Chapter 13
Chase
“You have any idea why Noah called this meeting?” Chase asked Spencer, shoving the alpha’s sock-clad feet off his lap for the tenth time in a minute.
“No idea.” Spencer popped his feet right back in Chase’s lap, wiggling his toes. “But you can give these bad boys a rub if you like, maybe help pass the time.”
“Oh, can I? Can I really?”
But Chase found himself digging his thumbs into Spencer’s arches anyway while they waited for Noah to arrive. Persistence like that should really be rewarded.
It was Friday morning of their spring break.
All three of them had stayed in town: Spencer to work, Noah to make up his missed midterms, and Chase because he had nothing better to do.
Well, he’d planned to have better things to do, but he hadn’t seen as much of Killian as he’d hoped.
It turned out professors had a lot of grading to do during the break.
Plus, Spencer had wanted to hang out with Chase as much as possible when he wasn’t working, since Noah had been so caught up in schoolwork.
But the distance was surprisingly difficult.
Things had changed between them since the night Chase had shown up unannounced.
They’d … deepened, maybe. Chase knew stuff about Killian now, both big and little.
The novels on his bedside table were spy thrillers, for one, most of them set in World War I or II.
Killian made his way through them voraciously, despite his impressive workload at the university.
He was an early riser but often taciturn and grumpy before he’d had at least two cups of coffee.
He took speaking engagements in the summer as a way out of the Phoenix heat, and he often consulted with other professors who needed help with any tricky statistics in their research.
He liked feeding Chase, and he liked reading with Chase under his arm.
He preferred when Chase reeked of him and nothing else.
What Chase didn’t know was whether Killian was as unsettled by this time apart as he was.
But of course he wasn’t. It had barely been a week.
Spencer groaned in approval as Chase worked his feet over, bringing Chase’s attention back to the present. “Probably has something to do with why Noah ran off and disappeared for a week, though, right?” Spencer guessed. “Like, why he missed all his midterms? You think his omega went into heat?”
“I think he’ll tell us that if he wants to.”
Spencer patted Chase’s baseball hat. “Sweet, considerate Chasey.”
Just for that, Chase stopped his massage.
Spencer’s whine of complaint was interrupted by Noah rushing into the apartment. His pheromones were off the charts, bright and bursting with happiness, and he smelled kind of like a margarita, his salty ocean scent now saturated with lime.
He looked happy, too, that wide grin of his stretching from ear to ear.
He stopped in front of the couch, not bothering to greet them. “I have an announcement!”
“You’re pregnant!” Spencer yelled, lifting his feet from Chase’s lap and setting them on the floor. “And it’s twins!”
Noah’s smile didn’t even falter. “So the omega I’ve been seeing …”
“You’re letting us meet him?” Spencer asked, his excitement genuine this time.
Noah rubbed a hand on the back of his neck, his grin taking on a sheepish edge. “Actually, yeah. And, um, his name is Eli Miller. He’s a professor. My professor.”
“Holy shit!” Spencer’s mouth dropped open. “Holy— You sneaky— Holy shit!”
He jumped up, slapping his hands on Noah’s shoulders and shaking him like Noah really had just announced he was pregnant with twins.
Then he was demanding Noah’s whole story, and Noah spilled it all, by all accounts relieved and grateful to finally share everything about the man he was so smitten with.
“It still has to be on the down-low,” he ended with. “Until next year at the earliest, but we’re letting in our closest people.”
“That’s us!” Spencer crowed, kicking at Chase’s leg in his excitement.
Chase grinned back at him absently. Or he thought he did. He was pretty sure his face was doing the things it was supposed to do. It was just … everything felt strangely far away, like he was watching through a window.
Noah and his omega were going public? Or semipublic, at least. Chase hadn’t expected it for some reason. Or maybe just not so soon. And he and Spencer were going to meet him, apparently. Because Noah and Eli were in it for the long haul. Together. Really together.
Why did Chase feel so strange?
“Next up is Chase revealing his secret hookup,” Chase heard Spencer say, and he looked up from his feet to see both his roommates were watching him.
“Oh. Yeah.” Chase cleared his throat, which was suddenly way too dry. “That’s a different thing though. We’re not, like, in love. It’s just sex.”
Spencer’s brow furrowed. “Yeah, but—”
“Hey,” Noah broke in, wrapping an arm around Spencer’s shoulder. “Go easy on him. He’s got dinner with his folks tonight.”
“Oh. Right.” Spencer winced apologetically at Chase. “You sure you don’t want us to go with you?”
Chase’s parents had called the day before to let him know they were flying into Phoenix for a business meeting and expected to see him for dinner tonight.
And while it was sweet of Spencer to offer, Chase already knew his roommates weren’t included in the invitation.
His parents had made it clear they didn’t find it necessary to know his friends.
“Yeah, I’m good. They’re easy.”
Spencer and Noah exchanged looks but didn’t press.
Until suddenly Spencer whirled to face Chase, pointing an accusing finger. “Wait! Why aren’t you more surprised by this?”
“Oh.” Chase exchanged a look with a wide-eyed, panicky Noah. “I didn’t know for sure, but I sort of guessed. I’m in the same class, and Noah is … not subtle around Miller.”
“Betrayal!” Spencer shouted, lobbing throw pillows at both of them. “Betrayal on all sides!”
“Fuck, Chase,” Noah groaned, dodging a large, tasseled pillow. “Couldn’t you have just pretended?”
Chase was too busy climbing over the arm of the couch to crouch underneath it, allowing Spencer’s pillow missiles to fly overhead. Why did they have so many throw pillows anyway? They must have come with the couch his parents had bought.
Chase’s phone buzzed, and he pulled it out of his pocket to find a text from Killian.
