Chapter Two
~ Danny ~
I had a system for late nights at the Jenkins house, and it started with finding the least-squeaky chair. My bedroom was more of a glorified closet, tucked under the eaves with a window that caught all the streetlight and none of the breeze, but I’d carved out a safe zone.
Desk pushed against one wall. Cheap laptop, secondhand keyboard with keys that stuck on all the vowels, and a stack of community-college textbooks that still smelled like someone else’s coffee stains.
I ran a macro to auto-fill the blank spreadsheet for my Intro to JavaScript quiz, and it crawled across the screen one cell at a time, blue bar inching forward like a caterpillar on barbiturates.
I tried to focus on the assignment. Really, I did. But every time I scrolled to a new tab, my phone—taped to the corner of my monitor, the screen cracked like a windshield—lit up with the contact I’d entered hours ago:
BURKE (GARDEN GUY)
Burke Callahan, with his stupidly perfect teeth and the kind of laugh that made you want to laugh even if you had no idea what was funny.
More than that, the way he’d smelled—pine resin and leather, but not the fake kind you get in car air fresheners.
This was real, rooted deep. Like he’d rolled in a pile of forest mulch then sealed it in with a twenty-four hour armor of sweat and something sharp, green, alive.
It was still in my nose. On my hands, in the fabric of my sleeves. Even after I’d showered—quietly, so as not to wake Dennis—Burke’s scent clung to me, a living thing. I hated it. I wanted it. I hated that I wanted it.
A double ping broke my train of thought. New chat notification, plus a calendar alert: “SUNDAY = CLOSED, NO WORK, NO PAY.”
Typical.
Dennis insisted we attend the “family meal” on Sundays, even if all it meant was micro-waved lasagna and six hours of him on the couch watching MMA reruns.
Which gave me a rare day off, if you could call it that, and left me with absolutely nothing to distract from the hunger curling low and insistent in my gut.
I closed my eyes and tried to reset. Instead of counting sheep, I counted all the ways I’d screwed up today.
One: I let an alpha flirt with me on company time.
Stupid. Even if Burke’s jokes came at me like softballs, easy to hit and even easier to duck.
I’d recognized the type—big man, quick hands, always looking for the next button to push.
But there was something in the way he lingered.
Like he was watching me for my reaction, not his own performance.
Like he cared whether I smiled or just pretended.
Two: I’d frozen when he touched me. Barely a graze, but it set off a chain reaction that I hadn’t felt in…what, years? Since that last disaster of a “relationship.” I was so careful now. Never let anyone in, never let anyone see the soft spots, because soft was just another word for target.
Three: I hadn’t been careful enough. Not with Burke. Not with Dennis, who’d shown up at the garden center ten minutes after my shift ended, smelling of gasoline and beer and bad decisions.
Flashback hit me like a cold shower: Dennis waited in the cab of his truck, engine running, music vibrating the whole parking lot like a swarm of angry wasps.
He hadn’t come to buy anything; he’d come for me.
The moment I’d clocked out, he was there, leaning against the tailgate, arms folded to display the amateur tattoo that wrapped his bicep like prison wire.
“You get your check?” he asked, eyes narrow under the brim of his hat.
I handed it over. He didn’t bother with pretense—just ripped the envelope open, checked the amount, and slid it into his back pocket. Then he patted me down, quick and efficient, like frisking a suspect. Wallet, phone, nothing else.
“Gotta watch you, little brother. I know how you omegas like to stash your tip money.” He grinned, all teeth and no warmth.
I mumbled something noncommittal, keeping my eyes on the dirt. If you didn’t look at him, sometimes he’d get bored faster.
We drove home in silence, save for the radio and the scrape of his fingers drumming on the steering wheel. He didn’t ask about my day, but I felt the words crowding at the back of his throat, ready to explode as soon as I gave him an excuse. So I didn’t. Gave him nothing.
When we got to the house, he let me go first. I ducked into my room, locked the door, and only then exhaled.
Back in the present, I rubbed my wrist, fingers tracing the darkening bruise where Dennis’s thumb had dug in.
I’d covered it with a hoodie, but it ached every time I moved.
I wondered, not for the first time, if I should report him.
But to who? The sheriff was the father of his high school buddy, and Mom’s new boyfriend was barely home, let alone present enough to intervene.
