7. Thirty #2
“Six buildings across Farendale County,” he said as he took a sip of his drink. “Mostly luxury multifamily spaces. Plus this complex.” He gestured to the building under our feet, as well as the two others. “Caine is our day-to-day guy on-site here.”
“Because he’s such a people person?”
Lin cut a glance at me, only the smallest bit chastising. “Caine is…somewhat of an agoraphobe.”
That took me by surprise. “Oh . ”
“Not clinically, not literally,” Lin clarified.
“But being out in the world is difficult on him. Being around anyone is difficult. So he’s basically my behind-the-scenes project manager, accountant, executive assistant—whatever needs doing.
It was his call to take on the landlord duties here.
” Lin’s jaw clenched and he shot me with that sharp gaze, assessing, warning.
“Everywhere else, we pay a management company to keep staff on-site to deal with those types of issues. But this is our home, and Caine insisted we shouldn’t pay a company to do what he could do when he was already in the building. ”
Heat rushed to my face, and I kept quiet, gathering my thoughts as I watched Brooks—hands still on Taryn’s hips—rolling her faster along the ground.
She laughed, enjoying the thrill of the ride with the security of his steady grip.
As she approached the edge of the roof and the low brick wall that served as its boundary, my heart pounded in my chest. But Taryn popped her back foot down on the edge of the board.
Brooks jumped out of the way as she managed to swivel the board a little more than ninety degrees.
“Superstar!” Brooks called out as he lifted his hands from her waist in victory two blinks before she came to a full stop. “Seriously, prodigy level.”
My mind turned over what Lin had said before about Caine. A bit of social anxiety didn’t give anyone a pass for being a prick, but maybe I’d judge him by his second impression instead of his first. Give him a chance to course-correct.
Assuming we ever saw the man again. His fleeing the rooftop earlier made more sense in light of Lin’s revelation, though.
“So,” I said, infusing lightness into my tone, “why’d you choose this complex to live in? If you deal in luxury living, surely there are nicer places.”
Lin’s brow wrinkled in a grimace, and I replayed my words in my head. I hissed in embarrassment.
Okay, yeah. Second impressions are a friend to all.
“We love the building,” I amended. “And we love the location, all of it! I just meant—”
“Take a breath, Alpha, I’m just messing with you,” Lin said, his face falling back into a smooth look of smug enjoyment.
I relaxed, taking a steadying sip of my drink.
Pretending that was the source of the heat blooming behind my ribcage, and not the casual way he’d just called me Alpha.
So rare that anyone acknowledged my designation, let alone used it as my pet name.
“Some might want to live in luxury,” Lin continued, “but that’s not us. All the places I work on, they’re metal and glass and marble.” He shrugged. “I enjoy the roughness of woodgrain and brick. It’s warmer. Homier.”
I nodded, considering his words. “I’d agree.”
“Good,” he said with a smirk and a sip. “Now, I enjoy some of the finer things, absolutely. I’m a sucker for aesthetic.” He paused, taking a quick but unmistakable sweep of my body with his eyes. The corner of his lips twitched up, speaking volumes. “But I wanted a home, not a showroom.”
“Makes perfect sense,” I said with the breath left in my lungs.
We stared at each other, our gazes weighted and searing.
The air around us thickened, the lights criss-crossing over us hazy.
My heart beat so hard in my chest I could hear the reverberations in my ears, like the ocean in a pearlescent shell.
We stood side by side, the outside of my arm pressed against his.
His eyes flicked to my lips then back up to my eyes.
His left hand lowered his drink at his side, fingers gripping the top of the highball glass.
I stood, frozen, as his right arm slid behind us, rose up until it could rest on the small of my back.
The pressure was light. A request, not a demand.
The request was in his eyes, too— Can I get closer to you?
And fuck me, I had no earthly idea how I felt about that.
“All right, superstar, you got this!”
Brooks’s voice pulled me from the trance. Maybe that was why my heart was pounding so hard yet why my limbs were stiff, locked into place, as he gave Taryn a hearty push at the hips and let her roll.
Without bracing her along the way.
The voice in my head that tried to reason with my alpha, that tried to calm her and reassure her that her omega was going to be just fine, could barely be heard over the snarl ripping through my throat. Because my alpha knew. She saw it like a vision.
Taryn rolling far faster than she should’ve been with so little control over the board.
How the skateboard wobbled back and forth under her feet as she stood on her own.
The wall at the edge of the rooftop, not quite tall enough to prevent a body from rocking right over it.
My omega, closing the gap too fucking fast.
I let Brea recede, and released the alpha.
My body dashed across the patio.
Have to reach omega.
Have to touch omega. Save omega.
Alarm flashed through the bond as Taryn realized what I already had. Taryn slammed her back foot down on the skateboard, not even trying for the fancy swivel she and Brooks had been working on for the last ten minutes. Only a brake.
But her foot was too far back, her ankle landing half on the curved portion of the board and half on the concrete.
The wheels had too much momentum. Fury burned through my chest as my omega’s ankle turned at a sickening angle and the board shot out in front of her, colliding with the brick wall that—thank god for small miracles—she wasn’t flying over.
That only meant she was falling backward toward the concrete, so fast I’d be half a step too late to catch her, so fast she couldn’t put her arms out to stop the fall, and even if she did she’d break a wrist for sure, and god if she hit her head at that speed—
Only she didn’t.
I’d been a half step too far away. But Lin hadn’t.
The scene sped back up to normal rhythm, and Lin knelt there, one arm cradled under Taryn’s back, the other resting behind her head, ready to cushion it against the concrete if he’d been a blink later.
The four of us stood like statues, too shocked even for our scents to have soured.
Me at Lin’s shoulder, breathing heavily.
Taryn in his arms. And Brooks ten feet back, looking absolutely stricken.
He was the first to move, stepping closer to the three of us with wide eyes and face pale.
“I am so sorry. That was stupid—I got wrapped up—god, Taryn, I’m so—”
Fuck second chances! my alpha screamed. He hurt her.
No, the Brea part of me argued. No one is hurt.
My alpha growled. Well, someone’s gonna be .