8. Charlie
“Want to check out the VR?” Tara asked when she and Jesse finally broke apart.
I coughed, averting my eyes as the tips of my ears burned.
There was no doubt about it, in the time since I’d seen Tara in that heat hotel she’d managed to get even more beautiful. Or maybe it was a bit of the cheerleader effect, Jesse being near her augmenting her own natural beauty to heights I’d never imagined possible.
“I didn’t know they had that,” I managed to get out, reclaiming my beer for a long drink that I hoped would stop my voice from creeping upwards. “But sure.”
The beer was, admittedly, less disgusting than the one I’d had at the pub the other day, but I still longed for a Manhattan instead.
Tara kept hold of Jesse’s hand as she let us through the games towards the staircase at the back of the room, the three of us heading down with the clang of shoes against the metal stairs.
Seeing her again felt… unreal. The entire aura surrounding the omega held a shimmering, dreamlike quality that made it feel like I had to be asleep.
Sometimes it was like that entire few days was nothing more than a fantasy. Something I’d dreamed up in the haze of stress and excitement before my big move to Seattle. Warped and changed over time to suit whatever lewd imaginings I needed in order to relieve the crushing tension brought on by my new job.
But no matter what changed in the self-indulgent, wank-filled, reminiscing that Tara had become the star of, one thing had always remained the same.
Her .
Her smell.
Her taste.
The way her skin felt under my fingertips.
How her slick-soaked cunt had felt wrapped around my throbbing cock.
How easily she took my knot?—
“Have you played anything like this before?” Jesse asked, their head turning to look at me as we paused on the landing below.
“Nah, but how hard can it be?”
“Pretty hard, if you’re as clumsy as you say,” Tara teased, clicking through the options on the panel outside of the room.
My cock threatened again to stir to life at the little thread of humor in her voice.
You’re such a good boy, aren’t you? I could practically hear the memory like a recording.
Judging from the surprise on her face, she didn’t have any idea that it would be me waiting for her today. It made sense, Charlie—Charles, really—was a common enough name, I doubted I would’ve made the connection either. I certainly hadn’t with Tara, at least not at first. But once Jesse showed me her photo… seeing her again was all I could think about.
After Omega’s Lust… It wasn’t that I didn’t want to see her again. Of course I did, the experience we’d shared was nothing short of mind-blowing. But that alpha she’d met there, that wasn’t me. Not really. He was an insane amalgamation of character traits that my business partner, Cameo, had put into my mind and whatever bits of myself that managed to slip through the cracks.
Omegas wanted forceful. Not to think for themselves. Dominant alphas who can be in charge.
That was a guy I was able to pretend to be in short stints, but not me . And there was no way that an omega like that wanted a gangly, goofy alpha who liked it a little too much when she degraded him. So, I left and had to put my full focus into building up my company.
A coward who couldn’t pick up the phone only to find out that my suspicions were correct. That I wasn’t the right alpha for her.
Tried to forget her. Failed.
And now here she was again.
Tara hadn’t broached the topic yet, carefully skirting around anything that wasn’t the idle chat of two people meeting for the first time, even though the recognition in her gaze was obvious. Maybe she thought I forgot, but that cherry limeade scent of hers lived rent free in my mind—in a luxury penthouse with a nice view and stunning marble countertops.
“Earth to Charlie?” Jesse said, a hand clapping down on my shoulder.
I blinked, looking down at the beta, his subtle lemony scent reaching my nose. It wasn’t strong like a cleaner—more like a light meringue. Sweet. Lovely. Betas didn’t have as strong of a nose as alphas and omegas, but it was really their softer, muted scents that set them apart from the rest. Even with its subtlety, I’d always been able to pick out Jesse’s scent, a favorite of mine no matter how many others I came into contact with over the years.
And paired with Tara’s? It made my head spin.
“Hm?”
“Ready to play?” they asked, raising an eyebrow.
“Yeah, uh, yeah! I’m good… C’mon sharpshooter, let's see how you stack up irl. Put the headset on.”
Tara laughed, getting the door for us all to head inside the room. We left our drinks on a little table beside the door and I stopped off at the station with the headsets and as I handed hers off, our hands brushed. Really more of an accidental graze of skin against skin than a legitimate touch. But that single moment of contact had goosebumps exploding over my skin, heat snaking up the back of my neck.
“I win a few ranked matches and all of a sudden I’m a pro player, huh?” Tara quipped with a roll of her dark eyes.
“It’s a slippery slope,” I returned gravely, unable to keep the crooked grin off my face.
"You’re right,” she laughed, pulling her headset on. “Next I'll be at Thundercon for the OVWatch finals.”
I did the same, the screen blinking to life in front of my eyes.
“Damn right you will be,” Jesse said with a grin, pulling on his own headset.
“Are we playing or standing around?” I said, bumping Jesse’s head with my knuckles.
“Just waiting on you, slowpoke!” Tara called, grabbing Jesse’s hand and pulling him away from me.
