Asher King's life has revolved around putting up an involuntary mask to hide his true self. With successful parents boasting about his 'pretend' success, Asher feels as though the life he is living was never his to begin with, and a home of happines...
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I'm using a towel to dry my messy hair when I hear my phone ding from inside my bedroom.
"Leo, can you see what that says?!" I call out from behind the closed bathroom door.
"Yeah!" he shouts back.
Once my damp curls finally settle, I throw the towel in the hamper. I grab my toothbrush beside the sink and plop a dollop of toothpaste on it.
"What does it say?!" I ask before shoving the toothbrush in my mouth and brushing.
I wait a couple of seconds, but he doesn't respond.
"Leo?" I question, my mouth filled with toothpaste foam. I knock on the bathroom door, but there's still no response.
I don't think much of it, but the bathroom door opens without warning.
Leo is standing in front of me with my phone in his hands. I blush on the spot when I realize that I don't have a shirt on, just wearing gray sweatpants. Leo doesn't even seem to pay attention to that because he looks at me through the mirror with an unsettled expression.
"What is it?" I say worriedly, trying to ignore the fact that I'm half-naked in front of my boyfriend. I rinse my mouth and set my toothbrush next to my face wash on the counter.
"Um...it's your dad," Leo says hesitantly.
I whip around and look at him with wide eyes. I feel paralyzed in my spot as the memories flash through my head of my last interaction with my father.
"W-What?" I stutter.
I know I only blocked my mother, but I never actually expected my father to reach out to me.
Leo slips my phone into his pocket before walking further into the bathroom. He grabs my sweatshirt from one of the clothing hooks on the wall. He walks back toward me expectantly, and I raise my arms without question. He helps slip the sweatshirt over my head before lifting me onto the bathroom countertop.
"I don't want you to see the text, so I'll rephrase it in a much nicer way," he starts, lacing both his hands with mine.
"Okay..." I whisper, already preparing myself to hear the worst possible thing.
"Something about a corporation meeting. He says it's the biggest event of the year. Do you already know about this?"
I simply nod my head.
"Well, he said that he expects you to be there. He said that you are still his son, and he already told you about it before...everything blew up. There were a whole lot of other things and nasty threats, but those aren't important."
"That's not fair!" I nearly scream. "That's not fucking fair at all!"
"I know, I know," Leo soothes, placing his hands on my cheeks.
