Stu jumped in the basket. Had it been a paper grocery bag he’d have been in there as I was emptying it out, which was the reason I purchased said basket in the first place. I’d been to the paper bag rodeo and preferred to avoid it.
“Get on out of there, buddy.” I picked him up and noticed he was sitting on a slim package that had fit almost perfectly into the bottom of the basket, “Oh look at you, letting me know I had more mail.” I set him down and picked up the small box. I didn’t recognize the address and there was no name.
I pulled the cord for opening it and slid out something wrapped in first bubble wrap, then newspaper. A frame. Turning it over, I gasped. No. Not just a frame, a picture.
A picture of Jesse and me. Nothing more. Not a note. Not a phone number. Just a memory of the day he told me he was going to college on the other side of the country from me, squashing any hopes of us somehow getting together once we were away from our hometown and our hometown expectations.
I didn’t tell him that day, that I’d been accepted to my first choice, scared that if I did I wouldn’t see the sadness I was trying to hide from my eyes echoed in his, that he wouldn’t care that we wouldn’t see each other any more, that he would possibly even be relieved.
Looking at it now, the picture his mother took on the sly, showed me so much more than that; it showed me his joy, sure, but also the way he leaned into me so. Why had I never seen that before? Because you weren’t looking, already having decided ahead of time what he thought, dumbass.
“Let’s go to bed, Stu. I need to go see Monty tomorrow and figure out which place belongs to my omega.” For one glance at that photo told me if I didn’t do that, I’d regret it for the rest of my life.
18
Jesse
The house is a mess. I glanced around the living room and then peered at myself in a mirror. And so am I. Bloodshot eyes from lack of sleep and hollows in my cheeks as I’d lost interest in food. The first I could deal with straight away by cleaning and tidying up. The second would take a while.
And as for my heart, well, those tiny cracks may never heal.
Richard had arrived home at dawn, and not bothering to change his clothes, had collapsed on his bed with his legs spreadeagled. I closed his bedroom door hoping the vacuum cleaner wouldn’t wake him.
Though the living room was cluttered with dirty clothes, empty takeout containers, newspapers and magazines, it was an easier fix than the bathroom. Being a small house, Richard and I shared the bathroom, and I wasn’t looking forward to dealing with it.
After twenty minutes of work, the living area looked halfway decent, apart from the burn marks on the carpet and the ratty old sofa. I swigged mouthfuls of water in preparation for the task ahead.
Arming myself with rubber gloves, spray cleaner, a bucket, and clean rags, I headed to the bathroom. Staring around the small space, I wasn’t sure where to start. Maybe I could leave it for Richard. But while he was fastidious about cleanliness at the hospital, he was a slob at home. Okay. I can do this.
But as I was about to attack the sink, a movement across the road caught my eye. I stared out the window and froze. It can’t be. It’s my imagination playing tricks.
A guy who looked suspiciously similar to Dean was headed up the path of the house opposite. Monty’s house. And he had a gift bag in his hand. What the fuck? Of all the streets, he had to choose mine.
I’d given up searching Dean’s social media. It left me feeling icky trawling through his posts and enlarging pics. I’d spent hours at night instead of sleeping refreshing every social media account he had.
But now he’d arrived in my neighborhood bearing gifts. Confused thoughts ricocheted around my head.
He’s home. Obviously.
And he’s bringing a present for someone. A sick someone? Marty?
No, a get-well present wouldn’t be in a pink bag with hearts all over it.
Pink hearts are dead to me.
Damn! Monty must have set him up again. And they’ve invited the guy to their place.
The freaking nerve. Doing it for an omega in my street. Is he deliberately trying to rub my face in it?
I leaned over the sink hoping I wasn’t going to be sick. But the Dean I knew would never be cruel. Perhaps he was unaware this was where I lived, though I did explain Monty was a neighbor.
