Chapter 1
Chase
Hair still damp from his shower, Chase came out of his bedroom to hear his roommates arguing in the kitchen.
Or more like Spencer was nagging and Noah wasn’t being quite as forgiving as usual.
It wasn’t totally unheard of—stick two alphas and a beta in close quarters for the school year and sometimes tempers were going to rise, no matter how much they loved one another—but it was rare for it to be at this level before the semester even began.
Chase reached up to adjust a baseball cap he wasn’t wearing, then dropped his arm. Time to play peacekeeper, he supposed.
“C’mon,” he could hear Spencer saying. “You make ’em the best.”
“Dude. They’re scrambled fucking eggs. How do I make them better than anyone else?”
Chase shuffled into the kitchen of their three-bedroom apartment—paid for oh so generously by his parents, not that they’d ever set foot inside the place—and found the two alphas in question facing off over a frying pan.
They were dressed similarly, in sweats and T-shirts, but otherwise they were as different as two alphas could be, other than them both being annoyingly hot.
Spencer, tall and lean, had his dark hair artfully tousled in a way that was pretending to be haphazard but most definitely wasn’t (Chase knew for a fact the guy used at least three different hair products). He was making an outraged face that just barely flashed his tongue piercing.
Noah, just as tall as Spencer but built more broadly, with loose blond curls that actually were haphazard and a surfer’s tan to match (not that he got any surfing done in Arizona), was scowling, which was rare for the upbeat alpha, but he’d been in a pissy mood since he’d been blown off by the mystery omega he’d lost his virginity to over winter break.
“Chase!” Spencer greeted with more enthusiasm than the moment warranted, waving the frying pan in the air. “Tell Noah he should make us eggs. It’s the first day of the semester. We have to eat breakfast together.”
“You don’t have to make them,” Chase told Noah, ignoring Spence’s squawk of outrage.
He had to have known Chase wasn’t going to join in on the peer pressure party.
Noah’s scowl dropped in an instant, and he sighed, taking the pan from Spencer. “I’ll do it.” He bumped shoulders with the other alpha. “Sorry, man. Woke up on the wrong side of the bed.”
Pathologically incapable of holding a grudge, Spencer just shrugged, coming over to Chase and throwing an arm around his shoulder, casually scent marking him as he did.
Spencer was always doing that—scent marking them—something to do with never getting enough of it from his family growing up.
Neither Noah nor Chase minded. Noah probably because he came from a big-ass family and missed getting scent marked by his siblings.
And Chase because he understood the urge—and where it came from—all too well.
Better than he’d ever told either of his roommates, that was for sure.
So Chase just tilted his head, giving Spencer better access to his scent glands as Noah took out eggs from their communal fridge.
“Chase, you want toast?” Noah asked. They both knew Spencer wouldn’t—he kept himself on a strict regimen to keep his physique exactly the way he wanted it. More hang-ups from a scrawny, underfed childhood, and neither of them pushed him on it.
“If you’re having some.”
Noah nodded, tossing some slices of bread into the toaster.
He wasn’t scowling anymore, but he didn’t exactly look happy either.
Which was a shame because Noah had the kind of wide, face-changing smile that could cut through anyone’s defenses.
When the three of them had met during freshmen orientation, almost three years ago now, Chase had harbored a little bit of a crush on him.
He was pretty sure Spencer had too. It was hard not to with Noah. He was confident, kind, and gorgeous.
They’d both gotten over it a long time ago though. It was just a rite of passage everyone had to go through, having an unrequited crush on Noah Teller.
And the one he’s finally fallen for won’t even text him. Figures.
Chase could only hope Spencer wouldn’t poke the bear any more than he already had this morning.
Chase wasn’t, like, superstitious or anything, but he figured it didn’t hurt to start the new semester on the right foot.
Make sure things started off calm and cool and with everyone happy with everybody else.
But that was just the way he was, liking things even-keeled. Of the three of them, Noah was effortlessly charming, Spencer was alluring almost in spite of himself, and Chase …
Chase wasn’t sure what he offered, actually. A little bit of quiet, maybe. A willingness to hang in the middle and not pick sides. He’d used to blame his more subdued nature on being busy with sports, but he’d quit lacrosse last year and he wasn’t any rowdier now.
