Chapter 18 Lorenzo
Lorenzo
I’ve been watching Wilson let Nicholas finally show his love in public.
The brief touches are so small you’d miss them if you blinked, Nicholas’s palm skimming the small of Wilson’s back as they pass each other behind the bar, Wilson’s fingertips catching at Nicholas’ sleeve when he leans over to check the register tape.
I see their shoulders bump together during the staff briefing, Wilson tipping toward the Alpha’s warmth like some magnet his brain still refuses to reject.
They’re terrible at this. Two grown men orbiting each other with the fumbling hesitation of teenagers at a school dance, each brush followed by a micro-retreat, a recalibration, and a quick check to see if the other one noticed.
Nicholas reaches for Wilson’s hand during a lull; Wilson lets him hold it for four seconds before yanking away to “adjust” a bottle on the shelf that was fine the second before.
Later, Wilson leans into Nicholas’s shoulder while reading the night’s schedule and then springs upright so fast his spine cracks.
However, Oliver is having the time of his life with this, and I have a front-row seat. My Omega’s parked himself behind the bar tonight with a perfect view of every stolen caress, his chin propped on his fist, glitter in his hair flashing every time he tilts his head to follow the show.
When Nicholas passes Wilson a glass of water and their fingers graze on the rim, Oliver’s whole face lights up.
When Wilson whispers something that cracks Nicholas up, Oliver clamps onto my arm so hard I can still feel it, and hisses, “Did you see that? Did you fucking see that?” before I can even answer.
As if that weren’t enough, Oliver’s taken it upon himself to wedge into their space at every opportunity.
He drapes himself across Nicholas’s back in meetings, chin resting on the Alpha’s shoulder, pretending to care about property-law minutiae while his eyes track Wilson at the other end of the table.
He’s been stealing Wilson’s coffee, swapping in a fresh cup with exactly the amount of sugar Wilson swears he doesn’t use, then planting a quick kiss on Wilson’s cheek before bouncing off so Wilson can’t protest. And yesterday?
He hip-checked Wilson right into Nicholas’s chest so blatantly that half the staff saw it and Wilson’s ears burned bright red for a good twenty minutes afterward.
Nicholas handles Oliver’s interference with the patient amusement of a man who recognizes an unstoppable force when he sees one. Wilson handles it by swearing, blushing, and failing to hide how his mouth twitches every time Oliver does something outrageous, which is constantly.
And it just makes everything else more seamless, like starting to build our crazy little pack has somehow righted everything else.
The club has been easier to breathe in these past few days.
The arbitration is holding. The code-violation challenge went through on Thursday without incident.
My attorney has Voss’ legal team responding to our filings instead of generating new pressure, which means the boardwalk owner’s machinery is finally running defensive for the first time since we opened.
Voss called once, his voice obviously disappointed that he hadn’t been able to immediately run us into the ground.
“Impressive legal work, Lorenzo. I’m curious where the funding materialized. One moment you’re struggling with lease terms and the next you’ve retained Margaux Chen.”
“Private investment.”
“Mm.” The syllable sat in his mouth like he was turning it over, testing the weight. “I hope your investor understands that the boardwalk has a long memory. Money solves short-term problems. It doesn’t change the landscape.”
“Neither does inflating lease terms above market rate. Our attorney has the comps.”
Three beats of silence. Then Voss laughed, the sound carrying exactly as much warmth as a concrete floor. “We’ll be in touch, Lorenzo.”
Voss doesn’t concede territory, and these frozen terms are a delay, not a resolution. But the ground has stopped shaking long enough for me to look up from the numbers and see that the club I built is still standing and that the people inside it are finding each other.
This morning Wilson ate breakfast without being reminded.
He cracked a joke in the staff meeting that even startled a laugh out of our head bartender.
Yesterday afternoon he fell asleep on the office couch, and when Oliver draped a blanket over him, Wilson just pulled it tighter and slept another hour.
Every so often, Nicholas finds his way into the guest room with Wilson pressed against his chest. In those few nights, the nightmares haven’t resurfaced.
I heard the one before through the wall separating the guest room from our bedroom. The sounds made me tighten my hand on Oliver’s hip in the dark. When Nicholas’s low, steady voice filtered through the plaster, everything stopped. The silence that followed settled something behind my ribs.
