Chapter 10 Wilson
Wilson
Thursday morning smells like eggs and coffee and a faint trace of Oliver’s scent drifting from the bed where he’s still buried under three blankets, his bare foot hanging off the edge after I step out of the shower.
I find Lorenzo at the kitchen counter in slacks and no shirt, plating scrambled eggs.
A mug of coffee appears in front of me before I’ve even settled onto the stool, steam curling up between us.
My hair is still damp from the shower, my body carrying the pleasant ache of last night, a tenderness in my hips and lower back that makes every movement remind me of Lorenzo’s hands, his mouth against my spine, and Oliver’s fingers in my hair.
The eggs taste perfect, but I push them around the plate anyway, my fork drawing lines through the scramble while my mind runs an inventory of last night’s shift.
“The card reader at station two glitched again around midnight. I reset it, but we need a replacement unit before the weekend rush. And the ice machine in the back is making that grinding noise again. I tightened the housing, but if the compressor’s going—”
Lorenzo sets down his coffee. “Jesus. Is it always work with you?”
I shrug. “Then what else is there?”
The question leaves my mouth before I can think better of it. Lorenzo’s amusement fades into something softer as he rounds the counter and stands in front of me, close enough that I can taste rain and honey on his skin.
“Gorgeous, you are here.” His voice drops to a whisper. “I love that you throw yourself into the work, that it fills whatever hole you’ve been carrying. But Oliver and I don’t need you to fix every broken thing in that building. We just want you here. At this counter. Eating eggs.”
My fork stills against the plate. For a moment the eggs blur before I blink them back into focus. Lorenzo’s hand finds the side of my face, his thumb tracing my jawline just like last night when he told me to breathe.
He hesitates, waiting for a small nod from me before leaning down and pressing his mouth to mine, my hand moving to rest against his chest, and I kiss him back with the part of myself that’s slowly, terrifyingly accepting that this might be real.
Lorenzo pulls back, dragging his lower lip across mine. “I’ve got some calls to make. I tried Nicholas Cavallero a few times but everything’s gone to voicemail. I sent a couple of emails too. No response yet.”
“Maybe he’s busy.”
“Maybe.” Lorenzo clears our plates, then disappears into the bedroom. He reemerges wearing a blush pink suit that makes my breath catch, tailored so precisely it seems sewn onto his skin. There’s no shirt under the jacket, just the gold chain resting against dark skin.
He catches me staring. “What?”
I shake myself. “Nothing.” Everything. He looks like something out of a painting in a museum I can’t afford. “Go make your calls.”
Lorenzo crosses back to me and cups my jaw, tilting my face up. He hovers there, lips an inch from mine. “Is this okay?”He always asks. Sebastian never asked. Sebastian only took, because taking was the only language he spoke.
“Yeah.”
Lorenzo kisses me again, leaving behind the taste of coffee before the apartment door clicks shut. Alone in the kitchen with just my thoughts, my attention drifts to my phone resting on the counter.
When I flip it over and scroll through the contacts, the names feel like artifacts from another lifetime. Former colleagues from Hearthstone I should have deleted months ago mingle with numbers I barely recognize.
Among them sits one entry saved under a single name, untouched since before the bite mark on my neck healed completely.
Though the number matches the one the listing we found a few days ago, this contact belongs to years past, to whispered conversations through Sebastian's apartment walls during those precious thirty minutes when Sebastian religiously attended the gym and believed I was cleaning.
My thumb hovers over the screen, the apartment suddenly feeling too quiet and too empty. Without allowing myself another moment to reconsider, I press the screen and listen to the call connect.
Nicholas picks up on the first ring. "Wilson?" His voice rushes through the line, a warmth to his tone that I suddenly realize how much I’ve missed. "Hey. Hi. Will."
I press the phone closer to my ear. "Hey."
"I'm—sorry, I just didn't expect—I mean I was hoping you'd—" He takes an audible breath that trembles slightly. "How are you?"
"I'm okay." My chest tightens at the memories his voice is bringing up as I consider how much of the truth I want to give. "Nicholas, I need to ask you something and I want to do it in person. Can we meet?"
"Yes." The word tumbles from him instantly. "Absolutely. When? Today? I can do today. I can do right now if you want. I mean, I have a meeting at two but I can move it. I'll move it."
My chest tightens further as the eagerness in his voice fully hits me. The Alpha speaks exactly as he used to, sentences colliding into each other, words spilling out faster than he can arrange them properly. "Today works. The café on Fifth and Maple? Noon?"
"I know the one. The place with the cinnamon rolls." His voice warms with recognition.
"Yeah."
"I'll be there. I'll be there early. Wilson, I—" Silence fills the line for several seconds. When he continues, his voice drops lower, intimate against my ear. "I'm glad you called."
Heat rises unexpectedly to my face. "Me too."
"Are you sure you're okay?"
My fingers tighten around the phone as I force my voice to stay steady. "I'll explain everything when I see you."
“Okay. Noon. I’ll be there.”
“Nicholas.”
