Chapter 9Gavin
CHAPTER
NINE
GAVIN
The morning rush is just getting started when Thane, Callum and Silo blow into the diner. My son and his best friend are both flushed and refusing to look at one another. If the dark look Thane shoots my way as he snatches Altair’s apron off its hook is any indication, I know exactly why the pair of them are blushing.
Callum asked about the bumps. And Thane told them.
“Good morning,” I greet one of my best friends. “Thanks for helping out. Altair is a little off schedule.” Usually, he’s able to give me a couple of days’ notice so I can let Thane know I’m going to need his help around the diner, but this is just one of those times. He was caught unaware. At least he was at home when it happened.
“I’m going to go drink oven cleaner,” Callum mutters as he slinks past me.
“Save some for me.” Silo follows.
I chuckle and glance at Thane. “How was your morning, sunshine?”
“Fuck you, Gavin,” he says but there’s no heat in his voice.
“Husband not doing it for you?” I ask while clearing mine and Jules’ breakfast dishes off the work surface. The mornings are always busy and we’ll need to be ready to go as soon as the first customer arrives. “What’s the point of marrying a dick if he doesn’t know how to use his?”
“Don’t call him a dick.” Thane shoves a booklet and pen in his pocket. He’ll work the counter while Callum works one half of the tables, and Silo works the other half. When the lunch rush hits, part-time help will arrive to lighten everyone’s load. “He’s not that bad.”
Not that bad, because he could be worse. But he could stand to be better too. This is a conversation we’ve had before. A number of times now. It never ends well—I think I’m right, and Thane thinks he’s right. One of us is going to be proven right one day, and I hope for Thane’s sake it’s him. If his husband turns out to be as awful as I think he is, it won’t end amicably.
“This is Jules.” I try to nudge Jules out from behind me but he presses against my back and curls into my spine even as he peeks around my side. “He’s staying with us and helping out today. This is my best friend, Thane.”
Thane smiles, all sunshine and happiness. “Nice to meet you, Jules.”
Jules wraps his fingers in the back of my shirt. “N-Nice to meet you.”
“I promise he’s nice. He’s only mad because the boys asked about the bumps,” I whisper.
Callum makes a pained sound from the back of the kitchen. I choke down a laugh. Some questions don’t need answers. Maybe my youngest son learned his lesson today.
“Is it that bad?” Jules looks between us.
I immediately throw my best friend under the bus. “Thane can tell you.” Jules is so young, and so innocent despite what he’s had to deal with. I’m not sure I’m ready to take away some of that innocence by explaining exactly why Altair’s new boyfriend looks the way it does. Nor do I think I can do it without crossing several lines. This morning was bad enough.
“Google it,” Thane snaps as he drags his hair into a ponytail.
“He doesn’t have a phone.”
“How old are you?” Thane huffs with an eye roll. I glare at him but he doesn’t notice. Or doesn’t care. “How do you not have a phone in this day and age?”
Jules curls into himself. His cheeks turn a dark shade of red as he looks anywhere but at Thane. I press a hand into his back and draw him against my side. He leans into my touch as he chews at his bottom lip. “I umm... I just don’t.”
“Don’t be a dick, Thane.”
Thane sighs, deflating like a popped balloon. He isn’t a bad guy. Nor is he oblivious, even if sometimes he pretends to be. He can see that his attitude is putting Jules on edge and he softens immediately. At the end of the day, he’s an omega, and a dad. “No, I’m sorry. I’m just annoyed at Gavin.” He cuts a sharp glare my way. “I shouldn’t take it out on you.”
“It’s okay.” Jules’ voice is soft and uncertain, like the first time I offered him food outside the diner a couple weeks ago. “I don’t want to know.”
“I’ll tell you later if you’re still curious.” Even if I don’t want to be the one to explain, I should have this morning when he asked. Altair is right—he can’t talk to every curious omega in our lives and it isn’t fair to expect Thane to do it either. I walked Altair through being an omega and everything that involved so I can answer any questions Jules has too, without doing anything inappropriate. I’m not a mindless animal with no self-control.
“I should go buss some tables.” Jules rushes off and I let him go even though there are no tables to buss yet. The closed sign still needs to be flipped.
Thane huffs as he yanks on his apron strings. “Thanks for making me look like a jackass.”
“You did that all on your own.” He didn’t need my help. “Bad night?”
He says his husband isn’t that bad but he is—he really fucking is—and on some level Thane has to know that. He’s just lying to himself because it’s the only way he can endure being married to the asshole.
“I...” He sighs and steps closer. “I’m not sure. I saw something that... unnerved me.”
“Something we can talk about here—” I cut my eyes towards the back. “Or a conversation for later?”
His gaze follows mine before he tips closer. I lower my head and his lips brush against my ear. “Do you think Baz will mind if Silo stays with him for a few nights?”
My spine snaps straight and I search Thane’s face. Is he implying... “I’ll kill him, Thane. You know I will.” If he’s asking for Silo to stay the night with a friend, it’s for a damn good reason. If that reason involves his fucking husband, I can’t be held responsible for how I react. Silo may not be my son but I’ve watched him grow up. I’ve been there for him like a father should be when he needed someone to fill that role.
“I could be overreacting. Don’t worry about it too much.” He waves me off.
