Pin My Alpha (KnotMe #4)

2. Shay

Shay

“He didn’t stand you up,” Jude insists, leaning so far across the booth that Rhys has to hook two fingers in the collar of his shirt. “He had an emergency. His appendix exploded. He got attacked by bees.”

Benji stares at him, unimpressed. “Bees.”

“They could be aggressive bees,” Jude says. “He could be allergic.”

“Okay, first, rude,” I cut in. “Second, my date could be allergic to what, exactly? Showing up?”

“I’m just saying we don’t know the circumstances.”

“We know one circumstance,” Benji says. “He didn’t show.”

“Maybe his phone died,” Soren offers, his voice soft.

“His phone died,” Benji says, deadpan. “And then he was tragically mauled by a bear. That’s the only story I’ll accept.”

Jude opens his mouth, probably to invent a third emergency, and I hold up a hand. “I’m not calling him anything. Not a dickhead, not a flake, not a tragic victim of aggressive bees. He doesn’t exist.”

“That’s a very mature response,” Milo says.

I stare at him.

“It’s also a little concerning,” he adds. “For you, I mean.”

“It’s fine,” I say.

The table goes quiet. God, I hate that. That sudden, careful silence.

“I mean it.” I take a sip of my club soda. Even the lime tastes judgmental. “It was KnotMe. An app famous for its reliability. It’s why every great love story starts with someone really respecting a seven-thirty reservation at a sports bar.”

Jude’s face does that thing—the soft, earnest crinkle that comes right before the pity.

“Shay—”

“Don’t.”

“I was just going to say he’s a dick.”

“No, you weren’t. You were going to tell me I deserve better.”

He has the decency to look caught. “Well, you do.”

“That’s worse.”

“How is that worse?”

“Because then I have to sit here while you all look at me like I’m roadkill.”

“We’re not looking at you like that,” Milo says gently.

Benji raises a hand. “I am. A little. But only because you’re doing that thing where you pretend it doesn’t bother you, and your left eyebrow is twitching.”

I feel it jump. Shit.

I fold my arms, my jaw tight, and turn toward the bar.

Bad choice.

Declan hefts a crate of empties from under the counter, sleeves pushed to his elbows.

The dark Henley pulls across his shoulders, and my brain does that thing it’s been doing since freshman year—stops whatever it was thinking about and reroutes entirely.

He moves with a quiet economy I could draw from memory.

I’ve studied it against my will for three years now, the same three years my friends have dragged me here and I’ve pretended the reason I always agree has nothing to do with the owner.

The whole place smells like him. Cedar and woodsmoke and clean cotton, cutting right through the stale beer and lemon disinfectant.

I can pick that scent out from the parking lot.

My inner omega—the needy, idiotic part I keep muzzled—perks up every single time like a dog offered a walk.

My skin gets tight. My pulse drops into a rhythm I don’t authorise.

It’s humiliating. It’s biological. It’s been happening long enough that I’ve stopped waiting for it to stop.

Across from me, Callum’s hand rests on Milo’s shoulder, thumb moving in slow circles over his sweater.

Knox has Benji tucked against his side, close enough they’re practically one person, even while Benji pretends he doesn’t notice.

Rhys is draped over Jude’s back, chin hooked on his shoulder as Jude orchestrates this whole intervention with a half-eaten fry.

It’s a whole ecosystem of casual touches I am pointedly not a part of.

The air is thick with mated-alpha scent and fried food.

Which leaves me and Soren. And Soren, the little romantic, is just waiting for his invitation to join the club.

So, just me. The idiot who got stood up by some faceless profile at the one bar I can’t avoid.

Declan sets the crate down with a solid thud and finally looks over.

Green eyes find me instantly. Not a stare-down, just a quiet, steady regard that makes the back of my neck prickle with heat.

I’ve been on the receiving end of that look for three years, and it still makes me feel like he’s reading something no one else can see.

“You’re gonna burn a hole in that glass, Thompson.” His voice is low, a familiar rumble under the sound of the register closing.

That voice lives somewhere in my chest. I could probably use it to regulate my heartbeat if I were the kind of person who admitted things like that, which I’m not.

“It was a questionable investment,” I say. “I’m assessing the damage.”

“It’s club soda.”

“Exactly. All risk, no reward.”

Tessa snorts from the end of the bar, counting out her tips. “He’s been staring at it for an hour, boss. Pretty sure it owes him rent.”

Declan ignores her, his gaze still on me. A slow smile tugs at one corner of his mouth—the customer-service version, mild and practiced. “Careful. You’ll come crying to me when you get dehydrated.”

