by Aiden Bates
“Smells good,” a voice called out from the archway of the kitchen just as the bacon started to sizzle in the pan.
I turned to find Derek in a Johnny Cash t-shirt and the slacks he’d shown up in, barefoot and rubbing the sleep from his eyes.
“Funny,” I admitted. “In those slacks and fancy shoes of yours, I kinda figured you for a vegan.”
“Me? God, no. I like bacon just as much as the next man, I’m afraid. The fancy shoes are leather.”
“No soy milk in your coffee either, then?”
He laughed, coming up beside me and leaning up against the counter. “I take it black if you’re offering.”
I poured him a cup before I turned back to the bacon. Not quite crispy yet—it’d need a bit longer before I could flip it.
“You sleep okay?” I asked, making small-talk.
“Would’ve slept better if I’d been able to honor our agreement.”
I chuckled. I’d wondered if he’d even remember that. “Doubt that’s true. Seems to me you got a good night’s sleep on the couch without me kicking you onto the floor.”
“Did I sleep through the alarm or something?” His cheeks were lightly flushed again. Cute. “I really didn’t mean to put you out, Kaleb.”
“Nah. I turned it off the second you knocked out. You snooze, you lose.”
“Ugh. Asshole.” Derek eyed the bacon with one eyebrow raised. “You wanna flip that? It’s gonna burn.”
“It’ll be fine,” I assured him. “If you don’t give it time to caramelize, it ends up all soggy and—”
“Wet,” a voice growled from down the hall—quiet, but not quite quiet enough. “You’re so fuckin’ wet, Nick—that’s it, come here, back that hot, firm ass of yours up on me—”
“Oh, fuck, Harper! God, yeah, give it to me—Christ, you’re fucking huge!”
Derek and I shared a look. I grimaced, but he looked about ready to crack up.
“Good to see that your brother’s helping Nick through his pregnancy with such… enthusiasm.” Derek sipped at his coffee, eyes sparkling with a laugh he obviously knew better than to let out.
“Enthusiasm is one word for it. Rampant horniness is probably more accurate, though.” As the sound of Harper and Nick’s headboard banging against the wall began to echo down the hall, I finally flipped the bacon and cocked my head toward the living room. “Wanna turn on the TV, try to drown out the sound of my brother getting laid for a little while?”
“Just don’t let that bacon burn,” Derek said, grinning like a bastard all the way out.
I lingered in the archway as Derek fumbled with the remote, eventually figuring out how to turn on the television and Nick’s DirectTV subscription both. It was still too early for talk shows, but I watched a soft news piece about the Omega VP’s latest wardrobe scandal (a tan suit instead of blue or navy? Lord have mercy!) over Derek’s shoulder for a little bit.
Just for long enough to fuck up breakfast.
“Hey, Kaleb…” Derek sniffed the air as he turned to look up at me from the couch. “I don’t want to be a nag or anything, but…”
I smelled the air too, immediately realizing what had gone wrong. “The bacon. Fuck!”
Derek and I both raced back into the kitchen, only to find the first round of bacon shriveled up into dark, scorched crisps. I growled in frustration as I plucked them out of the pan with a pair of tongs and placed them on a plate to the side.
“I told you to watch them,” Derek reminded me, smug.
“Yeah, well…” I furrowed my brow, trying to think of a snappy comeback, but none came. Seemed that Derek had burned me just as bad as I’d burned the bacon. “I’m the worst cook in the King family, to tell you the truth. Harper can string together pasta okay, and Rusty can do chicken like nobody’s business, but—”
“Rusty?” Derek blinked as he shouldered me away from the pan, placing strips of bacon down with care. “How many of you King boys are there?”
“Just the four of us.” It took me a second to realize that wasn’t true anymore. I shook my head as I started cracking eggs into a bowl. “I mean, three, now that Josh…”
“I’m sorry, Kaleb,” Derek said genuinely. “Didn’t your Omega dad teach you how to cook, though? Or your mom?”
“Omega dad.” Another touchy topic—Derek had a way of finding those. “He died when Josh was born. Rough pregnancy. That’s why Harper’s being so grumpy about Nick’s salt cravings—they don’t want him veering into hypertension and winding up with preeclampsia.”