I catch his hand and tug him closer. “Don’t do that, Thane. Your instincts are some of the best of any shifter I know. If you think something isn’t right don’t ignore that feeling. You’re too good of a parent for that shit.”
“I don’t know what I’m thinking. I just...” He glances towards the kitchen again before he motions me down. I bend. His voice is so soft I can barely hear it when he speaks, so I know the boys can’t. “Finnick was just standing there. In Silo’s doorway, watching him. And when I called out to him he acted nervous, like I caught him doing something, but I don’t know what I caught him doing. Silo was asleep.”
My blood runs cold. I turn my head so my lips are at his ear. “You know what you fucking caught, Thane. Enough lying to yourself. I’ve never put my hands on an omega but I’m going to shake some goddamn sense into you if you don’t divorce that asshole.”
“Then what?” His voice cracks around the question. “I brought him into our lives. What if... What if he did something to Silo?” He sucks in several sharp breaths and I wrap my arm around him, tucking him under my chin. He curls against me, fisting the back of my shirt.
“One problem at a time, sunshine. Silo can crash with Callum and Baz. You can come home with Jules and me. We can figure shit out.” Thane is my best friend. I’ll help him through this next part the same as he would help me if I was in a similar spot.
“What am I supposed to do, Gavin?” He rests his chin on my chest and blinks back tears. “The house, the cars, everything is his. Where does that leave me and Silo?”
“You weren’t alone before him, and you won’t be after.” Thane has been my best friend since I moved to Pine Glen, back when I had a husband, before I knew she was really my wife, and Baz was just a toddler. Every important moment I’ve experienced, he experienced with me, or heard about it as soon as we had a moment to sit down and gossip. That isn’t going to change—married to an asshole, married to a good man, or not married at all. “The rooms above the diner are still vacant. You know they’re yours. And maybe this time you’ll listen when I say they’re yours.”
For as long as he needs them. Forever for all I care.
“I was just trying to give my son what I never had.” A tear spills from the corner of his eye. “I thought a two-parent household was a good environment for him.”
I flick the tear away. “This is why you shouldn’t be allowed to think.” I’m teasing. He knows that. “Silo has you, and that’s all he’s ever needed. You’re a damn good dad; he doesn’t need a father. Especially not one like Finnick”
“I know.” He laughs and dries his face. “You could’ve omitted the first part, asshole.”
“Nah. We can’t fuck with the status quo.” I pull him into a fast hug and drop a kiss on his forehead before releasing him.
“Speaking of fucking—” He arches an eyebrow. “I didn’t think you liked them young. His scent is all over your clothes.”
I groan. “Not you too. It’s not like that.” Thane should know better. He does. But I gave him a hard time so now it’s his turn to give me a hard time. “He just needs some help and I’m happy to do so.”
His smile doesn’t reach his eyes but it’s something. It’s better than seeing my best friend cry over some worthless alpha. “I said it once. I’ll say it again. You were definitely the kid who brought home every stray you found.”
“Go flip the sign and man the counter.” I push him towards the doorway. He laughs and flips me off but heads into the front. A moment later Jules scurries into the kitchen. Thane isn’t a scary guy by any measure, not until he gets worked up. I pushed him a little too far this morning and he snapped at the wrong person. He’s going to have to spend a few days working himself into Jules’ good graces, but I know he will.
I catch Jules by the elbow. “Okay?”
“Yeah.” He nods and tugs on his apron strings.
“Thane won’t bite. He’s house-trained, unlike his offspring,” I promise.
Jules laughs and steps closer. His face is flushed as his pheromones fill the small space. Everything about this morning probably has him on edge so I don’t blame him for smelling as sweet as he does. I don’t think he’s going into heat. He’d say something if that were the case, wouldn’t he? “I just don’t want to be in the way.”
“You couldn’t be if you tried,” I assure him as I tug him closer. He’s warm under my hand as I stroke his forearm. “But thank you for giving us a minute. Thane’s been my best friend for a long time and he had some shit to get off his chest.”
“He’s the one with the husband no one likes?” Jules asks and I nod. “He doesn’t seem like the kind of person who’d support the Naturalists.”
“He’s not. But he’s an omega married to a less-than-pleasant alpha.” Jules has to know that means Thane bends in ways he might not like, to maintain peace and order.
“I understand.” He sighs as his shoulders hunch. “I thought it was just the burrow but the whole world is stacked against omegas. More so if you’re prey as well.”
I run my hand up his arm. It takes more self-control than it should not to drag him against my chest and hold him there. Maybe press my mouth to his just to find out if he tastes as nice as he smells. “Thane’s not alone. And neither are you anymore. The whole world can fuck around and find out. Pine Glen protects its own.” Eventually, if Thane or I don’t deal with Finnick, Pine Glen will. “I protect my own.”
Jules takes that final step and presses against my chest. “Thanks, Gavin.”
The light brush of his lips against my chin sets off a chain reaction. I suck in a sharp breath and get a nose full of his soft scent. He smells like wildflowers, and ripe blackberries fresh on the vine.
My hands shake as I step away from him and clear my throat. “Ready to work?”
He takes a shaky breath and nods. “Yeah.”
I drop a kiss on his forehead. “You see if Thane needs anything; I’ll chase the boys out of the back. If they haven’t drunk enough oven cleaner by now, it’ll never be enough.”