Chapter 15 #2
Well, it wasn’t the best snowman I’d ever seen, but neither was anyone else’s.
We all had a good laugh as judges were pulled from the crowd who had gathered to watch a bunch of grown adults roll around in the snow.
They made a big show of weighing the pros and cons of each of the seven snowmen.
Someone had the idea of naming them after the seven dwarves.
My and Enzo’s snowman ended up being dubbed Happy because of the way Enzo had exaggerated its coal smile.
“And the winner of the snowman building competition goes to…Sneezy!” the organizer declared at last.
“Aw, nuts,” Enzo said, all in good fun.
Sneezy really was the best. That snowman had been made by two older omegas, who had managed three snowball levels, and who had chosen a carrot for its nose with a deformity on the end that looked like a hanging drop of snot.
“Second place goes to Happy,” the organizer announced once the concert tickets had been handed over to the other pair. “You guys win a voucher for free cocoa at any of the concession booths. By the look of your hands, you’re going to need it.”
I glanced down at my own freezing, red hands, then at Enzo’s. Now that we’d stopped moving, he looked chilled to the bone.
“We definitely need cocoa,” I said as I accepted the vouchers from the organizer.
“I might need to take a bath in it,” Enzo said, exaggerating the way his teeth chattered with cold. At least, I hoped he was exaggerating.
I slipped my arm around my omega and walked him out of the snowy area and down a row of booths to one of the concession stands.
It was manned by pair of young omegas dressed as elves.
Ever since the elves had made headlines as the highlight of the first Barrington Christmas Market, the competition to score one of those seasonal jobs was fierce every year.
The elves who helped us rushed to get warm cocoa into our hands right away. I ordered a few soft, chewy cookies to go with the cocoa, and before long, Enzo and I were sitting snuggled up against each other on one of the benches at a crossroads between two rows of booths.
“So is this what we do for work every day at the Wythe Foundation?” Enzo asked pressing his body against mine as we sipped cocoa.
I laughed loudly and freely, feeling happier than I could remember, even though I was damp and cold. “Absolutely not,” I said. “This is something I reserve for special occasions.”
“So you don’t take all of your new employees out and get them drunk on cocoa after making snowmen with them,” Enzo said with a smirk. “I’ll make a note of that.”
“I save treatment like this for the best of the best,” I said. And since it was a day for me doing new things in the boldest way possible, I leaned closer to Enzo and whispered, “I also have a good idea for how we can warm up at home when we change our clothes to head back to the office.”
“Shawn!” Enzo gasped with pretend shock. The lust that glimmered in his eyes and the flush that painted his face conveyed anything but shock, though.
I couldn’t resist kissing him. Or, at least, I wouldn’t have been able to resist it if we hadn’t been interrupted just as I leaned in and put an arm around him.
“Zo-Zo, my boy!”
We both jumped, and Enzo spilled a little of his cocoa onto his hand. That wasn’t what made his eyes bug out incredulously, though.
“Dad? What the hell?” he snapped, sitting straighter. “What are you doing in Barrington?”
“You know. This and that,” Mr. O’Neill answered. “I could ask you the same thing. What are you doing all the way over on this side of the mountains when our good friend Rick has been looking high and low for you in Norwalk this past week?”
Without a bond, the emotions I sensed in Enzo were vague at best, but they were enough to put me on high alert.
“I don’t owe Rick anything,” Enzo said, standing and starting to walk away.
“You certainly owe me something,” Mr. O’Neill said, moving to block Enzo’s path.
There was no way any of that would fly with me. I got up, working to show authority, and maybe even ownership, by stepping slowly in front of Enzo instead of rushing to protect my omega in a way that would make me look panicked and reactionary.
“Enzo, do you have anything to say or discuss with your father?” I asked as calmly as if I owned the market and could snap my fingers for elves to appear to escort Mr. O’Neill out.
“Not really, no,” Enzo said, but without the sort of confidence I had hoped to see from him.
“I’ve got something to discuss with him,” Mr. O’Neill said. “Sonny boy here made a deal with a friend of mine, and it’s about time he made good on it.”
“I didn’t make any deals with anyone,” Enzo said. “It was only a discussion. I had questions.”
Mr. O’Neill snorted out a laugh. I thought he would say something, but he tilted his head to the side and studied me instead. “Hold on a second,” he said. “This is the same alpha you were with at Evelyn’s. The fancy one.”
“We need to go home and change out of these wet clothes, then go back to work,” Enzo said, starting off to the side, even though that wasn’t the direction of any of the market’s exits.
O’Neill stepped into his path again, which had me surging forward to stand by Enzo’s side with my hand on the small of his back.
“Oh, I see how it is,” O’Neill said, his expression popping with understanding. “You’ve gone and found yourself an alpha. A rich one, too, by the looks of it. No wonder you aren’t interested in the guy Rick found for you.”
Had Enzo consulted some sort of matchmaking service? Something told me that wasn’t what it was. Either way, O’Neill was the threat right in front of us.
“Yes, Enzo and I are together now,” I said in my most possessive, protective voice. “That means no one, and I mean no one, is going to hurt or upset him in any way. That includes you.”
O’Neill didn’t take my claim well. “I’m his father, you know,” he said. “There used to be a time when that meant I was entitled to a certain amount of respect from the alpha I allowed to take my omega son away from me.”
“Good thing those days are long gone,” I said, inching even closer to Enzo.
“Gone, but not forgotten,” O’Neill said. “Of course, I’d be willing to go away entirely for a certain, shall we say, Christmas stocking stuffer.” He rubbed his fingers together and winked.
“Shawn isn’t giving you anything, Dad,” Enzo said, though his voice wasn’t as strong as it might have been if he was feeling completely confident. “Go home.”
“Is that any way to treat your father?” O’Neill asked, frowning at Enzo.
“You heard him,” I said. “Now, if you will excuse us, my omega is cold. I need to take him home to warm him up.”
“I’ll just bet you do,” O’Neill said with a smirk.
I didn’t want anything more to do with the man. More than that, I didn’t want Enzo to have anything more to do with him. Jamie O’Neill was a menace, and the sooner I could get him out of my omega’s life for good, the better.
“Come on,” I said, taking Enzo’s free hand and leading him around O’Neill and toward the nearest exit.
“I’ll tell Rick you say hi,” O’Neill called after us. “I’m sure he’ll want to know all about your new alpha.”
Enzo nearly missed a step. Then he doubled his pace, practically running to get away from his dad.
“Is something wrong?” I asked once we made it out of the market. Fortunately, my building wasn’t that far. We would be able to walk there in about five minutes. “Is this Rick guy a threat to you?”
“No,” Enzo answered slowly and entirely unconvincingly. “Not really.”
I frowned. “Want to tell me about him?”
“Definitely not really,” Enzo said with a wince. I was about to push him for more, but he said, “It’s embarrassing. That’s all it is, really. I’m embarrassed that I ever associated myself with him.”
I nodded, but I wasn’t entirely satisfied.
Embarrassing seemed to confirm my idea of some sort of seedy matchmaking service.
Instinct whispered that there could be more to it than that, but I didn’t want to be overbearing with my omega outside of the bedroom.
I was still coming to terms with that side of myself anyhow.
There didn’t seem to be any immediate threat, and once we made it to my condo Enzo settled.
That hint that something was wrong still hung in the air, though.
I would give my omega a bit of time to figure out how to explain things his own way, but if his dad or this Rick person showed up in our lives again, I would get the full story from him.