Richard was home. The nurse had rebuffed his advances, which he didn’t seem upset about. He was about to crash, but had bought enough Thai food for two.
“So you and Dean hit it off, huh?” he asked as he dug into stir-fried rice noodles.
“Yes and no.”
“Okay, spill. You have five minutes before I fall asleep.”
I filled him in about my and Dean’s history, and the noodles fell out of his gaping mouth. “Seriously?” he clapped me on the back. “But good on you for getting laid. It’s been a while.”
He reminded me of a parent cheering their kid on from the sidelines when he or she scored a goal for the first time. He nudged me and grinned. He was no longer an adult but a teenager discussing his friend’s first sexual encounter. “And it was good?”
Ugh! I should never have started this. “Amazing.” Better than that, but I didn’t want to give him a blow-by-blow account.
“So why aren’t you there now?”
I shrugged and put off telling him by taking a huge mouthful of green chicken curry. But Richard had been around the block more than once. “He doesn’t feel the same way?”
“That’s the problem. I have no idea.”
“You mean he didn’t scream your name and say how good it was being inside…”
I shoved a hand over his mouth and told him about my note.
“That’s it? It’s been half a day and you’re freaking out because he hasn’t been in touch? He’s probably still asleep after what you put him through last night.”
“And you’re such an expert on relationships?”
“He’ll phone you. Sounds as though he’s as into you as you are to him.” He paused. “I’m parched. Give me a few juicy tidbits. Please.”
“Ewww. No. I’m not sharing details of my sex life with you.”
“Fine,” he pouted. “Time for me to get some shut-eye.”
But as he headed to his room, I murmured, “We didn’t do it in bed.”
His eyes, which were heavy with fatigue, widened, but I shoved him into his room. Last night was for us. Dean and me. And if there wasn’t going to be a repeat performance, I wanted to remember it the way it was and not have Richard’s input.
I slumped into the sofa, the TV remote in my hand. After the night of vigorous sex, I also needed sleep and pulled a blanket over my head.
15
Dean
“You’re being a dumb ass.” Monty waggled his finger at me. “You really didn’t give him your number?”
Because I hadn’t been beating myself up over that without his help.
“Listen, Monty. I know you are trying to help with my love life and all that, but what I really need help with is this potential client.” I finished scanning the last two pictures. I planned to take it all with me, but having it on my laptop while I took the red eye would give me time to make sure I wasn’t missing something.
When they called wanting a final proposal, I took what my father had said to heart and booked a plane ticket. If they wanted a fancy shmancy company to give them 3D presentations and soundtracks written just for them, they’d have sent files in the typical fashion and had multiple teleconferences by now. No. They wanted the personal touch, they wanted someone who worked in a similar fashion to the way they did, which was out of the box and possibly not in the same room as said box even.
And that meant if I was going to get them on board, I needed to get my butt to them and run my presentation the same way they would, and I felt so close to understanding them that a plane ride it was.
My boss wasn’t too pleased at my desire to just run off until I gave him a very barebones outline of my plan. Little did he know that it was the entirety of my plan.
“How could you not hear him get out of bed and leave?” Monty slammed a file down in front of me as he scolded me, yet again. Not that I didn’t deserve it. I had fucked up—royally.
“Shhhh, that is very much not for the masses, thank you very much.” The last thing I needed was for the entire staff to hear about my sexcapades, or from the way things were sounding, my future lack thereof.
“Fine,” he whispered, pushing the folder my way. I grabbed it and added it to my pile of things that needed to be going with me if I was going to make this work. “How could you not hear him get out of bed?”
Because he wore me out and I barely managed to get Stu his medicine on time even with my alarm sounding louder and louder with each beep thanks to my new app. I figured it best to leave that part out.
“I was exhausted and sleeping next to him had me sleeping soundly.” Sounder than I remembered sleeping in eons. There was something about being next to his warmth and blanketed in his scent that had me completely relaxed, something that never happened. Gods, I wanted to recapture that feeling.
“Except he wasn't next to you.” Monty tsked.
“Fine.” What was the sense in arguing? “Because I am the world's worst alpha. Does that make you happy?” The truth bomb slammed into me. I was the world’s dumbest alpha. I had a chance at the one that got away and what do I go and do? I ruined it by not getting a number or saying the right thing or making him feel special enough. I didn’t even know with the amount of brain space the predicament was currently occupying.
“No, you not being a dumbass would make me happy.” I looked up to see his face softened. He truly was looking out for me and not just being pushy the way my parents tended to be. For him it wasn’t about earning bragging rights and pictures of cute babies, it was about making two people happy. “He’s such a nice guy.”
“I know.” He was so much more than that. But nice guy worked. “I’ve known him forever, remember?”
“Which makes it off the page of a Hallmark movie script.”
“Except he left before we got our happy ever after.”
“And you never got his number...don’t blame that all on him—or me. Maybe he had something important. Maybe he had work?”