It was abrupt and painful and crushed my dreams, but now there were no more what ifs. I hope you treat him well, lucky omega, whoever you are. The occupants of the house next door to Monty had just moved in according to Richard. Maybe it was one of them. I hated them or him already.
But as I leaned against the cold porcelain sink and wrinkled my nose at the state of floor and shower, I knew exactly how to get rid of my aggression. Sorry, bathroom. You’re gonna get it.
I tackled the sink as though I was going into battle. The faucets too. And by the time I was done, I could see my reflection in the silver metal. I’d leave the floor until last, but after arming myself with a long-handled brush and a medical mask from a box belonging to Richard, I tackled the toilet.
With my outstretched arm holding the brush, I challenged the toilet to a duel. “En garde.” I cupped my ear. “Huh? What’s that? You’ve got nothing to say? Well, take that!” I sprayed and cleaned inside the bowl. “Ready to give up? No, you say? Big mistake.”
After more scrubbing, I asked, “Surrender?” But that toilet was made of stern stuff, and I tackled it a third time as I groaned, “Touché. One point to you.”
As I scrubbed, I pictured a sexy omega, shirt off accepting Dean’s gift. Damn him. There was more vigorous cleaning as my overly vivid imagination showed my high-school friend dragging the omega to him and grinding his hips.
That toilet had never been so clean. “Give up?”
But as the toilet refused to yield, the doorbell rang. “Trying to divert my attention, are you? I’ll be back,” I shouted. As I headed to the door, it occurred to me the fumes had gone to my head. I’ve been battling a toilet.
Still in war mode, I flung open the door, my mask in place and waving the toilet brush around, I yelled, “Your money or your life!”
The alpha in front of me sank to his knees. “You may take either if I get to see you again.”
“Huh?”
“You are adorable. The toilet brush is a nice touch, but could you stop waving it in front of me?” He made a face. “It’s kinda gross.”
“Oh right. Sorry.” I hid it behind my back.
“And I’m not contagious.”
I’d forgotten about the mask, and I flung it on the floor. Why is he here?
“You’re a difficult omega to find.”
“What?”
“You heard me, Jesse. I’ve been looking for you.”
“You haven’t looked very hard,” I huffed. “I’ve been right here. But you’ve been flitting around here, there, and everywhere.” Shit! Now he knows I’ve been stalking him on social media. “I mean, as someone in your position who does a lot of traveling, I assume you’ve been traveling.” Shut up, Jesse.
He raised a brow and smirked. God I hated that. All the things I’d planned to say if I ever saw him again vanished.
Dean tapped his lips. “That dinner where I wore the red tie was rather special.”
I blurted out, “Yeah, I liked it. But thought the blue one was better.” And now I’ve confirmed my stalking.
“And why are you giving me a hard time when you disappeared? I woke up and you were gone. No goodbye. No phone number. No ‘last night was the best sex I’ve ever had and I’d like to see you again.’”
I tried to process the words spilling from his mouth, but as I took in the shadows under his eyes that matched my own, I muttered, “Not true.”
19
Dean
When I’d knocked on Monty’s door, my heart beating in my chest, it was Marty, not Monty who answered. He laughed and laughed as I told him my predicament, which turned to me pouting and him laughing some more.
>
One cup of tea and a heartfelt conversation later, and he had me laughing at myself as well. I’d been such an idiot for so long, and showing up with a bag that shouted Valentine’s Day clearance as a way to woo someone who didn’t know I was coming did deserve a laugh or two.
“The thing you need to understand, Dean, is that love has nothing to do with anything other than love. You can’t logic your way around it, through it, or even into understanding it. It just is,” he said as he added another sugar to his tea. “That is where the two of you are fools.”
“The two of us?” I asked very much fishing for information. I had no shame and had every intention of wooing my omega before the sun set, and if that meant encouraging the gossip of an old man I was all for it.
“Yes, the two of you. I saw that picture, you know—when I stopped by to bring Richard a letter of his that had been accidentally delivered here. It was lying on the coffee table in a frame that caught my eye, and being the nosey old man I am I picked it up and was shocked to see Jesse so young and so in love.”