“Smart man. Sorry to hear about your dad, though.”
“It happened a long time ago. Our Alpha dad taught us all how to grill okay, but…well. That’s probably a little much for breakfast, I reckon.”
Derek smiled gently as he brought the fresh bacon to a sizzle. “I’m honestly not all that great of a cook myself, you know. In the lab, maybe—you should see what I can do with a few disparate molecules. But out from under a microscope…”
“Maybe baking is more your thing.” I raised an eyebrow as Derek flipped the bacon—too soon. “That’s gonna get soggy, you know.”
A loud moan sounded from Nick and Harper’s room, followed by a higher, sharper one.
This time, Derek couldn’t help but laugh. “And wet, or so I hear. Mix the eggs and let me handle the stovetop, Smokey Bear. You lost your bacon privileges when you burned the first batch.”
We worked side by side for a little while, shuffling bowls and plates back and forth as Derek played fry cook to my sous-chef. It was bumpy—too many elbows ending up in each other’s ribs and more than a little shell in the scrambled eggs. Nick’s kitchen wasn’t small or anything, but it had been a while since I’d cooked with anyone. Judging by Derek’s own struggle with the spatula as I tried to pick out the eggshells with a pair of chopsticks, the same was true for him.
“Mm,” Harper moaned, finally coming out from the bedroom dressed in a plush navy robe. “Breakfast. Smells…”
He stopped, sniffed the air, and gave me a dubious look.
I only shrugged and grinned. “A true King never says no to a meal he hasn’t had to cook himself,” I reminded him.
“Yeah,” Harper agreed, “But he might hesitate when it’s being cooked by another King. Derek, you managing okay over there?”
Sweating at the frying pan, Derek was trying to flip the bacon again and slide the scrambled eggs onto a plate all at once. “Uh…yeah, I’m okay. Just gotta—”
“Here,” I said, stepping in to try and help.
“No, don’t—” Derek yelped.
“It’s fine—I’ve got it. Here—” But all I managed to do was add more chaos to an already messy set-up. The only way I could get my hands in to try and take something from him was to wrap my arms around him, leaning up against his back and barely taking the egg plate in time before it slipped from his fingers completely.
“Goodness,” Nick said, coming in wearing a matching bathrobe to Harper’s and wrapping his arms around Harper’s waist. “Looks like you two are getting pretty cozy in here.”
I stopped, sighed, and disentangled myself from Derek. Now we were both blushing. But while Derek might have bested my wit earlier, Nick didn’t have the same luck.
“Not as cozy as you and my brother were getting in the bedroom, from the sounds of things,” I grumbled as I placed the plate of eggs on the table.
Nick let out a soft laugh as he hugged Harper a little tighter. “Pregnancy hormones. Can’t be helped. This looks great, guys, thanks. Can’t wait to dig in.”
Derek, Harper and I all shared a look of disbelief as Nick plucked one of my overly crispy pieces of bacon up off the plate on the counter, then started plating up some of the overcooked-looking eggs. As Derek shot a glance at his own bacon in the pan, which looked just as unappetizing as my burned ones, I clapped him on the shoulder and shook my head.
“We’ll pick up something at the Sunaco on the way to Arlington General,” I offered, just as much for my o
wn sake as his.
“What’s at Arlington?” Nick asked, closing his eyes as he scarfed down the rest of his burned piece of bacon. “Mm. This is perfect, guys. Really delicious.”
“Seriously?” Harper asked, looking like his eyes were about to pop out of his head.
Nick merely grinned. “I like it a little burned. Good flavor. And these eggs—so crunchy! What’s in ‘em?”
“We’re going to go give Justin a visit. See if he’ll let us have access to some of his lab equipment,” I answered, grateful that Nick’s pregnancy cravings seemed to have turned off his entire sense of taste. At least someone would be able to enjoy the disaster of a meal Derek and I had whipped up.
I could see Harper’s eyes narrow at the mention of Justin’s name, but before he could say anything about it, Derek made the smart move of dismissing himself from the kitchen.
