he was trying to deny.
“You have a point in that no one’s checked in with Lane on that topic,” Walker conceded. “But we didn’t change our statuses for the fun of it, baby. We were prepared for the possibility that it might hurt Lane. And you, for that matter.”
Macklin scowled but didn’t immediately argue. I could see the wheels turning.
As much as Walker and I were growing to care for each other, announcing something on social wasn’t really our brand. We’d done it to gain reactions from Macklin and Lane. We wanted there to be talk and speculation, because we could dig into that. When subs talked, Doms got information.
“You wanted to push us,” Macklin stated.
“We wanted to trigger an event we could take control of,” I corrected.
Walker nodded to me. “That right there. I’d already tried the old-fashioned route, you know, to talk to you, Macklin, but you weren’t interested in that at the time.” His pointed little grin softened Macklin’s scowl. “Don’t look at me like that, boy.”
“Fine,” Macklin muttered, then turned to me instead. “So are you gonna take control of the event that is Lane Sawyer?”
The Sawyer kid.
“Well, I already threw out the bait. Now I find out what I caught,” I replied. “Upsettin’ Lane temporarily isn’t a worry for me, Macklin. He’ll live. And what he needs to see is that I will be there when the going gets tough, innit?”
He tilted his head at me. “But will you?”
That’s what I was gonna find out. I hoped I would. I wanted to. Unlike with my bizarre attraction to Walker, which sort of boggled our minds a bit, I could say exactly what it was about Lane that drew me in like a moth to a flame.
“I’m gonna confront him and hear him out,” I answered honestly. “I will make sure he lands softly if shit don’t work out.”
That last one confused Walker, confirming my suspicion. Macklin hadn’t told him about the things Lane had kept from me.