Chapter 15 Sub-Standard Decisions
Sub-Standard Decisions
“I’m starving,” Luca groans, the whining tone adding to the annoying click-click-click of the remote as he pages endlessly through Nix’s Netflix homepage. “We should order something.”
Goddess, yes, please. What Nix wouldn’t give for food that wasn’t torn into tiny pieces and sniffed by a big enigma first. Most of the time, it was good—great, even—but Rowan was taking it to extremes.
Just this morning, his baby-Daddy got milk on his nose from the cereal he’d stuck his face in just to be sure the Cheerios weren’t poisoned—or whatever it was he was looking for.
“Amazing idea, but we’re not supposed to have anyone inside the gate, or at the gate, or near the gate, Luc. We promised.”
It hadn’t seemed like a big deal to promise to stay put when, for the first time since the showdown, Nix and Luca were home alone together. Every one of their mates had immutable prior commitments, and while it had seemed like a windfall a few hours ago, now they’re bored.
They had run out of things to do an hour ago that didn’t involve their favorite pastimes: gossip, sex, or food.
Luca didn’t have permission to come, and Nix had been with Rowan and Grayson all afternoon, anyway.
Other than the detailed insight into the O-faces of their mates, eight rounds of Mario Kart, two Ghibli films, and a ludicrously unfair game of hide-and-seek (Luca giggled every time it was his turn to hide, and Nix’s nose was just too good), they’d run out of fun things to do at home.
“I promised, you were busy in the Art House. So technically, you could order food, and I could act surprised.”
Nix wants to laugh because there’s no way Gideon was going to let a technicality slide, but Giorgio’s cannelloni and a spanking? Yes, please. Besides, what could go wrong? It was just food, and the Uber driver had to be from a vigorously vetted and verified list.
A twinge of guilt makes Nix feel like he should at least try to do the right thing. “Gideon is going to be mad…”
The whole pack was still on edge after the security breach with Dill Pickles, no matter that the new security system was better than anything even the Pentagon had at the ready.
Add to it that now that Nix had a baby on board, they were all acting like alpha idiots and blowing every little thing out of proportion.
Just yesterday, Nix had accidentally gotten a face full of pepper in the kitchen and sneezed. No less than three enigmas had materialized behind him from all over the house, sure he’d contracted the plague despite the firm knowledge that Weres don’t get colds, flus, or other respiratory viruses.
Sighing at the memory of Finn dragging them out with promises to show them the “well-researched medical evidence” on the computer in the library, Nix agrees to order some food before he decides to eat ice cream for the third time today.
His bean has decided on a meatball sub, and he is hungry—dammit.
“Okay, but I want Giorgio’s. I need a meatball sub, maybe two. What are you having?”
“Here, you have to use your phone.” Luca has Giorgio’s app open on Nix’s phone, muttering, “Wish I could have a meatball sub right up my—oooh, I want a calzone, with extra cheese.”
“Luc, I don’t think it matters if you do it or I do it at this point, you know?”
“It matters. It may seem like a technicality—and it is—but it could mean the difference between getting to come or not. So we do it this way.”
“If you say so,” Nix mutters, because he’s still new enough to this dynamic that he’ll defer to Luca’s expertise in spankings and Gideon’s understanding of technicalities.
“Besides, he’s not been home to care lately, anyway,” Luca whispers as his eyes go far away. “He’s angry all the time, too. Not at us, but at someone, and I can feel it even when he’s not here. Sucks.”
Burnt coffee lingers in the air, sharp enough to make Nix’s stomach twist—regret settling in right alongside the second meatball sub he’d ordered on impulse.
The ache in his gut isn’t just the food, though.
Luca’s sadness and Gideon’s simmering anger spark and coil together somewhere deep inside him, hotter than he’d ever admit out loud.
He slides his arm around his twin, pulling him close. “Hey. We’ll get through this. I can feel it.” He tries for a grin, nudging optimism into the moment. “Besides, nothing says comfort like Giorgio’s extra-cheesy calzone and a marathon of Friends.”
“Yeah, okay. Come on, let’s wait on the couch. You can cuddle me while I try to convince you they were a pack—again.”
Between the impassioned Joey/Chandler shipping, and the arguments about whether Ross was really an omega in hiding, they almost forget about the food. At least until the gate’s buzzer announces their Uber driver has arrived. Hunger renewed, Nix checks the security app on his phone.
“Oh, no,” he whispers at the sight of the hot pink Honda Civic, visible in all its bumper-sticker-covered glory even through the front gate camera.
“Do not say oh, no like that.” Luca scrambles to his knees beside him on the couch.
“It’s Tommy.”
“Oh, no.”
“That’s what I said,” Nix groans. “Shit, you have to come out with me.”
Of course, it’s Tommy Choi who is here delivering Nix’s contraband. Again. The ultimate Nix-fan, adoring and persistent.
“Oh, Nix, you are more beautiful than the moon. Oh, Nix, your freckles are like stars in the sky. Oh, Nix—”
Luca throws himself dramatically over the back of the sectional, hand to forehead like a Regency maiden with vapors.
“Shut it. Or you’ll go out there on your own.”