“I will never cry to you.”

The words come out sharper than I meant. Beside me, Jude makes a choking sound into Rhys’s jacket.

Declan’s gaze doesn’t waver. The hint of a smile is still there, but his eyes are serious. “Good,” he says, voice even lower now. “That would be awkward for everyone.”

And there it is. Half a smile. The one that says he’s seen it all before.

And the worst part, the part that makes my stomach clench with self-loathing, is how badly I want to earn a real one.

I’ve wanted it for years, and I hate myself for it because it’s the exact trap I’ve been dodging since I was old enough to understand what my mother kept doing wrong.

I drag my attention back to the table.

“Anyway,” Benji says, dragging the word out. “The guy was trash.”

“You didn’t meet him.”

“I met the concept of him, and I hated it.”

Knox runs a hand over Benji’s stomach, casual as breathing. “You hate most concepts.”

“I hate bad concepts,” Benji corrects. “Like mayonnaise.”

I let them volley the world’s dumbest condiment back and forth. It’s easier than talking. My pulse is still jacked from the bar, and somewhere behind me Declan Byrne is moving crates and smelling like a problem I’ve been dodging since I was eighteen.

Milo sighs. “Mayonnaise is an ingredient.”

“That’s what it wants you to think.”

Rhys cuts through before the tangent grows legs. “The topic is that Shay got stood up, and we’re all supposed to pretend it didn’t sting.”

My gaze snaps to him. Rhys has a way of saying things that sounds perfectly reasonable right up until you realize he’s just locked every door out of the conversation. It’s probably why Jude is obsessed with him. Jude needs someone who can survive being hit with a verbal chair.

“It didn’t sting,” I say.

“Sure,” Jude says.

“It didn’t.”

He holds up his hands. “Fine. You’re right. This is great, actually. The universe did you a solid. Got some random hookup alpha out of your system without you having to do the work.”

“That’s what I said.”

“No,” Jude says, pointing a fry at me. “You said it was fine. This is better.”

“Is it?” Soren asks.

His voice is so soft I almost miss it. He’s curled into the corner of the booth, watching me with those wide, dark eyes. Soren never goes for the throat. It’s why it works when he does.

I just stare at him.

He’s right, of course. I was excited. I hate that he noticed. I hate even more that he’s saying it out loud in front of everyone like my hope is a public exhibit.

He ducks his head a little. “Sorry. I just mean… you seemed excited.”

“I was not excited.”

“You changed your shirt twice,” Milo says gently.

Traitor.

“The first one had a wrinkle.”

“You ironed it,” Benji adds.

“It was a very visible wrinkle.”

“And you asked me if your shoes looked like you were trying too hard,” Jude finishes.

“Because you have the only full-length mirror that doesn’t make a person look like a haunted Victorian child.”

“That mirror is vintage.”

“That mirror is cursed.”

Callum lets out a low laugh. Milo turns toward the sound like a plant finding the sun, his whole body softening as Callum leans in and murmurs something against his hair.

I look away, focusing on a crack in the vinyl seat.

It’s just so easy for them. Benji’s combat boot is hooked between Knox’s ankles. Rhys has a hand resting on the back of Jude’s neck. Milo is tucked into Callum’s side like he was made to fit there. And I’m sitting here cataloguing it like a field researcher studying a species I don’t belong to.

Soren is watching them, too, with that careful little smile he gets when he’s happy for everyone else and trying not to look like he’s waiting for his turn.

And then there’s me, sitting bolt upright on the edge of the booth, not touching a single person.

“Okay, we’re done,” I say, pushing my glass away. “This focus group is officially adjourned.”

“Besides,” Jude adds, slinging an arm over Rhys’s shoulders, “now you’re free to appreciate the finer things. Like emotionally repressed grad students who pay their taxes on time.”

Rhys doesn’t even look at him. “I’m not emotionally repressed.”

“You alphabetize your spices.”

“That’s just efficient.”

“It’s hot,” Jude says, loud enough for the whole bar to hear.

Milo makes a pained sound and hides his face in Callum’s shoulder.

Tessa appears at the table, wiping it down with a damp cloth. “Last call on the pity party, Thompson. You want another or are you just gonna stare at that ice until it melts?”

“I’m good.”

“He means we’re closing,” Declan calls from the bar.

That voice again. It winds through the noise and straight into my gut, and I have to press my thighs together under the table before I can think about why. I should be immune by now. Three years of this. I’m not.

“Come on,” Milo says, already shrugging into his coat. Callum takes a container of leftover cookies from him, handling it with the careful reverence of a bomb-disposal expert.