by Megan Linden
As with all the other nights this week, this one didn’t bring any new decisions for Ollie, only too much thinking of Patrick and too little sleep.
Tomorrow will switch things up a bit, at least.
* * * *
Sylvia didn’t say one word of protest when he told her in the morning that he would be away for the night, which surprised Ollie a little. She wasn’t a demanding person, but she liked to have her plans in place, so she usually reacted with at least some reserve to any last-minute changes. He figured she didn’t mind because he wasn’t scheduled to help out with the kids, but when she volunteered to lend him a car before he could ask for it, he got suspicious.
“Do you have something planned for tonight that you don’t want me here for?” he asked. He was loading the dishwasher as she was putting the breakfast leftovers away, but that made her pause and raise her eyebrows at him.
“Nothing but a quiet evening at home. You know that.”
“You usually don’t take last-minute changes of plan this easily. That’s all.”
Sylvia got busy with rearranging things in the fridge and didn’t say anything for a while.
“I just think getting out for the night could be good for you,” she finally said, without turning to him.
“Sure.”
“Hey, I’m just saying…” She closed the fridge and turned around. “You know you’ve been moping. I’ve left you alone about it, but don’t think I didn’t notice.”
Of course. Well, that was what he got for being too curious. He shut the dishwasher. “I appreciate you not butting in.”
“And I’m not butting in now.” He could hear in her voice that she was rolling her eyes at him. “I’m answering your questions.”
“You’re right. My bad.”
He went to leave the kitchen, aware he was behaving like a child yet unable to stop, but Sylvia caught him by the arm and turned him toward her.
“Come here, you little asshole,” she told him, pulling him in for a hug.
Ollie let himself be hugged, leaning into her and circling his arms around her waist. They were roughly the same height, so it was easy to hold her against him like this.
“Thanks,” he whispered into her hair and she nuzzled him like she’d used to do all the time.
“You’re my little brother. Of course you’re gonna be a pain in the ass from time to time,” she said, but only squeezed him tighter as she did so. “I still love you.”
“I love you, too.”
It was easier after that to spend the day playing with the twins before taking off to Linwood. Ollie felt lighter the minute he left Hills, too, as if he was leaving some of the angst behind. He’d taken his bruised heart with him, but maybe he could let go of overthinking and overanalyzing for the night.
Trevor set a cold beer at the bar in front of him as soon as he arrived.
“You’re a lifesaver,” he told Ollie. “And you’re drinking free here for the rest of your life.”
“Don’t get carried away. I could claim this seat forever and drink you out of the house and bar.”
“You’re drinking free for the rest of your stay in Hills. How about that?”
“As long as you pay me for tonight, we’re good.” Ollie took a sip of his beer. “What happened to leave you stranded like this?”
“Zane got food poisoning.” Trevor grimaced. “And it’s Saturday night. I didn’t want to tend the bar alone with that crowd.”
Ollie had had a few nights in his past when he’d faced the big crowd with only himself behind the bar, and he could agree with Trevor. It was no fun.
“So, how’s life in Hills treating you?” Trevor asked, leaning over the bar after polishing it just a moment before.
“Pretty standard.” He shrugged. “Mostly catching up with family and friends. I’ve also been helping out in my sister’s café.” At that, the memory of Patrick in his big armchair came back, and something must have shown on his face because Trevor made a curious sound.
“Uh-oh. There’s something going on with you. Do tell.”
“Not much to tell.”
Trevor leaned back, straightening up and tossing the cloth over his shoulder. “Heart trouble?”
Ollie grimaced. God, I’m so obvious. “Yeah.”
“Sorry, man. That’s shitty.”
“It is what it is.” Ollie took another sip of his beer. “But let’s leave it. I’m here to escape my problems, not dwell on them. Tell me how you’re doing, instead.”