“If we’re headed out, I’m going to grab a shower first. That okay?”
“Towels in the cupboard next to the sink,” Nick chirped helpfully. “Use whatever shampoo and stuff is already in the shower—we can even get you a razor if you need.”
As Derek disappeared down the hall, Harper finally turned to me with a look on his face like he was about to give me an earful.
“Justin Carlisle, huh?” Harper crossed his arms over his chest, giving me his quintessential you sure that’s a good idea, bud? stare.
“It’s just a favor,” I said, tentatively plucking one of Derek’s bacon strips up out of the pan—then, with an unappetizing wiggle, I put it back where I found it.
“He might not see it that way,” Harper pointed out.
I rolled my eyes. “Our dads didn’t call you Harper for nothin’, huh?”
“I’m not harping on you, I’m pointing out the big gaping hole in your plan here.” Harper nodded down the hall. “You’ve got eyes. You know how that man looks, Kaleb.”
“Pretty dreamy,” Nick agreed, munching his way through another strip of burned bacon. “You could do worse.”
I squared my jaw at Harper. “So he’s good-lookin’. Sure. I can admit that. But what’s that got to do with asking Justin to use his lab equipment?”
Harper held his hands up like he was surrendering. “All I’m saying is that you bring Derek around there asking Justin for favors, he’s going to think you and our new chemist buddy are doing some pretty specific…experimenting together, catch my drift.”
“We’re investigating a national conspiracy and that’s where your mind goes?” I threw my hands in the air as well, raising my voice a little. “Look—nothin’s going on between Derek and me, and even if it was, why would Justin Carlisle care?”
“Maybe because Justin Carlisle is still carrying a torch for you and you know it?” Harper suggested.
“Who’s Justin Carlisle?” Nick piped up, looking confused.
“Kaleb’s ex,” Harper explained. “And if he sees you parading around a hot new Omega, he’s gonna shift that torch to his other hand so he can pick up a pitchfork along with it.”
“Justin and I are friends,” I corrected, speaking to Nick rather than Harper. “We dated for a while. It ended. He’s moved on by now and so have I.” Striding over to Harper, I gave him a firm poke in the chest, careful to avoid the places where he’d taken bullets just a few weeks ago. “And I don’t appreciate you pretending that Derek being hot means that—”
“Derek Stillwell, a disgruntled former employee of Bicroft Pharmaceuticals, has been implicated in a batch of intentionally misformulated birth control pills believed to be responsible for the strange outbreaks of uncontrollable Omega heat taking the country by storm from coast to coast. Caught on security tape entering the building on the morning of September 15—”
Harper and I shared an anxious look, then bounded into the living room, where a news report was playing on the television. As we watched the security footage of Derek unlocking a briefcase and pocketing the vial he’d shown me when he first arrived, a cold, metallic feeling settled into my stomach.
Dread.
“We’ll be cooperating with federal law enforcement to locate Mr. Stillwell for further questioning.” The report cut to a shot of the Reno chief of police, mustached and severe looking. “At the current time, however, we’re confident that we have enough evidence to file charges against him once he’s brought to justice.”
“Do you believe Mr. Stillwell to be dangerous?” a female field reporter asked.
“Incredibly,” the chief confirmed. “We believe he’s traveling east in a black Lexus. Anyone who believes they may have spotted Mr. Stillwell is urged not to engage with him. We ask that anyone with information on his whereabouts contact their local police immediately.”
“Oh,” Derek said softly from behind us.
He was standing in the mouth of the hallway, hair wet and messy, a towel wrapped around his waist. I could see definition in every muscle of his chest, his lightly tanned skin still beaded with water from the shower. Under any other circumstances, he would have looked like something out of a wet dream—but there was an appropriate fear in his eyes. Not surprise—he must have known that this day would come, even if it was coming a little earlier than expected. But fear, that was unavoidable.
Bicroft hadn’t just put a target on Derek’s back. They’d marked him as the source of any of their wrongdoings—and now, it wouldn’t just be the long arm of the law looking for him. It’d be every Omega in the country, their Alpha partners…
Everyone.