Is that what he saw? Because the longer I looked at it, the more I convinced myself that I did too, but I was looking so hard trying to find it. Marty had no reason to do the same. To him Jesse was a neighbor and I was his husband’s co-worker and that was that.
“We were so young.”
“And what did I say about love?” He waggled his finger in the same exact way Monty did, and I held in a giggle. It was so easy to see why the two of them were a couple—so very much the same while at the same time being completely different. Yin and yang or whatever. They just worked.
I wanted that.
Could I have that? With each passing moment I believed I could with more conviction than with the last.
“That we can’t understand it.”
“Yes, but I meant the first part.” He took out his wallet and opened it up, pulling out a picture and handing it to me. I didn’t know people still did that. “Love has nothing to do with anything other than love.”
I took the picture, looking down to see Marty with—not Monty. They had their arms around each other, and if they were seventeen I’d be surprised.
“I don’t get it.”
“That is Daniel, my first love. When he drowned, I swore I would never love again, and I didn’t until I met Monty. And you know what people said?”
“That you were lucky?”
“Nope. They said, I never loved Daniel if I could fall so quickly in love with another man. That somehow my love for the one, negated the love for the other. But the thing is, that’s not how love works.”
Monty walked in behind, a bag of groceries in his one hand. “Love is just love.” He walked over to his husband and kissed him on the head. “Talking about Daniel?” Not a bit of jealousy or anything other than sweetness in his tone and mannerisms.
“Teaching the boy a lesson.”
Monty sat beside Marty, dropping the bag to the ground and kissing his cheek. “
“He is so foolish,” Marty added.
“He brought a gift.” Monty pointed to my gift bag, the one I now felt entirely too self-conscious of.
“In a clearance Valentine’s Day bag.” Marty chuckled. He wasn’t helping.
“It wasn’t clearance. And He is right here.” I pointed to myself and the two of them began to giggle again. What was it about me they found so humorous aside from my inability to figure out the whole dating thing? Fine. I deserved their mirth.
“When He should be getting his omega back.” Marty said that like I ever had him. But I planned to.
“I came here to do that, but I don’t know which house is his.” They directed me to Jesse’s house, and after a few deep breaths and a literal push out the door, I headed over there, pink bag and all.
When I rang the doorbell, I anticipated a few possible outcomes; Jesse not being home. Jesse being home but telling me to leave. Jesse’s roommate answering it and telling me to leave. Safe to say in the few seconds from when the doorbell rang and the door flew open that I was a half-empty kind of guy.
Nowhere in my wildest imagination could I have dreamt up the sight in front of me. Dean wearing a mask, gloves, and donning a toilet brush sword. He was so freaking adorable I didn’t even factor into things the grossness of the brush at first. And then he admitted to seeing my social media, or pretended not to admit it, and my heart began to well up. I’d looked for him online—of course I had—but I came up with nothing. Made sense given his occupation, but I wanted something to go by as I inadvertently gave him a ton. Or maybe I was putting the pictures up there in the hopes he would see them? I didn’t have time to even think about that, not when he answered my statement about him sneaking out on me the way he had.
“Not true.” What the heck did that even mean?
“Explain.”
“I left a note. Not a note, my number and a call me, but a note...on the nightstand.”
Stu had a tendency to mess with loose paper, so odds were good that was what happened and I’d find it next time I moved the bed. Even though I liked the place neat and tidy, the bed was heavy, and I didn’t move it every time I cleaned.
No part of Jesse felt deceptive. That didn’t mean I had a clue as to what was going on.
“It wasn’t there, maybe the cat got it, but that doesn’t answer—I mean—where did you go?” I had so many questions, and this was hardly the place for them, but it would have to do.
“I don’t know where it went.” He took a half step forward and stopped mid-step and settled his foot back on the ground. “I had to go to work. Saturday School.”