They talked for a while, and it became easier to forget as the time went by. Work was definitely a good distraction, since Ollie was busy from the moment the bar opened. Trevor had little-to-no competition in the area, so unless someone wanted to specifically go out of town or was too old for the bar’s usual crowd, patrons swarmed the place like it was the last chance for them to ever hold a beer in their hands.
Ollie still found himself occasionally glancing to where Patrick had been sitting the night they’d met, but it happened less as the night went on and more people came in. Quite a few of them sat on the same stool Patrick had, too.
Until, right after eleven, the woman with black hair and a blinding smile vacated the spot, and after a few seconds, Patrick in the flesh slid onto the seat.
Chapter Fifteen
It was hard to catch Ollie’s scent in a crowded bar, but Patrick could definitely hear his thundering heartbeat as Ollie stared at him in stunned disbelief.
“Did you time it or something?” Ollie blurted out, gesturing after the woman who had just left.
It took Patrick a second to get what he’d meant, but then he snorted. “No. Lucky, I guess.” He’d thought he might not get a seat at the bar at all, let alone the same one.
Ollie still stared at him like he couldn’t believe his eyes, and Patrick… Well, Patrick was just happy to see him, period. The bar, the people, the loud music—all of it fell into the background as he concentrated all of his senses on the man in front of him. He could actually catch Ollie’s scent now under the layer of alcohol and perspiration, thanks to the busy night at the bar.
The same busy night in the form of insistent shouts from impatient clients pulled Ollie out of the mutual stare-down and forced him to get back to work. Patrick leaned his forearms against the counter and spent the next twenty minutes watching Ollie take and complete orders, one after the other. Patrick wasn’t in a hurry. He would wait all night if he had to—if that would make Ollie talk to him.
After working through the wave of thirsty customers, Ollie gestured to the other bartender that he needed a five-minute break. When he received a nod and a shooing motion, he finally turned to Patrick again, and Patrick’s heartbeat sped up.
“What are you doing here?” Ollie asked, coming closer but pausing a good foot away from the edge of the counter.
That was an easy question. “I hoped I could talk to you.”
“Now that I’m at work?” Ollie crossed his arms.
Patrick ran a hand through his hair. “I went over to your sister’s house earlier,” he explained. “She told me you’re out of town, so I decided to take my chances.” I was desperate, he didn’t say. I was afraid I’d lose my nerve if I didn’t try.
“You drove all the way from Hills on the chance that I might be here?” Ollie asked. Something changed in his stance, but it was subtle enough that Patrick couldn’t say what it was. Ollie at least seemed less tense, though.
“Yes.” Patrick nodded in emphasis. “I felt like I needed to try.”
“Why?”
There were so many answers to that question that Patrick didn’t know where to start. What was the right way to encompass everything he’d been feeling?
“Because I wanted to ask for a chance,” he finally said, “to explain everything to you, face-to-face, if nothing else.” He took a deep breath. “I have to admit that I hope after you hear my explanation, you’ll be willing to give me another chance, period. But that’s…secondary.”
&nbs
p; “You want me to listen, but if I tell you to go away and leave me alone afterward, you’d leave?”
“Yes,” Patrick told him, even when his wolf was protesting. “If you tell me to go, I will go.” But please, don’t. Please.
Ollie chewed on his lower lip for a long moment until meeting his gaze again. “Okay, fine, I’ll listen to what you have to say. But not now.” He gestured to the people at the bar. “I have to get back to work. I don’t think you want to wait—”
“I’ll wait,” Patrick cut in. “I’ll order a beer and wait, however long it takes.”
There was a flash of surprise on Ollie’s face, as well as sudden uptick in his heartbeat, and Patrick offered him a small smile.
“A beer,” Ollie finally said, taking a step back. “Coming right up.”
Patrick let out a deep sigh the moment Ollie turned away.
He’d gotten his foot in the door. Now he needed to not screw it up.
* * * *
The night felt longer than Patrick would have liked, since the time seemed to stretch as various scenarios ran through his head. But at least he’d gotten to watch Ollie, and that was a massive, massive improvement from the rest of his week so far. It was easier than at the café, where he’d needed to be careful not to stare too much. Here, nobody cared.