“Turn it off,” I instructed Nick, who dove for the remote with a sympathetic nod.
“Looks like we’ve got a timer on this now,” Harper pointed out. “You two should get dressed and get going.”
“Right. If this is going out on the national news already, it’ll be everywhere by the end of the day.” I locked eyes with Derek. “Ten minutes?”
He nodded, still looking a little dazed. “I’ll get dressed, then yeah. No time to lose.”
5
Derek
“I look like the Unabomber,” I grumbled, tugging the Carolina Panther’s cap I’d borrowed from Nick down a little lower and adjusting my shades as we entered the front doors of Arlington General and followed the signs pointing us to their labs.
“The Unabomber wore a hoodie,” Kaleb pointed out, leading us down a long, narrow hallway. “You just look like the kind of asshole who wears his sunglasses indoors.”
“Your sunglasses.” Kaleb had taken off his aviators and tossed them into my lap during the ride over. On him, they’d given off a state trooper vibe. Not to be fucked with. On me, not so much. “I look like a frat boy who’s trying to show up for class even though he smoked too much weed last night.”
“Good. Maybe people will be too busy trying to sniff you for pot to realize you’re a nationally wanted man,” Kaleb teased.
“Jesus, Kaleb—lower your voice, maybe?” I glanced over at a passing nurse, who gave me a suspicious look as she trudged back to the main part of the building. “We don’t exactly need to be broadcasting that right now, you know.”
“At least now I know your story checks out,” Kaleb said with a shrug.
“You do?”
“’Course I do. Bicroft wouldn’t have burned you like that if you were still one of their own. Looks like your enemies and mine really are in bed together after all.”
“That’s a relief then, I guess.”
I considered mentioning that meant that Kaleb and I were also in bed together as we worked against them—but then I thought better of it. Even if I had the energy to flirt at the moment—which I didn’t—Kaleb, handsome as he was, was not the kind of man I had any business flirting with. There was no ring on his finger, sure, but my life was complicated enough as it was. No need to go complicating it even more by throwing myself at the first Alpha who’d made me feel even a little bit safe since I’d left Reno.
The look on the face of the tech sitting at the lab’s front desk when Kaleb and I approached it only furt
her validated that decision.
“Kaleb King,” the Omega said, raising his eyebrows and immediately looking uncomfortable. “Haven’t seen you around here in a while.”
“Hey, Landon. How you doin’ these days?”
Landon sighed, running his fingers through his pale red hair and slapping a palm down on a stack of file folders. “Not bad—just busy. I don’t suppose you’re here to see…”
“Justin, yeah. He around today?”
Landon quirked an eyebrow. “He expecting you?”
“Nah—but I’m not here to cause trouble. Scout’s honor. He’ll see me if you call him.”
Landon didn’t look so sure about that, but he also didn’t look eager to argue with Kaleb. “No promises, but I’ll page him and see if he comes out.” Landon keyed some numbers into the desk phone, then glanced back up at Kaleb…then at me. “Who’s your, ah…friend, Kaleb?”
“Just a friend, Landon,” Kaleb assured him. “Like I said. Not here to cause trouble.”
“Your funeral.” Landon paused, then a flush passed over his face as something clicked in his head. “Shit—I mean…Sorry, man. Joshua—I wasn’t thinking and—”
Kaleb waved the bumbled apology away. “Not a big deal. We’ll wait out here, okay?”
“Yeah, sure thing.” Sufficiently embarrassed, Landon shuffled a stack of folders beneath his arm and disappeared behind the doors of the lab without another word.
“What was all that about?” I asked when Landon was finally out of earshot.
“Justin and I, ah…” Kaleb scratched his head, then shrugged. “We used to be an item. Long time ago. Water under the bridge now.”
Jesus. No wonder things felt so tense.
“You sure he’s going to want to see you? If my last ex showed up at my workplace…” I shuddered to even think about it. My last ex had been a card dealer in Vegas—with one hell of a gambling problem to boot. That was the thing about exes. They only seemed to show back up when they wanted something. In Chase’s case, it had always been for money.