“Saturday School? They still do detentions on Saturday?” He nodded. “That sucks. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“You looked so sexy lying there sound asleep.”
“You called me sexy.” I closed the distance between us, ignoring his attire. I just needed to feel his warmth, to inhale his scent, the smell of cleaning spray almost masking it, but not quite.
“You know you are.” He bit his lip, and I instantly became jealous of his tooth for making contact with the plump flesh.
“I know you are...Does that count, babe?” I let my lips graze his. “I got your present. I love it.” I’d worry about the phone number thing later. All I could think about was tasting him, holding him, and getting his digits in my phone.
“I made one for me too,” he confessed, and all I could do in response was to seal my mouth to his.
20
Jesse
“The toilet brush is a nice touch. Should I add a pic to social media?” Dean suggested as he pulled away. “Get it framed? Put it in a memory box?”
I rolled my eyes and raced outside.
“Was it something I said?” he asked
“Mmmm.” After dumping the gloves and brush in the garbage, I headed for the bathroom. Dean grabbed my damp T-shirt, but I wriggled out of his grasp. “I’m filthy. Let me wash up.”
“Ewww, you’re right.”
“Hey, it’s not as though I stuck my head in the toilet.”
Blood drained from his face. “I hope not.”
Is Dean a germaphobe? I could have fun with that, but not today. I wanted to feel him, touch him, and maybe the pair of us could get naked.
I tore off my shirt and scrubbed my hands and arms. When I caught sight of myself in the mirror, my hair was sticking out at all angles, but there was a lightness to the way I held myself. Heartbreak was no longer weighing heavy on my shoulders. Nothing’s sorted yet. Don’t get ahead of yourself.
Dean came up behind me and rubbed himself against me. He ground his cock over my ass, causing slick to stream from my hole. The overwhelming pungent aroma filled the tiny bathroom.
I stared at his reflection in the mirror as he gave me a come-hither look. “Perhaps I can help you get clean.” He pushed me into the small shower stall, and with my back against the tiles, he leaned over me.
Expecting him to kiss me, I closed my eyes, but instead he placed his
lips on my throat. He sucked and licked and then nibbled the tender flesh as he palmed my dick. “I missed you. Missed this,” I whispered.
“Me too.” His voice quivered.
I grabbed his ass and pulled him against me. As his teeth pierced my skin, I yelped, and he pulled away. “Sorry. Too much?”
“No,” I panted. “It was a surprise.” And here’s another. I turned on the shower and cold water flowed over us.
It was Dean’s turn to yell. “Jesus fucking Christ, Jesse. Are you trying to kill me?”
“Nah,” I adjusted the temperature until it was nice and warm. “Even though it wasn’t your fault you didn’t see my note, that’s my petty, childish way of getting back at you for my weeks of agony.” I could have asked Monty for his phone number, so I was partly to blame.
I slammed my mouth on his as the water teemed over our heads and shoulders, flattening hair to my scalp. I pulled away and yelled over the pounding of the water, “I’m venting my frustration and I’m sorry. Forgive me.”
Water splashed into my eyes, and I blinked it away, but droplets forced their way back in. We may have a crappy house, but there was nothing wrong with the water pressure. With his drenched hair sticking to his brow, Dean pushed me against the wall, his eyes dark pools of lust and desire. His mouth was on mine, while his hand pulled my shorts over my hips.
He licked around my mouth before nibbling my lower lip. I moaned and his tongue plunged inside. With his chest pressed against mine, his tongue flicked my own.
And I was ready. We began a duel. Our tongues twisted and entwined, we groaned and panted as water poured over our faces, and I fumbled with Dean’s zipper. But my slippery hands couldn’t grasp the pull tab, and I grunted in frustration.
“Forget it,” Dean mumbled and turned off the water before kissing my chest and sliding to the floor. “I wanna finish what I started weeks ago.”
Love at Blind Date Complete Series: Books 1-4 Page 7