If it all became fucked up, Wade was goingto feel guilty forever.
“I agree.” Making sure he knew we were bothon the same page, I continued. “When we were talking in the kitchen, he knew alot about the business and said his parents are authors. Aside from theflirting and staring and drooling part, it actually was a productiveconversation. And he’s already had a background check.”
And he knew better than to leave anythingup to my memory.
Tanner shrugged. “Sounds perfect as long asyou guys are on the same page as far as the personal stuff goes. You knowyou’re going to have to talk about that and set boundaries, right?”
I sighed again, sounding a bit like Austin.“Yes, but I’d really rather not.”
Bradley snorted. “No way around it now.”
I made a rude gesture in Bradley’s directionthat had Simon grinning as I gave Bradley a sarcastic smile. “You’re so sweetand helpful.”
Deciding I would ignore his response, Ilooked over at Jonah. “I’m not replacing you. Honest. I value your help, butthere’s just a lot of little things that I’ve fallen behind on because thereisn’t enough time for it. Neither of us has the time for everything.”
He smiled and nodded, but looked relieved,if I had to put a name to the expression. “I completely understand. I’m workingon my stuff a lot more and between that and home and the club, there justaren’t any more hours to give you.”
Thank goodness.
Because if I had to give him all the extrawork, I was going to have to explain a few things. I knew at some point I wasgoing to have to fess up, but I really wanted that side of things to be asuccess before it came out. With the mainstream books having done so well,anything less than fabulous on the romance side would look pathetic.
And I was never going to hear the end ofit.
I’d tried to ignore the erotic plot ideasfor entirely too long to just randomly confess I’d given up fighting it.
“Just talk to the guy and figure out howyou’re going to incorporate the domination and submission shit beforehand.”Bradley scoffed when I protested.
“Hey, just because we happen to be an omegaand an alpha and have certain things in common doesn’t mean—” Laughter echoedthrough the room before I could even finish the lie. “Fine. I’ll talk to him.”
Playing ostrich and ignoring things was mysuperpower, but considering how we’d met and his flirting, that wasn’t going tobe an option.
“If you were more subtle or shier, I wouldsay you could get away with just flirting over time and seeing what happens,but you’re not.” Wade shrugged as I glared at him. “We all know you’re justgoing to end up turning to him one day and laying it all on the line or pullingan Austin and asking for a spanking. So there’s no point in lying to yourself.”
I liked lying to myself.
I was damned good at it too.
“You guys are so helpful.” Closing my eyes,I relaxed back on the chair again and gave up. “We’ll talk and then see whathappens.”
“Good.” The eagerness in Wade’s voice wascute. He was clearly imagining dirty fairy tales when he thought about thepossibility of me with Tristan.
Refusing to burst his bubble with thereality of how badly it would probably go, I gestured around the room. “Club.What did people have to say about that? Anything we should note?”
They must have decided to take pity on mebecause they allowed the change in topic. Tanner picked up the thread and ranwith it. “Yes, we need to go over everything while it’s fresh in our minds. Cananyone take notes?”
I knew every eye turned to me. “Youwouldn’t let me keep my notebook today, remember?”
Bradley huffed. “I’ll use my phone.”
Paper was better than electronic crap.
“Okay, first question.” Tanner was startingto sound like he was in a business meeting. “Did anyone meet someone that theyreally didn’t like? They were an asshole or asked bad-weird questions or evenjust gave off a bad vibe?”
Negative sounds came from almost everyoneuntil Wade cleared his throat. “There were two alphas and one beta that didn’tseem to like taking no for an answer. I made it clear I wasn’t interested ingetting into any kind of personal conversation with them and I had to repeatmyself a few too many times before they listened to me. I know that’s not—”
We all jumped in but Bradley spoke first.“Oh no, we don’t have to make excuses for something like that. No means nounless there are safewords in play.”
I looked up to see Wade nodding, and as hespoke, he sounded more confident. “Yes, you’re right. It wasn’t enough to makeme draw the line and say no to admitting them right off the bat, but I thinkhaving Eddie look into their backgrounds a bit more might be a good idea.”