“He teaches public school—they don’t have classes on Saturday.” How I wished they did because work was a good excuse for leaving at the butt crack of dawn without a word. Any other excuses I could come up with all led back to He’s not that into me and I didn’t like that path at all.
“He might do exam prep for college entrance exams?”
“And he might have been saving kittens out of trees around the city.” When all else failed, add sarcasm to mask the hurt.
“No need to be fresh.”
“No need to make me feel worse than I do,” I countered. Monty was right, however. “Sorry.”
“Accepted.” He put his hand on my arm. “What more do you need me to do for your trip?”
And just like that the discussion switched to the twenty things I needed to get done before my flight.
But this was my one chance to prove myself. I’d set the stakes high when I proposed the trip upon walking in that morning, practically guaranteeing that this would seal the deal. If it didn’t—if I failed—chances were good that the new position they created for me would “no longer be necessary”. I’d seen them do it before. It made it easy for them to let long-time employees go with a simple layoff as opposed to the normal ugliness.
Why did I accept this position again? Oh yeah, because I worked my ass off to get here and anything else would be a failure in my eyes.
I was beginning to think that my focus on success had me missing the true successes of life. That, however, was something to ponder another day. I had a client to sign.
16
Jesse
It’s amazing how life goes on. The sun rises, people get up and go to work or school, they go home, eat, sleep and the cycle starts again. And as the world spins, it ignores people’s heartbreak. Life puts one foot in front of the other and marches forward—or perhaps it goes around and around in circles.
That’s what I was doing—the going-around-in-circles thing. I’d wake up and think I was over Dean, but by the end of the day as night fell and the sh
adows grew close, I’d come home, drown my sorrows with a couple of beers, and head to bed. Sleep was my escape from the pain of a broken heart.
But Dean invaded my dreams, and I tossed and turned until it was time to get up and do it again.
I had stopped obsessively checking my phone. Sometimes an hour went by before I looked at the blank screen. But one morning as I was flinging clothes from a drawer searching for a clean pair of underwear, I discovered an old photo under a pile of mismatched socks.
I sank onto the bed and whimpered as though I’d been kicked in the guts. Mom had taken it one afternoon when Dean and I had arrived at my place with our heads together, discussing something or other. It had been a beautiful day and the sun highlighted blonde streaks in Dean’s dark hair.
As I traced my fingers over the picture in the hope I’d connect with the alpha, a single tear trickled over one cheek. The light hadn’t gone out of me in that photo as it had done recently. Each morning and even when I stared at myself in the bathroom mirror, my face was pale with shadows under my eyes.
But finding that link to a past-me got me thinking. No matter what had happened between Dean and me, I wanted to share that photo with him. It showed a friendship that I treasured.
I made a copy and bought a nice frame—one I thought would match Dean’s decor. I was tempted to take the gift to him myself, but chickened out. Luckily I remember his address. I mailed it and waited. That should get a reaction from him even if it’s not the one I want. But, if I was honest, I was also sending it to him to get a response about our night together.
When I didn’t hear from him regarding the gift, it struck me, instead of a new beginning, this was the end. No, it was an end. Not the end. A low point in my life to be sure, but one I could recover from. That’s what I told myself.
One morning as I stepped into the shower before work, my phone beeped with a message that a meeting had been postponed, and after reading it, I slid my finger over the red ‘delete’ option. Social media didn’t appeal to me. I appeared on the school website but not much else. But I wondered if Dean was a frequent user.
Forgetting about getting clean, my finger hovered over a popular app, and the image of a stalker sitting in his basement, tracking his former classmates and colleagues, hit me.
I’m not doing this to get something from him.
Then why are you doing it? To see if he has a partner? A lover? A boyfriend?
No!
I convinced myself I wanted to make sure he was alive, having not heard a peep from him. Perhaps he’d had a heart attack after our sexual escapades. It was my civic duty. Who am I kidding?
I typed in his name: Dean Brooks. Not surprisingly, there were many people by that name. But air was sucked out of my lungs as I scanned the column of photos showing one Dean after another. The pic he’d used as his profile wasn’t a recent one. Like the one I’d sent him, it was taken in high school. By me!
After finishing rehearsal, he’d come to the football field to watch the last ten minutes of my game. I’d told him how important it was as there were college football scouts swarming the campus and how I played might determine my future.
Dean had hauled his school bag and violin case with him and cheered as I scored a touchdown. Afterwards, I’d insisted on taking his photo. This was well before smart phones, and he’d brought his camera as it hadn’t occurred to me to commemorate the event with a photo.
I wasn’t sure how long I stood in the bathroom as memories came flooding back. But it was enough to make me late for school. Thank God I had a spare period first up. And as I sat in the school staff room, sipping tepid coffee, I scrolled through Dean’s feed.
There were the usual photos of family, Stu, and the renovations on his house, but the most recent ones were not tagged here in town. He was halfway across the country.
I stood up and shoved my chair back so hard it toppled onto the floor.
“You okay, Jesse?” a teacher at the next table asked.