The last time I’d tried to get help, Dennis spent a week making sure I knew exactly how helpless I really was.
I let the thoughts run their course, then let them go.
No point in spiraling.
The spreadsheet auto-filled, neat as a row of soldiers, but I couldn’t remember a single variable I’d entered. I opened the next tab: a forum for queer omega students, most of whom lived hundreds of miles from the nearest actual alpha.
There was a new thread at the top: “Ever been scent-stuck?” I clicked it, more out of habit than hope.
The posts were familiar. Omegas describing the first time they caught an alpha’s scent and how it short-circuited every other thought.
Most said it went away after a few hours.
Some, the unlucky ones, said it lasted for days.
One user posted: “I dreamed about him for a week. Couldn’t eat.
Couldn’t sleep. Just wanted to crawl inside his shirt and stay there. ” I snorted. Amateurs.
I checked my phone again. Still no messages, but the number was there, burning a hole in my contact list. What would happen if I texted?
Would Burke respond, or would he be one of those guys who needed to win every interaction, then lost interest once he got your number? Would he be kind? Would he care?
A phantom memory of his hand, rough but careful, ghosted over mine. Our skin touching, the warm zing of contact. I’d wanted more. Wanted him to keep holding on.
Pathetic.
I typed a message, deleted it, typed it again. This time I left it on the screen: Hey, it’s Danny from the garden center. Thanks for the help earlier.
I read it ten times, trying to decide if I sounded desperate. Then I deleted “thanks for the help,” left the rest.
No point in over-sharing.
I sat with my thumb hovering over send. In the silence, the house creaked—a footstep above me, a muffled cough. Dennis, prowling for a midnight snack or just making sure I wasn’t sneaking out. I stayed very still until the footsteps faded.
A car passed on the street outside, headlights strobing through my window. For a second, I saw myself reflected in the glass: pale, thin, eyes too big in my face. Omega, through and through. Dennis was right about that, at least.
I thought about Burke, the way he’d looked at me. Not like prey. Not like a project. Like a mystery he actually wanted to solve. Maybe that was worse—maybe it meant he’d stick around long enough to see the broken parts, then bail. Or maybe, just maybe, he’d be different.
I wasn’t sure if I could survive being wrong again, but I was even less sure I could ignore the itch under my skin, the way my body hummed at the thought of him.
I closed my eyes, counted to ten, then hit send.
No going back now.
I dropped the phone onto my bed, afraid to look at the screen in case he answered, or worse, didn’t. I turned back to the code, forced my focus onto the shifting patterns of logic and syntax. But it was no use.
The only variable I couldn’t solve for was Burke.
And I was pretty sure he’d be on my mind until I saw him again.
* * * *
The Monday shift at Harmon’s was as predictable as sunrise, and that was how I liked it. You learned to appreciate the small stuff: the whirr of the receipt printer, the whine of the ancient label-maker, the hush-hush of seed packets as you rotated the display.
By nine a.m. I’d already helped two retired teachers with their spring bulbs and explained—twice, patiently—that yes, you really did need the right kind of caulk for windows, unless you wanted your heating bill to triple.
I’d fallen into the rhythm of it. Even the scent of fertilizer and rodenticide didn’t bug me anymore; it was like background radiation, so constant it might as well have been genetic.
In this lull, I usually let my brain chew on code problems or memorize the precise order of every fastener on aisle five.
Today, my brain refused to stay on script.
Every time the doorbell jangled, my pulse did the dumb cartoon thing, expecting Burke to barrel in with a joke and a grin.
He hadn’t replied to my text last night.
Not with a joke, not with a winky face, not with anything.
But that was par for the course. Alphas were busy.
Had lives. Had—if Dennis was any indication—rough priorities.
Still. I’d half hoped.
I was elbow-deep in a shelf-reset, reordering lag bolts by diameter, when the bell finally tripped. I didn’t look up right away, but the shift in air pressure, the sudden ozone-crackle of something alive, told me it was him before I saw the boots.
Then the voice: “Excuse me, sir, but do you know if these screws come in a less—uh, manly finish?”
I turned, already smiling, and there he was.
Burke, in a battered leather jacket that made him look even taller, if that was possible.
He leaned on the cart like it was an extension of his own body, eyes locked on me with an intensity that made it impossible to look away.
If anything, the scent—sharp, foresty, edged with new-cut hay—was stronger than before.
My knees went soft.