Chapter 11 Nicholas
Nicholas
Got held up. Couldn’t make it. I’m sorry.
I’ve reread it fifteen times, even after I responded to Wilson, even after I contemplated following him and finding out where he lives just for my strange peace of mind.
Instead, I’m still sitting here, surrounded by the espresso and the cinnamon rolls they bake fresh every morning, the chair across from me still empty.
My coffee is untouched. The foam has gone flat, a thin skin stretched across the surface. I stare at my phone, my thumb resting against the edge of the case, Wilson’s words burning themselves into the part of my brain that’s been collecting data on him for the better part of a decade.
He was here. I saw him on the sidewalk across the street, his hands shaking in his pockets, his jaw working around something he couldn’t swallow.
He waited at the crosswalk through three light changes, then turned and walked away.
I stayed at this window table and let him go, because chasing is what my brother does.
Got held up.
Wilson Ashford has never been good at lying.
Even when we were younger, his tells were obvious to anyone paying attention, the way his eyes dropped to the left and the way his voice flattened, stripped of its usual inflection.
My brother never noticed those things because he didn’t care whether Wilson was telling the truth. He cared whether Wilson was compliant.
I set my phone face-down on the table and press my palms flat on the wood. Five years of patience, and here I am in a coffee shop reading a text that says I wanted to come and I couldn’t.
Wilson was twenty-one when I met him at a backyard barbecue with warm beer, music too loud, and two strangers on coolers talking until the sun went down.
He told me my jokes were terrible—and he was right—so I told him another one, and the laugh that came out of him turned into a cough that became the foundation for the next year of my life.
I was going to claim him. The plan lived in my head with the clarity that young love produces, all the details mapped out including an apartment big enough for two, then three, then a pack; the bite I’d place on his shoulder with his permission, his eyes on mine, his body willing.
Wilson needed time to trust, and I had all the time in the world. Decades of patience for a man who’d choked on his beer because my jokes were so bad they circled back around to funny.
My brother saw how I looked at Wilson. He’s always had a talent for cataloguing what other people love and calculating what it would cost to take it away.
He’d sit across from me at family dinners, listen to the stupid, lovesick weight in my voice when I said Wilson’s name, and file every syllable away.
I hosted the family dinner that unraveled everything I’d planned.
Sebastian arrived in a tailored suit, smelling of something expensive, and every head turned as he walked in.
Wilson was enchanted, hell, everyone always is enchanted at first. Sebastian’s gift was making you feel like the center of something beautiful.
You don’t notice the walls closing in until the door has already locked behind you.
The claiming happened so fast. I was still adjusting to the idea of Wilson dating my brother when Wilson called me from his bathroom, voice bright with excitement to tell me about the bite. All I could say, through clenched teeth was, “I’m happy for you.”
I burrow the low growl trying to worm itself into my chest as the memories continue to surface. The barista glares over at me and I manage to take a sip of my cold coffee to earn my lack of purchases over the last however long I’ve been here.
Every time Sebastian invited me into their bed, I swore I’d say no. I opened my mouth to refuse, but then Wilson stood there with those brown eyes, and my body overruled every boundary I’d set.
I remember Wilson beneath me, his back arched, hands fisting the sheets, thighs trembling as my knot swelled inside of him.
I went slow because I couldn’t bear for it to end, because Sebastian could revoke his invitation at any moment, and because each time I pushed inside Wilson and felt him open for me, something in my chest cracked wider.
Losing that connection would be what finally finished me.
Sebastian always watched, one hand resting on Wilson’s back, neck, or thigh. The claim was visible even as he shared what he’d taken. I told myself it was only physical for Wilson, a novelty, my brother’s Beta enjoying a second body in the bed.
I clung to that lie for years because the truth was unbearable.
The coffee shop door opens, letting in a gust of cold autumn air scented with a cologne that probably costs more than most people's rent. Marcus Voss slides into the chair across from me as if every empty seat is his by right.