Throughout the evening, they barely exchanged a word, other than him ordering another beer, but Patrick felt like he couldn’t look away and he’d caught Ollie glancing at him, too, especially every time someone would approach Patrick and start flirting. He declined each invitation and once even pointed at Ollie when one of the women wouldn’t take a hint.
“He’s my date for the night,” he told her, but she gave Ollie a dismissive once-over before turning back to him.
“I’m sure I could give you a better time,” she said, leaning in way too close, and Patrick rolled his eyes, pulling back.
“Do you want to order?” Ollie was suddenly there and staring at the woman as if he was daring her to say no.
She huffed but took a step away from Patrick. “A beer,” she finally said after looking between them.
“Coming right up,” Ollie told her with a nod and slipped away to fulfill the order, but he still glanced at them from a distance.
“A jealous one, huh?” She leaned against the bar with a smirk again, and suddenly Patrick was tired of being pleasant.
“He’s protecting me from unwanted advances,” he told her and watched the smile drop from her face. Good.
She snatched her beer the moment Ollie put it down then disappeared into the crowd.
Patrick opened his mouth to say something, but before he could, Ollie turned and walked away.
And the evening continued.
It was after two when the place emptied enough that there was no need for two people behind the bar. Ollie talked to Trevor for a minute, then nodded and tugged the apron from around his hips before tossing it under the counter and wandering to where Patrick was sitting.
“You ready?” Ollie asked, as if he were the one who was waiting for Patrick, not the other way around.
“Whenever you are.”
Ollie nodded and ducked under the counter to come around to the other side of the bar. Patrick heard Ollie’s heartbeat quickening, matching his own.
“I’m staying at Trevor’s again, but don’t get any ideas,” Ollie said. “We’re going up there to have this conversation in peace, not to have sex.”
“I understand,” Patrick assured him. “I came here to talk.” Of course, he hoped they’d make up, but above all, he wanted to explain himself and apologize.
So he followed Ollie up the familiar path, remembering the last time they’d been up there. He wondered what he would’ve thought back then, if he’d known where that would lead him, if he would’ve even believed it.
They sat down facing each other on the opposite sides of the couch, but with how small it was, there was maybe a foot of space between them and Patrick had to push his hands under his thighs to stop himself from reaching out.
“First of all,” he started before the silence could become too weighted, “I’m sorry for making you feel the way I did. I never meant for it to happen.”
Ollie curled his hands over his stomach and nodded, looking somewhere around Patrick’s shoulder. “You told me that already.”
“I thought it was worth repeating. But you’re right. There are a lot of other things I haven’t told you. Things that—” He paused and grimaced. “Things that may shed some light on my behavior. For the record, I’m trying to give you an explanation, not make excuses.”
“Okay.”
Patrick took a deep breath. Adrian had been the only person Patrick had ever told this story to, and even then, it had been done mostly in bits and pieces.
“Before I came to Harrington Hills, I belonged to a different pack, one I was born in,” he said slowly. “The Donnelly Pack, out in California.”
Ollie met his gaze then. “The Donnelly Pack? Your family is—”
“Yes. My father’s the Alpha of that pack.” Ollie’s eyes widened. Maybe he’d already guessed what was coming, but Patrick didn’t want to leave any misunderstanding. “I was the Alpha’s Son.”
Ollie opened his mouth and closed it. “You…” he tried again but trailed off.
“My father is a conservative man with very strict ideas of what he considers to be…worthy, for a lack of a better word,” Patrick continued, pulling the corners of his mouth up in a joyless smile. “He’s never made a secret out of it. I just thought that he might consider making a few exceptions, that maybe I’d be able to change his mind about things. And I did succeed at some, just not— Not the ones I cared about the most.”
“Like being gay,” Ollie whispered.