Killian: Grading’s finally done. I’m scheduled for a massage this afternoon. It’s a standing monthly appointment. Apparently I carry quite a lot of tension in my shoulders.
Chase: I bet you do.
Killian: Come over afterward.
Chase: I have a dinner thing. It could take a while.
It took Killian longer to reply this time, and Chase bit at his lip. Fridays were supposed to be their night, but this dinner hadn’t exactly been a request he could refuse.
Killian: Sleep over, then.
Chase: Can I let you know after dinner?
Killian: Promptly.
Chase: Yes, Alpha.
Chase sighed, tucking this phone back in his pocket. He peeked around the front of the sofa to find Noah had Spencer in a headlock.
Chase grinned at the sight. It was almost enough to soothe the weird unease he couldn’t seem to shake. He should have just said yes to Killian and let the alpha fuck it out of his system, but he wasn’t sure what state he was going to be in by the time dinner was over.
Or why he felt so weird about Noah and Eli going public.
Maybe Chase had just spent too many days holed up in the house, eating leftover pizza and playing video games with Spencer.
Yeah, that was probably it. He’d get out of the house, get some fresh air, and he’d feel better. Because Chase was fine. And Noah and Eli going public was fine. And dinner with Chase’s parents was going to be … just fine.
Chase’s mother greeted him outside the restaurant with a kiss to his cheek that was miles away from actually touching his skin. His father made do with a distracted nod in Chase’s general direction, more focused on the valet and his potential to scratch their car.
The two of them looked good. They always did.
Money had a way of softening any harsh edges of aging, and Chase’s parents weren’t afraid to use that to their advantage.
His mother’s hair was immaculately dyed and coiffed.
His father was tanned and healthy-looking, trim as ever due to his regular appointments with a personal trainer.
“How are you, darling?” his mother asked Chase absently.
Before Chase could answer, she was already turning to his father. “Robert, forget the car. It’s a rental—who cares what happens to it? I’m famished.”
His father let out a grunt and wrapped an arm around his wife, ushering her inside. Chase followed behind them, wondering if they’d notice if he just ducked away and skipped the whole thing.
The restaurant was familiar, a place his parents had taken him to before. It was just their type—expensive but not too opulent, with well-cooked food that never bordered on too adventurous. So dinner was predictably delicious.
And predictably quiet.
After a few perfunctory questions—“Your grades are acceptable? No trouble with the house?”—his parents mostly talked between themselves, rehashing the business dinner from the night before. Chase’s father was apparently looking to expand into more Phoenix real estate, possibly something commercial.
There were no more questions directed to Chase.
No queries about his roommates, his close friends of three years now.
No follow-up about his life without lacrosse, a sport he’d played since he was a child.
And not a single inquiry into his dating life, although Chase wouldn’t have been truthful if asked.
Chase had never figured out exactly what was wrong with him.
It had been this way since he was so young—it couldn’t possibly have been anything he’d done, right?
Sometimes he theorized that it was his beta designation that was the problem.
His parents were a classic alpha-omega pair.
Maybe they’d wanted a sweet omega to coddle, or a burly alpha to take over the family business.
Maybe a beta was too much of a blank slate, and they didn’t have enough in themselves to fill him up with normal familial affection.
It didn’t much matter either way—it wasn’t like there was anything Chase could do about it—but it was a theory, anyway.
Chase ate his pasta politely and made interested noises when his parents remembered to direct a comment in his direction.
Maybe he was the problem, with the way he just accepted the status quo.
If he were Spencer, he’d be acting loud and obnoxious, just for the attention.
If he were Noah, he’d probably be calling them out firmly for acting ice-cold with a son who’d never done anything to deserve it.
Either way, he wouldn’t be sitting here, acting out the same old dynamics in the way they always did, again and again and again.
But Chase wasn’t Noah or Spencer. He was just himself, and he smiled and nodded and wondered why it never changed, and why he was stupid enough to hold out hope that it would.
Dinner lasted forever. The meal itself was four courses, and then there was dessert, and after-dinner coffee. Chase wasn’t sure why they were lingering—maybe some deeply buried guilt over them not caring that he was there at all?
Or maybe his father just really wanted a coffee.
“You can get your own car back, can’t you, son?” his father asked when they’d finally made their way outside again. “Your mother’s worn out. We need to get back to our hotel.”
Chase hadn’t driven himself. He’d been dropped off by Spencer at his parents’ request. They’d claimed they wanted to drive him back themselves and see the state of the house, check in on their investment. He hadn’t questioned why they couldn’t have picked him up too.
Chase just nodded. “Yeah, I can find my way.”
His mother blew a kiss that was maybe supposed to be aimed his way, but she was already turning to the valet approaching with the car. “I told you about summer, right, darling?”
“Yes. I’ll stay here.”
His father clapped him on the back. “We’ll see you for Christmas, son.”
Apparently Thanksgiving was out, then. Chase idly wondered where they’d be for it as he stood there, watching them drive off.
His eyes were dry but weirdly hot as he pulled up the rideshare app on his phone. He wished he had his cap to tug down, but baseball hats weren’t polite for dinner, as he’d been told many times in the past.
Before he could think too hard about it, he swiped out of the app and hit Killian’s name instead.
Killian picked up immediately. “When are you coming over?” he asked before Chase could even greet him, his voice gruff with impatience. “I’ve been waiting too long, sweet boy.”
It was oddly painful, to have his presence craved so badly after barely feeling like a person for the last three hours. Like Chase’s whole body was pins and needles after being numb for too long. He had the strange desire to hang up.
But he didn’t. He couldn’t.
“Actually—” Chase paused, clearing his throat. The words kept getting stuck somewhere on the way out. “Can you come get me?”
Killian didn’t hesitate, and Chase could hear the jingle of him grabbing his keys. “Send me the location. I’m leaving now.”