Chase wasn’t insecure about it or anything—he knew their friendship was legit.
But he wasn’t loud and out there like his friends could be.
He was aware he was decent-looking, but he didn’t catch the eye in an instant the way Noah or Spencer did.
He didn’t make as much sense in their trio, at least on a surface level.
It worked, though, the three of them. The other two seemed to like that Chase was chill. They didn’t ignore him just because he wasn’t always the life of the party. Hell, Spencer could barely leave either Chase or Noah alone on a good day.
At least, having gotten his scrambled-egg wish, Spencer seemed to have mellowed now. He’d given up taunting Noah and was just resting his head on Chase’s shoulder, watching Noah comply with his request.
Chase gave him a pat and then shrugged out of his friend’s hold, heading to the fridge and pouring out two glasses of orange juice for him and Noah and a glass of milk for Spencer, which Spencer immediately started adding a hideous amount of protein powder to.
It wasn’t long before Noah started dishing out eggs. Spencer dragged Chase to the table, yelling out, “Extra cheese on mine!”
Chase had no idea why Spencer could have cheese but not bread, but Noah didn’t bat an eye, tossing some more shredded cheese on Spencer’s plate of eggs, his initial reluctance to make them breakfast clearly long gone.
This was what the three of them did, ever since they’d started living together last year.
Ever since they’d met, really. They took care of each other in little ways.
It was nice, kind of pack-like in a way that was soothing to their instincts.
Initial crush aside, Chase loved these two like brothers now. He was grateful to have met them.
So after cheersing their drinks, Chase dug into his eggs with gusto, ignoring that little nagging feeling that asked, Then why doesn’t it feel like enough?
An hour later, Chase and Noah had said goodbye to Spencer (or their version of it, wherein Spencer had pinched Chase’s cheek like he was a little baby and Chase had unsuccessfully attempted to punch him for it) and were on their way to Omega Studies.
It was a fucking gorgeous morning, sunny and mild in the way only Arizona could be in the beginning of January.
The winter weather almost made up for the summer heat.
Not that Chase would know the full scope of that—he’d been going to his parents’ lake house in Minnesota every summer since he was a baby.
But apparently he was about to have his knowledge of Phoenix in the summer drastically expanded, as his parents had informed him over Christmas that they’d be traveling this year, and he was expected to stay where he was.
“We can’t be paying for a fully staffed house just so you can run around underfoot and get in their way all summer,” his mother had told him. “You understand, hm?”
So, anyway, Chase supposed he’d find out the extent of his heat tolerance real quick. Luckily, Noah and Spencer were sticking around this year too. They could suffer together, and they had a whole glorious semester to anticipate the pain.
As they walked across the quad toward their lecture hall, Chase caught Noah looking at his phone for the hundredth time. “Still no text?” Chase asked.
“Maybe—maybe I wasn’t any good,” Noah mumbled, morose as shit.
His night with the mysterious omega had been Noah’s first time.
Crushes on him may have abounded, but he’d never reciprocated—not until now.
Still, Chase highly fucking doubted that bad sex was the issue.
Lack of skill was one thing, but truly bad sex usually required either malice or obliviousness, and Noah didn’t have much of either.
What he did have, however, was the power to emit some world-class horny pheromones.
As a beta, pheromones were more muted to Chase than to an alpha or an omega, but he could still smell them. And he could really smell these.
“Dude,” he warned.
“What?” Noah asked, still staring at his phone.
Maybe he was a little oblivious. Sometimes.
“Are you—” Looking to fuck the next passing omega, Chase almost said, then coughed, wrinkling his nose. “Your pheromones, man.”
“Oh fuck.” In an instant, the rich, salty scent that had been screaming, Sex now, please! settled down into a more neutral aroma. “Sorry.”
“No worries.” Chase coughed again before he could help it. “I can barely smell it,” he lied. “Just thought you might not want to rock up to the lecture hall putting out sex signals for all to scent.”
Noah shoved his phone back into his pocket, clearly annoyed with himself. “What’s wrong with me?”
Chase shrugged. “You’ve got a crush.” He switched the brim of his cap backward, wanting the full force of the morning sun on his face.
