7. Chapter Seven
Chapter Seven
19 years old
“ U mph,” I grunted as Cooper barreled into me just as I’d walked inside the front door. He wrapped his arms around me and squeezed me so tight I was a little worried I might pop.
“I missed you,” he mumbled into my hair.
“Missed you, too. But. Breathing. Essential,” I gasped.
“Sorry.” He looked sheepish.
Behind him, Mom and Abbie waited patiently for their more civilised forms of affection.
“I’m gonna fatten you up so good,” Abbie said, leading me towards the kitchen, which smelled amazing.
I’d arrived on Christmas Eve and planned to leave the day after Boxing Day under the guise that there was a New Year’s Eve party that I was dying to get back for.
In reality, though, it was damage control. I needed minimal opportunity to see Axel because I knew it would set me back to square one.
For the first time in my life, I was almost content to be on my own. I dated alphas here and there, but mostly, I spent time with my best friends, Iqra and George.
We’d met back in June at a creative writing course and had quickly become inseparable, even changing our accommodation at the last minute so the three of us could share during our second year. I felt a sense of belonging with them that I’d never really experienced before. I knew that if I could survive the next few days here relatively unscathed, that when I left, I’d have them there to pick me back up again. They knew all about my lifetime spent pining for Axel, after all.
Christmas Eve turned out to be much better than I’d anticipated. We all drank lots of mulled wine while Abbie plied us with endless amounts of her festive culinary creations.
Christmas Day was more of the same, only with a game of Settlers of Catan that nearly had us all prepared to kill each other.
That night, stuffed full of turkey and wine, I’d fallen asleep with a smile on my face, actually happy to be home surrounded by my family.
Over breakfast on boxing day, Cooper said, “Axel’s coming over today if you want to hang out with us?”
I chewed on my food slowly, buying myself a bit of time. I’d come prepared for this eventuality.
“Actually, Adam’s home and I said I’d see him before I leave tomorrow.”
“So you won’t see Axel at all while you’re back, then?”
“Yeah, no. Probably not. He’s your friend, Coop. Not mine.”
Cooper frowned at that. “I mean, obviously, he’s my friend, but you’ve known him basically your whole life. It’s not like he’s a random stranger.”
“I’m sure I’ll see him plenty when I’m back over the summer; don’t sweat it,” I said and quickly cleared away my plate so I could escape Cooper’s scrutinising gaze.
“ If you come back this summer,“ Coop muttered under his breath when I’d made it as far as the door. I ignored him and continued on.
“Hey, little omega. It’s good to see you,” Adam said, wrapping me in a giant bear hug. I took a deep breath; I’d missed his smell.
“Hey, stranger.”
Inside Adam’s house, I said a quick hello to his family before following him down to the basement, which was sort of a hangout spot. It had a sofa, a big TV and a pool table for entertainment. There was also a mini fridge in the corner where Adam pulled out two beers.
“Want one?” he asked, holding it out.
I nodded, and he popped the lid off before passing it to me.
“Been anywhere since you got back for Christmas?” I asked once we’d taken a seat on the sofa.
He was immediately suspicious. “No… why?”
“Interesting.”
“Why’s that interesting?”
“Just wondering how you got that giant hickey on your neck if you’ve only been here for the last week.”
Adam slapped a hand to his neck, covering the red mark as if that would erase the fact I’d seen it. A bloom of red spread over his cheeks.
“How many minutes do you think we’ll have until Lei comes down here ‘looking’ for something?” I asked, laughing at Adam’s crimson face. “And don’t bother lying to me about who gave you the love bite, hun.”
“On a scale of one to ten, how likely is it that my dad has also seen this but was just too polite to mention it?”
“Ten,” I replied before taking a big gulp of beer. “Ooo, and I think that was four minutes,” I added when Lei’s head appeared around the door.
“I needed… to fetch a beer. These ones are my favourite,” Lei said, grabbing a bottle of the most generic brand of beer you could imagine.
Despite it being December and therefore fucking freezing, Lei was wearing a hoodie with the sleeves cut off. Don’t get me wrong, Lei had nice arms; he was unusually stocky and built for an omega, but the ‘gun show’ was clearly for Adam’s benefit.
“You don’t need to pretend, Lei. He knows.” Adam raked his hand over his face as Lei stood there with his mouth hanging open.
I mimed zipping my lips shut and sat with a shit-eating grin for once enjoying the fact that Adam’s love life was the messy one. Step-brother indeed.
It was late when I got home that night, and everyone was asleep. I had to take a moment to centre myself when I could smell Axel’s scent, where it clung to the walls as if to taunt me.
After tossing and turning in bed for a while, I got up and headed to the kitchen to make a cup of tea and nab a few of the last remaining biscuits from Abbie’s mass baking.
Just as I was pouring the hot water into my mug, I heard the soft sound of feet padding down the stairs.
Cooper appeared, looking sleepy with his messy brown hair sticking up at all angles.
“Thought I heard you get up,” he said.
“Tea?”
“Sure.”
I grabbed a second mug and once the tea bags had brewed enough, poured a generous splash of milk into each. Placing them both on the dining table, I took a seat opposite Cooper and watched as he gingerly took a sip.
“Why are you avoiding Axel?” Cooper asked.
I bristled, preparing to deny that fact but finding I didn’t really have the energy to.
“I… It’s complicated,” I said, and Cooper nodded.
“I thought… I thought it was just a childish crush. I didn’t realise… Never thought it ran that deep.” Cooper stared into his mug of tea like it held the answers to the universe. All the while, my heartbeat sped faster than a rabbit’s.
He eventually looked up, and what he saw in my eyes seemed to break through an invisible barrier between us. My eyes were stinging with the effort of holding back tears, and my brother got up from his chair to move next to me before pulling me into a hug.
“I’m sorry I didn’t acknowledge it before now. I won’t push you to see him again,” he whispered into the top of my head.
I broke down crying at that because while I wasn’t sure if my heart could take seeing Axel, I wasn’t sure it could take the idea of never seeing him again either.
“He does miss you, though. I hope you know that you don’t mean nothing to him. You’re like his—“
”—Don’t. Don’t say it,“ I interrupted him.
I didn’t think I could take hearing out loud from Axel’s best friend that he’d only ever seen me as his little brother.
When to me, he was everything.