“Noooooooo. And listen to him whine and ask questions about where you are? No, thank you. It will take half the time if you smile and wave and tell him to go.”
The gate buzzes again, and Luca hopes the second time didn’t ping a warning on Gideon’s phone, wherever he is.
It’s easy enough to use the front door keypad to open the gate, and he and Nix walk out to meet the exuberant, infatuated Uber Eats delivery guy.
He’s cute-ish in the college-broke, incense-smelling, too-intense-eye-contact kind of way. It’s hard not to compare every man to his perfect mates where everyone else would come up short. Even without the creepy smile and standing too close.
Luca calls him a Nix simp, and it hadn’t taken long for their mates to catch on.
They’d finally had to stop ordering from Uber Eats when the alphas were home because when Tommy had delivered Giorgio’s one night a month ago, Rowan had chased him down the drive and out of the gate.
On foot. Into the street. For a block. All after he’d told Nix his eyes were like a starlight foggy afternoon over a stormy ocean off the coast of Nantucket.
Whatever that meant.
Since then, they let Leo order it and go out to get the food for them. It never paid to let Tommy get too close to the door, just in case he tried to come in and locate Nix for himself. Nix doesn’t want the demise of one more delivery person on his conscience.
“Why do we keep getting this guy? Aren’t there hundreds of other drivers on the schedule?” Luca whispers. It’s not like the human could hear them from inside his pink Honda Civic, but just in case.
“Oh Em Gee! Hi, Nixie. You look great!” He’s out of the car before the food, spinning around mid-step like he forgot why he came.
Nix just blinks.
Nix does not, in fact, look great. He’s wearing a stained T-shirt that Luca had spilled chocolate sauce on when they’d made sundaes for lunch, an old pair of Gideon’s bunny slippers, and a pair of Finn’s boxers as shorts.
“Hello, Tommy,” Luca says pointedly. Not because he cares about being forgotten but because of his familiarity with Nix. The virtual stranger had not been granted the casual address, and while Nix didn’t mind, Luca sure as hell did.
He was not above a bit of jealousy, either, beta or not.
“Oh, yeah, hey, Mr. Wilde.”
“Hi,” Nix says, holding out his hands for the food.
Tommy has bowed ninety degrees, presenting it as if Nix were the Goddess Themself.
“Thank you for bringing this. Have a good night. Bye.”
“Wait!” he yells as Nix turns to go, dragging Luca by the elbow in case his mate takes a page out of Rowan’s book.
“Uh…” Tommy utters, stalling. “I was wondering if you wanted to come to this cleansing thing tonight at Fruit of the—”
Luca’s scent goes burnt, his face floods bright red, and he pulls hard on the iron grip Nix has on his arm.
“Listen here, you little—”
“Look, I know you’re like, dating…someone… or whatever, but you know, maybe we could go as friends? Your aura is so bright, and I think you should be taking better care of your colo—”
“Tommy, I am not dating someone—”
His face breaks into a huge grin. “You’re not?! That’s—”
“I’m married to someone,” Nix states as clearly as he can. The human wouldn’t understand he was mated to seven men who would rip his throat out for even suggesting he leave with him instead.
“Oh,” he says, feverishly adoring eyes fixed on Nix’s face. “But—”
“No buts,” Luca growls.
The only warning Nix gets that Luca had been humoring him by allowing him to keep hold of his arm is a low growl of outrage. He rips it free, causing Nix to scramble to keep dinner off the asphalt.
Stalking the bigger man until he’s right up into his shocked face, he pokes him in the chest. “You should go before I change my mind and make you.”
For half a second, Tommy looks afraid—like he’s seen a ghost. Nix can’t see his mate’s face, but the pale flush draining from the human’s says enough. He slams the car door like it’s a shield.
Banging his hand on the roof of the car, Luca points toward the gate before stalking back to Nix and kissing him hard on the mouth.
“That little shit. We should tell the others about him. Dating! How dare he?” Luca grumbles, his tiny fangs poking his red bottom lip.
Nix sure hopes that Tommy didn’t see those.
The pink car does a three-point turn toward the gate, but he stops and winds down the window to wave and shout, “See you next time, Nix!” before driving away.
Nix bursts out laughing at his non-existent self-preservation instincts. Ah, well, maybe Grayson can persuade him without causing bodily harm…he’s reasonable. Or he had been, until recently.
Luca slaps Nix’s ass, and flexes his biceps. “Come on, baby-papa, let’s eat. Being all macho and shit is hungry work. It’s no wonder the alphas eat like they do.”
It’s then that Nix sees Tsuki and Domino sitting like two furry sentries in the wide open door, accusing eyes on him.
Only two.
The absence slams into him before thought can catch up and Nix’s stomach drops.
Whirling he watches the security gate sliding closed, slow and stupid, and—like a goddamn queen—Doodle sits on the back shelf of Tommy’s cursed Civic.
“Oops,” Luca mutters, gaze still on Tsuki and Domino. “We left the door open. Hey, where’s Doodle?”
Tsuki shakes her head with a huff that Nix hears way too often before she turns on her heel and walks away.
Well, shit.