"Nicholas." His voice fills the small space the way it fills every room, heavy with the certainty of someone who's never been told no by anyone who mattered. "I thought that was you through the window. Don't usually see you on this side of town."
"Marcus." I pick up my coffee again, more to hold than to drink. "Just meeting someone."
"Business?"
"Personal."
Voss raises an eyebrow. The expression sits on his face like it's been rehearsed, one part curiosity, two parts calculation. The Alpha waves at the barista without looking in her direction. "Personal doesn't usually put that look on your face. Must be someone important."
"Could be." I focus on the lingering warmth from the mug, already hating this Alpha in my space. He’s ruthless in business and just annoying everywhere else. "If he shows up."
Voss glances at me, his mouth curving into something that wants to be a smile. "Stood up?"
"Something came up."
"Mm." The barista brings Voss an espresso he hasn't ordered, which tells me he comes here often enough that they know his drink.
He takes a sip and settles back in the chair like he owns it.
Probably the building too. "A word of advice, Nicholas, from someone who's been in this business longer than you.
People approach men like us for one reason. "
"That being?"
"Money." Voss turns the espresso cup in its saucer. "We're useful to people. We solve problems. And the ones who come knocking on our doors with their personal situations and complicated histories are usually looking for a check wrapped in a handshake."
My jaw tightens. "This isn't that."
"It's always that." Voss takes another unhurried sip, watching me over the rim. "You're a smart man, Cavallero. One of the sharper investors I've worked with. Don't let someone with a pretty face and a sad story drain your accounts while they're draining your—"
"Marcus." My voice drops low enough that the single name carries weight without volume. "This person isn't like that."
Voss holds my gaze for a beat, then shrugs. "Your call." He drains the espresso and stands, buttoning his coat with one hand. "I've got a meeting at the boardwalk in twenty. We should get lunch sometime, catch up on the Harborview deal."
"Sure."
"And Nicholas." He pauses at the edge of the table, looking down at me with an expression that could pass for paternal concern if you didn't know what lives behind it. "Be careful. People are very good at making you feel needed right before they take what they came for."
He leaves, the door swinging shut behind him as the warmth settles back into the room, the gust of cold air and expensive cologne fading into espresso and cinnamon.
Be careful. The warning echoes in the space Voss left behind, settling against the ache in my chest. I've been careful for two years.
Careful means silence, distance, and sitting in my apartment with Wilson's number in my phone and my thumb hovering over the dial button every night before putting it away.
Careful means watching my brother lose his mind when Wilson disappeared, listening to Sebastian rage about the bite removal like a man who'd lost property instead of a person.
That was how I found out Wilson was free.
Sebastian calling me at 2 AM, drunk and furious, spitting about how Wilson had gone behind his back and had the bite ripped out by some underground doctor.
My brother lost his temper and handed me the only piece of information that mattered: Wilson was no longer his.
I waited. Weeks turned into months, then two years.
Wilson didn't call. Didn't text. Didn't show up at any of the places I made sure to linger, the restaurants we used to go to, the parks we walked through that year before Sebastian, the coffee shops where Wilson used to study.
I orbited the edges of his old life hoping he'd drift back into range.
He never did. And the worst part of careful is that I don't know where he ended up. I don't know if he's safe, if he's eating, if he's sleeping through the night or waking up gasping the way I imagine he does when I'm lying in the dark at 3 AM constructing worst-case scenarios.
Just over two years of silence and all I have is a phone number that resurfaced this morning like a message in a bottle washing up on a shore I'd stopped checking.
And then, today he stood on the sidewalk across from me and couldn't cross the street. Fuck, Voss. I’d give Wilson whatever he needed just to spend a few more minutes with him, to see that he was okay and that he’s thriving.
I pick my phone up and text Wilson just four words.
Whenever you're ready, Will.
I'll wait for his answer. I've been waiting two years. A little longer won't kill me.
Probably.