Patrick nodded. “I’ve known early on that I was gay, but it wasn’t until I went to San Francisco that I ever…did anything about it. I was away from my family, no one around belonged to my pack and I felt free.” He ran a hand through his hair. “I guess I became too confident. I was so used to the easy acceptance I encountered in the city that when I got the idea of coming out to my father, it felt like a smart choice, a responsible one. I was the Alpha’s Son. I could be honest with my father, finally talk to him man-to-man.”
“I’m guessing it didn’t turn out so well,” Ollie spoke up when Patrick drifted off in search of what to say next.
“It didn’t.” Patrick narrowed his eyes as the pain of that memory hit him once again. “He told me there was no place in the pack for me anymore. I stopped existing to him in that moment—as the Alpha’s Son, a son or even a pack member. I was cast out.”
Ollie’s sharp intake of breath made Patrick look up. He hadn’t even realized he’d glanced away.
“I’m sorry,” Ollie told him, eyes shining with compassion.
That’s right, Patrick realized. Ollie knew a thing or two about being tossed out.
Patrick nodded. Just like with the conversation with Adrian, it would be easy to end it here, to claim he’d acted like he had because of his father’s homophobia.
But if he wanted this thing with Ollie to continue—and he did or he wouldn’t be here doing this—he needed to do better than that.
“That’s not all, though.”
Chapter Sixteen
“That’s not all, though.”
God, what else? Ollie was already reeling after hearing about Patrick’s old pack—the pack where he’d been the Alpha’s Son —and his father casting him out. There was more?
Something must have shown on his face, because Patrick gave him a twisted caricature of a smile and leaned back. Ollie had been scared of what he was going to hear, but now he was more afraid Patrick would stop, so he reached out and put his hand above Patrick’s knee. “I want to know. Whatever you want to tell me, I want to know.”
If they were to move past this—and damn, Ollie wanted them to—they needed to move beyond it all, no matter what it was.
“I’v
e never been ashamed of being who I am,” Patrick started again, voice tense but seeming determined. He jutted his jaw forward and now that he knew, Ollie could totally see the Alpha’s Son in him, the one who’d been preparing for years to take over his pack. “Even when I had to hide it from my pack, from my Alpha, I wasn’t ashamed of being gay. San Francisco opened my eyes to a lot of things, a lot of different people. You see”—he hesitated—“there was never a human in my old pack.”
Ollie tensed. He started to move his hand away, but Patrick covered it with his own. The weight was light enough for him to pull away, but the gesture was clear. Ollie stayed in place.
“I have nothing against them myself.” Patrick kept talking. “I was exposed to humans late, yes, but I’ve never treated them like—”
Like less, Ollie wanted to finish for him. He took his hand away and pressed it over his stomach again. “You treated me like that.”
Patrick tried to hide his grimace, but Ollie still saw it. He thought of the excuses that would surely follow. He knew how that usually went.
“You’re right,” Patrick said instead and Ollie’s eyebrows shot up. This, he hadn’t expected. But Patrick wasn’t done. “I should’ve said that I never intentionally treated a human like there was something wrong with them. Because I don’t believe there is.”
“Sunday seemed to tell another story,” Ollie told him. He was cracking under the weight of Patrick’s sincerity. He’d basically already forgiven him in his heart, but he also remembered he’d been burned before. Ollie hadn’t grown up a lone human in the pack of werewolves without experiencing prejudice.
“I know.” Patrick looked down at the space between them before meeting his gaze again. “I told you that I’ve never been ashamed of being gay and that’s true. I also have different opinions than my father on a lot of things, werewolf-human relations among them. But what I struggle with… What happens is that sometimes—not often, thankfully, but sometimes—I suddenly have his voice inside my head. It’s usually a memory or a flashback where I feel like I’m back there, listening to him say those things. And I react before I can think.” He ran a hand through his hair and, for a moment, he let it hang before squaring his shoulders and raising it again. “I hate it. I hate it because I lose control of myself and I react like a damn scared little boy, as if my father would show up and…” He grimaced. “I don’t know, really.”