A heavy sigh falls from my lips as I start moving through the end of Friday night’s duties. It’s been one of the best crowds in months, the register receipts reflecting the kind of night we used to take for granted before Voss started squeezing.
Oliver went upstairs an hour ago, his energy dimmer than usual all evening, his smile losing wattage by increments until I pressed my mouth to his temple and told him to rest. He argued for the ten seconds it took me to slide my hand along the back of his neck, then he went.
The staff can handle closing. I round the bar and catch Wilson’s elbow as he finishes his last pour.
“We’re done. Upstairs.”
His brow furrows. “There’s still an hour on the—”
“Staff’s got it, gorgeous. Let’s go.”
He opens his mouth to argue but I drop my chin and square my shoulders just enough to get the point across. His jaw snaps shut, his spine straightens in that automatic response to my authority he still resents but doesn’t override. “Fine.” The word carries enough grudge to fill the entire bar.
Nicholas appears in the east corridor, jacket draped over his arm. His eyes find Wilson first then shift to me.
“Heading out. Good crowd tonight.”
“Alpha.” He stops mid-stride, his eyebrow lifting behind his glasses. “You’re coming upstairs. Your Beta hasn’t slept properly in two days unless you’re physically holding him to the mattress, and I’d rather that continue tonight than not.”
His expression softens. “Yeah?” Wilson grumbles beside me, the sound vibrating through his chest, but he’s already drifting away from my hand on his elbow toward Nicholas. His shoulder bumps the Alpha’s chest and Nicholas wraps an arm around him without hesitation, pulling him close.
I hear Wilson mutter into Nicholas’s jacket, “I sleep fine.”
“You went forty-one hours last week,” I remind him.
“That was one time.”
“That was twice,” Nicholas says, his voice carrying the smile I can almost see above Wilson’s curls.
Wilson grumbles something obscene that sends a suppressed laugh rattling through Nicholas’s chest. I grin, wave the bartender over for the handoff, and fall into step behind them.
Ignoring their banter, I climb the stairs, not at all surprised to find the door unlocked. Oliver rarely remembers that part of the whole ‘security’ thing so it’s a good thing there’s a camera up here to alert me of any other movement.
Nicholas pushes open the door, and Oliver’s scent, concentrated in a way I haven’t smelled in months, slams into us all at once.
It washes over me, coats my skin, and presses against the inside of my skull.
The air is thick with it, heated, carrying an undertone that spikes my pulse before I even realize what’s happening.
Wilson goes rigid against Nicholas’s side. Nicholas’s arm clamps around Wilson’s shoulders, his nostrils flaring, jaw tight. The amber of his own scent sharpens in response, slicing through Oliver’s sweetness so sharply the hairs on my arms stand on end.
Without thinking, my legs carry me through the living room to our bedroom. The nest is destroyed. Oliver’s careful layering of blankets and pillows lies in a chaotic tangle, fabric spilling onto the floor.
Oliver kneels in the center of the destruction, face pressed into the last remaining pillow, back forming a perfect arch, his hips raised high.
He grips the base of a knotted dildo with white knuckles, rocking back onto it with desperate, uneven thrusts.
Sweat glistens across his flushed skin from cheeks to mid-chest. The sounds escaping his throat scrape raw and desperate through the heated air, nothing familiar in their broken edges.
Waves of his sweetened scent wash over me until my vision blurs at the edges. Slick coats his inner thighs in glistening rivulets, pooling onto the blankets beneath his trembling knees.
“Oliver,” I call, my voice slicing through the air.
His head twists toward me, revealing eyes with pupils so dilated they nearly swallow the iris completely.
Tears stream down his cheeks, cutting paths through scattered glitter.
Though his hand stops moving on the toy, his hips continue their desperate rhythm, seeking something beyond what silicone can provide.
“Zo.” My name fractures between his lips.
“I don’t know what’s happening. I was fine and then it just hit me, everything spiked and I couldn’t—“ His words break apart as a sob convulses through his chest. His spine curves impossibly deeper while fresh slick spills down his quivering thighs. “I tried to handle it myself but it won’t stop and I can’t get it to—“ A cracked moan interrupts his plea as he gazes up at me with tear-filled eyes. “What’s wrong with me?”