Was that intentional possessiveness? I knew omegas sometimes liked to mark their territory and it wouldn’t surprise me if she was feeling a little protective.
A strange alpha who ghosted her, suddenly revealed to be the faceless best friend of her boyfriend?
I think I’d be a little protective too.
We moved forward to pick up our rifles before stepping up onto the lit, slightly raised dais. I clicked the little safety chain shut behind us so no one would fall off the platform in the heat of the moment. Admittedly it took a few tries, the headset video feed was a little awkward in comparison to my own eyes.
When I finally got it and looked up, Tara and Jesse were pressed together, kissing intensely with their headsets pushed up on their foreheads. Their hand wrapped around her waist, pulling her in closer.
I pushed my headset onto my forehead, half to make sure what I was seeing was actually real.
Tara scent blocking bodywash and shampoo didn’t stand a chance against my nose, a whisper of that lush cherry and lime perfume of hers ghosting in my nose. Between the reminder of what had made her so intoxicating in the first place and watching the two of them—Jesse’s hand moving to playfully grab her ass as he whispered into her ear—I turned back to the wall to adjust myself, trying to make it seem like I was still fiddling with the gate.
When I turned back they were no longer making out, Tara on one side, Jesse on the other, leaving me the space in the middle. I took it up, ready to get going.
“See you in there?” Tara asked, a hand on her headset ready to pull it down as she pressed a large red lit button on the wall to start the game.
“You know it, sharpshooter.”
I tugged my helmet on, blinking in the odd sensation of being able to see Jesse with his own headset through the lenses… but in a completely different setting than the darkened room we’d stood in just seconds before.
Sunlight spilled from high above in streaks of gold that made me tilt my head backwards to chase with my eyes, catching a glimpse of the artificially blue sky. Fluffy white clouds floated by on a breeze I couldn't feel against my skin, but could see as it rippled the long grass. The sensation was strange, a bit like when you had a cold and couldn’t taste anything. An expectation of feeling that didn’t exist.
“It's so beautiful,” Tara whispered in awe.
I turned on the spot as I took in the flowered field we’d landed in the middle of, though the gentle curiosity didn’t last long, the first gunshot echoing through the clearing with an echo ricocheting like a warning.
“Incoming!” Jesse shouted, running past me as the floor started to shift under foot, forcing me into motion after him. It seemed the entire dais was a system of rotating belts that allowed us to walk, and even run, as the belt moved faster at Jesse’s quickened footsteps. I raised the rifle, taking aim as the first few enemies—alien-like monsters with tentacles and large pulsing gun-like weapons—came into view.
Tara fell into step with us, our trio mowing down enemies with ruthless efficiency. Though she usually used a tank hero with a sword, she was still a beast with a gun, I’d seen it often enough during streams when someone had already picked her main. Still, it was impressive as fuck to watch her move, hitting the floor to avoid a barrage of shots before regaining her feet to begin shooting again.
“Look out!” she shouted to Jesse, pointing behind him.
One of those tentacle aliens was right on him, hitting him super hard.
I ran up on it, guns blazing. I missed about half of my shots, but when I played games like this, usually I was a healer, and admittedly my aim was shit. Tara joined me, and together we were able to get the pressure off of Jesse.
Okay, so probably she could’ve done it solo. But hey, it was nice to be included.
“Thanks,” he groaned, his avatar using one of the healing kits we had. “So are the purple ones higher level or something then? I feel like my gun did fuck all to it.”
“Think so,” I said, looking around to see if there were any gun upgrades or items dropped. Surely there had to be a way to level up. “How do we get better weapons?”
“No idea,” Tara said while I clicked through the menus. “I think there’s another wave coming.”
I followed her gaze to the horizon, movement in the distance making my heart race with excitement. More aliens ran towards us, with a few more of the larger purple ones in the back. It seemed like this was a horde game, with lots of enemies coming at once with short breaks in between.
And luckily, as I’d hoped, a loot box dropped a few hundred feet away, probably with upgrades to help us take on the next wave.
We all ran towards it. Tara reached it first, she pressed the button and it opened like a gift box, with confetti coming in a mass of rainbow sparkles out of the top.
“A single upgraded weapon, a few small healing kits, and a speed boost,” she listed aloud.
“Jesse should take the weapons upgrade,” I said, knowing he was the best shot.
“We can each take a health kit,” Jesse said as his gun transformed, growing larger. “And you take the speed boost, okay sweetie?”
“Are you sure?” she asked. “I don’t mind going without.”
“Trust me,” I said easily, “You’ll have a much better time with it than I will. I’m better in the back.”
“Okay.” I wished I could see the expression on her face. The avatars didn’t do a great job of anything but moving the lips in a semi correct way to match the voices. She grabbed the upgrade and it disappeared, creating a purple ring around her briefly.
“Let’s get ready,” Jesse said. “We don’t have much time.”
They were right, the horde was much closer now. The first few insurgents already beginning to fire on us.
So much for strategizing.