Page 5 of All Tied Up

“Done!” Levi crowed a moment later. “I booked you for the Daddy-boy weekend. O.M.G. This is gonna be the best. You have to call and tell me about all the hot Daddies, OK?”

Neil shook his head, but he wasn’t really protesting. In a way, it was almost a relief.

Since Levi had booked his ticket, he wasn’t responsible for anything that happened. He could just show up, see how it went, and then go home. No investment. No harm done.

And he really did like the mountains. In fact, maybe he could add a day or two to his stay and make a real vacation of it. Kind of ignore the whole match-making part of it.

Pretend that he wasn’t nervous.

Pretend that he wasn’t secretly hoping to find a Daddy of his own.

2

Neil

July

Of course, the closer that the date got, the harder it was to pretend.

With each passing day, Neil was more distracted at work. He was alternately daydreaming about the charismatic, adoring Daddy who would sweep him off his feet, and steeling himself against any hope that such a thing might happen.

Over the past week, he’d had so much trouble concentrating that he’d had to read over everything an extra time to make sure he didn’t write anything stupid into the contracts. That type of minutia was his entire job description. It would have made his projects late, but instead he’d just stayed later at night. He’d barely even made it home to sleep some evenings.

Now he was kind of tired and his eyes were crossing, but he needed to get things finished so he could head out.

A knock sounded at his office door.

“Come in,” he called out.

Jackson, the junior partner who was managing the case, strode into the room. “Got the file ready?”

“Just reading it over one more time.”

Jackson narrowed his eyes. “Weren’t you supposed to leave at noon?”

“Yeah,” he sighed. His plan had been to go home, change clothes, and then head out to the Meadowlark Lodge—the kinky resort filled with Daddies and boys—in time to attend the early evening meet-and-greet.

Of course, he’d known he’d probably get caught up in things, so he’d packed his suitcase in his car just in case. If he went directly there, he could still make it now.

“Well, hand it over,” Jackson held out his hand. “Get out of here.”

Neil blinked in surprise. Corporate law was not the land of “leave as early as you want and enjoy your vacation.”

“Dude, you’re exhausted. You’ve been taking extra cases. Get out before you burn out and we have to replace you.” He laughed like this was something funny. It actually happened all the time. In fact, if Jackson were still an associate, he probably would have been delighted to see Neil go since it would clear out one more space for him to reach the top.

It was old news now, but Neil had made junior partner a year before Jackson, both of them out-competing a flock of young lawyers to make it there. Now they both had strong portfolios of their own clients. Another year or two and Neil might beat him to becoming a senior partner.

Another year with a hundred billable hours per week.

Another year where he barely saw the walls of his own home, and forgot to eat when he wasn’t wining and dining clients.

That was “what it took.”

“God, you are out of it, dude.” Jackson waved his hand in front of Neil’s face.

Neil really hated being called dude. And the whole overgrown frat boy culture.

“Sorry, yeah, you’re right.” He handed Jackson the file. “I got through to page seventy-eight. Dan should be able to type up the edits.”