He was suddenly feeling pretty good. He may have been drifting a bit this year (or possibly ever since he’d quit lacrosse the year before), but at least he wasn’t dealing with unrequited love.
Or lust, as it may be. “Happens to the best of us.”
“Doesn’t happen to you.”
Fully smug now, Chase just grinned, looking over his shoulder at Noah as they walked. “That’s because I’m—oof!”
He’d hit a wall. A brick wall. That was what it felt like, at least.
What it looked like, though, was that Professor Burke was standing in front of him, all tall and broad and imposing, and Chase had run straight into him like a complete asshole, knocking half the professor’s printed handouts onto the ground.
That was what it looked like.
Chase stood there, frozen. He should be apologizing already, shouldn’t he? Apologizing profusely. But he was stuck in place.
He’d succeeded, more or less, in putting Burke out of his mind over the break. Mostly. Sort of.
Chase might have paid a little too close attention to certain rumors about a bar Burke frequented and its proximity to a certain kink club. He might have wondered about why that bar next to that specific club. He might have thought a little bit about who Burke went home to—or home with.
But that was just … random speculation. An ear to the ground sort of thing. The guy was interesting. And … here. Right now. In front of Chase.
He looked fucking good, too, which was supremely unfair.
Burke was wearing dark slacks and a tightly fitted button-down, the sleeves rolled up to show strong forearms, all tanned and olive-skinned.
He kept his dark hair longer on top, and it fell forward in a way that was unexpectedly rakish for such a straitlaced professor.
Not that Chase usually went around calling people “rakish” on the daily, but he’d taken a class on Regency-era literature last semester, and some things had stuck.
So fuck it. Burke’s hair was … rakish.
And also he was staring at Chase. Glaring.
Luckily for Chase’s untimely paralysis, Noah stepped forward just then, leaning over to grab the lost papers. “Sorry, man. I’ll grab—”
Leather. Dark and rich, without even a hint of sweet cherry.
Noah stopped mid-motion, halfway bent over, frozen in place by the power of Professor Burke’s pheromones.
For some reason, that broke Chase’s own immobility. Burke’s pheromones were intense, but Chase didn’t have Noah’s reaction to them. He liked them. They smelled … good. Masculine and rich and kind of comforting in their intensity.
Sexy as fuck.
Chase pushed the unwelcome thought aside and knelt, grabbing the papers he’d knocked out of Burke’s hands. “Here you are, sir.”
A dark-blue gaze locked onto his, and Chase had a new appreciation for the term steely-eyed. “There’s a good boy,” Burke murmured, so softly Chase almost missed it.
And just like that, Chase went hot. All fucking over. His throat dried up, and his heart started racing like he’d sprinted halfway around the quad in the last five seconds.
There’s a good boy.
Fuck. Why did Chase like that so much? It was kind of condescending, wasn’t it? He was fully grown—he wasn’t a boy at all, no matter how much older Burke was.
But Chase did like it. A whole fucking lot.
Whether Burke knew the effect his words had just had on Chase, it was impossible to say. He only nodded, not a hint of emotion in his expression. “Carry on, then.”
And then he walked away.
“Who the fuck was that?”
Noah’s question knocked Chase out of his fog, although he couldn’t tear his eyes away from Burke’s retreating back. Chase was no delicate flower, but he wasn’t built like that.
“Professor Burke,” he managed to say. “He teaches statistics. I had him last semester.”
“How the fuck did you survive?” Noah gave an exaggerated shiver. “He’s terrifying.”
Chase shrugged. Terrifying wasn’t the word he’d use—unless terror made Noah’s dick hard—but he kept that to himself. “If you’re polite, he’s actually pretty chill.”
“His pheromones are …” Noah let out a slow, deliberate exhale. “Just be glad you’re a beta.”
“Yeah.” Chase laughed, although the sound came out a little off. Because the thing was, if he’d been an omega, he would have been fucking soaked. The whole quad would have been able to smell his slick.
Probably not what Noah meant.
Chase tugged Noah’s arm, leading him in the direction of their class, hoping his face wasn’t as red as it felt. “Sure.”
If nothing else, being a beta let Chase keep his secrets close.
Even if he wasn’t exactly sure what those secrets were.
But as they walked into class, Professor Burke’s quiet words kept playing in Chase’s head.
There’s a good boy.