“Yeah, sorry. Just remembered I have to do something.” I was tempted to dance on the table, but it wasn’t strong enough. As I raced into the corridor, the words replayed over and over in my head. He’s away. He’s away.
Locking myself in a janitor’s closet, I studied more of the photos Dean had posted in the last few days. Alphas and omegas in suits at what appeared to be at a cocktail party. The same group at dinner and yet another with Dean and another alpha shaking hands and exchanging a sheaf of papers. Work. Business. Deals.
He wasn’t off gallivanting around the world with a special someone, he was working. But the trip had started days after we slept together. And he hadn’t bothered to get in touch. My snooping hadn’t solved anything—except relieving my jealousy—though it may explain why he hadn’t reacted to the photo I’d sent.
And if Dean had searched my social media accounts, he would have seen nothing except a profile pic. Mine were locked, with only a handful of followers. But judging by his busy lifestyle, he probably hadn’t bothered. He’s not interested.
17
Dean
“Thank you for letting me get Stu. I know you are closed.” It wasn’t even close to the kennel’s normal business hours, but I’d booked their “cat suite” for two weeks and offered them extra to let me pick him up when I got home, and by some miracle and a couple of zeros, they agreed.
“He was a good boy,” the vet student who worked at the kennel said as he unlocked the suite. The look Stu gave him said anything but. Or maybe it was me he was giving side-eye to.
It was probably me. I’d left him there a few times, and he liked it a lot more than when I had someone come to the house. Of course I based that solely on how long it took him not to be a shithead to me once I got home and not much else.
“Daddy’s here,” I knelt down and held out my hand and he gave me a judgy look, but trotted on over and I scratched behind his ears. “Any seizure activity?” It was a huge part of the reason why I picked this kennel out of all of them. Most of their employees were somehow connected to the vet school and that made for some comfort given his condition.
“None. There was one day—I marked it on your paperwork—where he spaced out when we brought his food and we thought maybe, but other than that, all is good.”
I scooped up Stu and brought him to the carry case slung over my shoulder. Yes, it looked more like an oversized purse than a carrier, but I just couldn’t see putting him in a little cage.
“Your paperwork is on the counter in case you want to show it to your vet.” I slipped him a tip as I thanked him and said good-bye. It was overkill, but to get this kind of treatment, it was beyond worth it.
Funny how growing up I thought I would have an omega and a house full of kids by now, and instead I had a cat. I loved him to death, but he was hardly a replacement for a family.
Of course back then I thought thirty was old, so what did I know?
I drove home through the empty streets. It was nearing midnight and all I wanted was a hot shower, to be snuggled in my bed, and to hear the purr of my fur baby lulling me to sleep.
That was a lie. I wanted all of that and to have my arm wrapped around Jesse.
“Come on, Stu, let’s get you out of here.” I carefully unclipped his carrier from the seat—because yeah, I was that guy who used a seatbelt for my cat—and walked into the house and straight to the kitchen, where I set his carrier down on the counter and unzipped it, grabbing his favorite food at the same time.
“You hungry, buddy?” I wasn’t above bribing him. Not in the slightest.
He bolted out of the carrier and then threw his body into it, effectively knocking it off the counter.
“No worries, Stu, no more carrier for a long time.” Or so I hoped.
My meetings had gone extremely well, and by the time we did all the kumbaya stuff that had them thriving, we had a solid plan in place for marketing and they had signed on the dotted line. Truth be told, they probably didn’t need more than a cons
ultation. They had everything in their folders, they just needed someone to help them know what to do with it all and to compile it into a usable order.
The thing was, Alton, the owner, seemed to understand that he just needed a consultation and not an entire firm, yet he signed on board saying that we should be rewarded for giving the company what they hadn’t had. Based on quite a few conversations that took place at both casual and formal events and meetings throughout the past couple of weeks, that was typical Alton. In a world where big business was so often built on the sweat of others, it was nice to see a company that worked so differently. Most likely that was the key to their booming success.
It gave me a lot to think about.
Stu ate as I stowed away his carrier. Sadly, he’d be in it again in a couple of days for a trip to the vet. If all went well he could be partially weaned from his medication.
He came up to me, rubbing against my leg. “You want to go to bed, little man, don’t you?” He just kept rubbing around me. “Let me just look through the mail first.”
I asked the usual cat sitter to grab my mail daily in place of watching Stu while I was gone. It was easier than putting a hold on the mail and kept his income steady. I glanced at the basket in the foyer—the overflowing basket.
“It may take a while.” I sighed as I grabbed it and brought it to my coffee table. In a day and age when most bills were paperless, I still managed to get a ton of mail. Fliers for stores, political ads, more credit card offers and internet providers than I knew existed, and the odd “real” mail, meaning something I cared about. By the time I reached the bottom of the basket, that “real” pile consisted of one real estate tax assessment, an invitation to a charity event for the local vet school, and one bill from the garbage collectors who were trapped in the last century and still sent everything via mail. Not too bad.
Love at Blind Date Complete Series: Books 1-4 Page 6