“Yeah?”
“Thank you.”
I can almost see his surprised grin through the line. He laughs, a small sound, like my words caught him off guard. “You don’t have to thank me for agreeing to see you, Wilson. You’ll never have to thank me for that.”
The call ends and I drop my phone onto the counter as the screen fades to black. I’m not sure exactly what I just agreed to or how much this is going to fuck me up mentally come noon, but this is for the two people in my life I owe something to. I can get past my own feelings.
A soft shuffle from the hallway steals my attention, Oliver wrapped in the weighted blanket from his nest, trailing it like a ragged cape. His hair shoots every which way, the Omega padding across the kitchen and plopping himself onto my lap.
An unexpected chuckle bursts out of me, vibrating through my chest in a way it hasn’t in so long it sounds foreign to my own ears. Oliver burrows closer, nose tucked under my chin, the blanket pooling around us on the stool.
“Where are you going?” he mumbles, words muffled against my neck.
I stroke a hand through his curls. “Why would you think I’m going anywhere?”
He squints one blue eye open, hair falling across his forehead. “You’re dressed. You showered. You smell like Lorenzo’s soap instead of yours. And you’ve got that look.”
“What look?”
He exhales softly. “The one right before you do something that scares you and you’ve already decided you’re doing it.”
I brush his hair back. It’s softer than it looks, just like always, and he leans into my hand. “There’s something I have to take care of. I won’t be long.”
He settles deeper into me. “Cryptic. Bring me a cinnamon roll.”
I grip the edge of the stool. “How do you know where I’m going?”
“I don’t. I really like cinnamon rolls but Lorenzo says I eat too much sugar. So, you buy me one. Please. And thank you.” He presses a kiss to my cheek before hopping off my lap and rushing back into the bedroom.
No doubt he heard the tail end of my conversation and somehow picked up on who might have been on the other line.
This is the second time he’s picked up something I wasn’t ready to share and didn’t force me to say anything.
I have no idea what I did to deserve these men while I’m about to go ask another one for money I also don’t deserve.
By the time I get outside, my mind is pure chaos, thoughts filtering in and out of how bad an idea this was. No matter my motivation, seeing Nicholas after these past few years, after everything, after not calling or reaching out… this is going to be a tragedy.
I shove my hands in my pockets and settle into a steady stride for the first six blocks but by the seventh, the memories start.
The sensation of being in their space, together. Both Alphas using me and pleasuring.
Nicholas behind me, his chest against my back, his mouth finding the space between my shoulder blades while Sebastian watches from the chair by the window with his legs crossed.
Nicholas’s hands are gentle on my hips, his knot swelling slowly inside of me, his breath uneven against my skin.
It was the only time in that apartment I felt like the body I was living in was worth inhabiting. Looking back, I should have known that Sebastian was never who I wanted but I was so caught up, that it never even occurred to me.
And then Sebastian put his foot down.
“Nicholas is a guest in our bed. He is not your Alpha.” Everything got worse after that.
A shudder tears through me as I try to push those emotions back down, reminding myself I’m just here for money, not to reminisce and definitely not to wonder what if.
I finally make it to the street just across from the café on the corner, my heart in my throat and my nerves on edge. I can just see through the windows, a few people at small tables, the barista pulling shots, the pastry case, and the cute chalkboard menu.
Nicholas is at a table by the glass, his glasses sitting low on his nose as he checks his phone.
There’s no mistaking the Alpha, the easy suave aura he always carried around still there.
Even from here, I can catch the black ink trailing down his forearm where his sleeves are rolled.
He’s early. He told me he’d be early and he is, because Nicholas has never once in his life been late for me.
He looks up and scans the street, no doubt searching for me. When he glances toward the sidewalk, his mouth curves in that same small smile I can picture perfectly even from across the road.
The crosswalk signal changes, people streaming around me. Nicholas checks his phone again, scrolls, and then looks back up.
I’m going to walk into that café and ask this man for money.
I’m going to sit across from the brother of the Alpha who destroyed me and use our history as leverage to save a club that isn’t even mine.
Nicholas will say yes, because he’s never been able to say no to me, and I’ll walk out having exploited the one person in Sebastian’s orbit who ever treated me like I was worth being gentle with.
Sebastian’s voice, hits me hard, bringing up his controlling nature even after he’s long gone. “You want to belong to someone, Wilson? You already do.”
The crosswalk signal changes again to Don’t Walk. I turn away and begin the twelve blocks back. When I reach the apartment, I lock myself in the guest bedroom and sink down against the wall until I hit the floor.
“Got held up. Couldn’t make it. I’m sorry,” I type, watching each letter appear on the screen.
A minute passes before the phone vibrates against my thighs, sending a small shock through my body. “No worries, sunshine. Everything okay?” his message reads.
I hate that name. I hate it because it describes a part of who I used to be around Nicholas, a Beta who smiled and dreamed and wanted things. I’m nobody’s sunshine now. I’m just a disaster.
Yeah, everything’s fine. I type back. Everything is not fine.