4. Soren
Soren
My oat milk lavender latte is going cold between my hands, and I’ve rearranged the sugar packets in their little ceramic dish three times.
First by color, then by brand, then back to color.
The barista, a sophomore I might have Romantic Lit with, gave me a look on the third rearrangement that I’m choosing to interpret as endearment rather than concern.
Milo’s voice is on a loop in my head. You can always leave. You can always leave. You can always leave. He texted it three times before I left: once normal, once in all caps, once with a purple heart. Milo gets that some things need to be said until they stick.
The café is about half-full, and I’m doing that thing I do where I make up stories about everyone in the room instead of sitting with my own feelings.
The girl in the corner with the enormous headphones is writing a manifesto.
The two betas splitting a muffin by the door are on their third date and the muffin-splitting is a little ritual they started on the first one and now it’s their thing and neither of them remembers who suggested it.
The barista is humming something that’s not quite any recognizable melody, and I like her for it.
She’s making her own song. That’s brave, even if she doesn’t know she’s doing it.
I check my phone. 6:11. Derek said six. That’s fine.
Eleven minutes is nothing. Maybe he hit traffic.
Maybe he’s nervous too, circling the building trying to work up the courage, and that thought softens me toward him even though I have no evidence it’s true.
I want this to be a good story. I want to sit here and have a nice conversation with a nice alpha and feel something, even a small something, even potential.
At 6:14, I open the group chat.
Soren: He’s late. Is that a red flag or am I being dramatic
Jude: red flag. burn him.
Milo: It’s only 14 minutes. Traffic maybe?
Shay: Statistically, lateness on a first date correlates with a 40% higher chance of being a fuckboy.
Benji: shay where do you get these numbers
Shay: I make them up but they feel true.
Jude: soren if he’s ugly you have my permission to fake a seizure
Milo: JUDE
Jude: WHAT. i’m being supportive
I’m trying to type a reply when the café door swings open and a wall of cologne walks in.
I wrinkle my nose. It’s that sharp, synthetic stuff from a department store, the kind that announces itself before the person wearing it and apologizes for nothing. It’s so thick I can taste it, chemical and metallic, like licking a doorknob at Macy’s.
And Derek is... fine. He looks like his pictures, which is a low bar he somehow cleared.
Tall, broad shoulders packed into a polo shirt that’s fighting for its life.
He walks like he’s the main character in a movie only he’s watching.
I try to find something nice. Maybe he has kind eyes, maybe when he smiles the whole manufactured confidence will crack open and there’ll be someone real underneath.
But his gaze lands on me and it’s assessing, not warm.
“Soren?” He says it wrong.
“It’s Soren,“ I say.
“Right, right.” He drops into the chair across from me, doesn’t say sorry for being late, and frowns at my latte. “You already ordered?”
“I got here a little early. I’m, uh. A punctual person.”
“Huh.” He waves the barista over without looking at her. “Can I get a black coffee? And he’ll have a regular latte. Whole milk.”
I blink. “Oh, I already have—“
“You don’t really want that, right?” He grins at me. “It’s probably decaf. Pointless. Might as well drink water.”
“It’s not decaf, it’s lavender—“
“Trust me.” He winks. An actual, unironic wink. “You’ll like this better.”
The barista catches my eye, and I give her the tiniest headshake because I was raised to be polite even when I want to crawl out of my own skin.
He’s just confident, I tell myself. Maybe he’s one of those people who expresses care by taking charge.
Maybe the ordering thing is his nervous tic, the way mine is sugar-packet origami.
I’m reaching. I know I’m reaching. But I always try to see the best version of everyone I meet, and I’m not going to stop because my first instinct is to bolt.
Except under all that cologne, his scent is... flat. Not bad. Just nothing special. My omega instincts, shrug. There’s recognition. Not even a flinch.
“So,” Derek says, leaning back. He spreads his knees so wide he’s taking up all the space under our tiny table, his leg pressing against mine in a way that could be accidental but isn’t. “Creative writing, right? Your profile said that.”
“Yeah. Poetry, mostly.” I sit up a little straighter. “I actually just submitted to the Summer Arts Festival—“
“That’s cool, that’s cool.” He nods, but his eyes glaze the second I say poetry. “I mean, not a lot of jobs in that, right? But it’s a fun hobby.”
A fun hobby.
I’ve been writing since I was twelve. I fell asleep last week with ink on my cheek because I was drafting a poem about the way oak leaves hold light at dusk. I’ve spent whole afternoons trying to get a single line right, one image, one breath of.
A fun hobby.
Okay.
“What about you?” I ask, because I am still here, still trying, still the person who leaves you’re doing great on sticky notes for strangers and can’t seem to extend the same grace to himself. “Kinesiology?”
“Yeah, pre-physical therapy. But I’m really into functional fitness. It’s a whole philosophy, you know? Training the body for real-world movements, not just aesthetics.” He flexes an arm on the table, casual, not-so-casual. “Though the aesthetics are a nice bonus.”
For the next ten minutes, he talks about his gym routine.
I learn about his split schedule, his protein intake, and his strong opinions about creatine.
I try, I genuinely try, to find the thread I can pull to get underneath the performance.
Read anything good lately? Have a favorite spot on campus?
But every question curves him back to himself.
Under the table, I pull out my phone.
Soren: So many red flags, help
Jude: WHAT’S HAPPENING
Soren: He ordered me a drink I didn’t ask for, called my major a hobby, and has been talking about deadlifts for ten minutes
Benji: oh no
Jude: oh YES. this is content. keep going.
Shay: Leave. Just stand up and leave. You don’t owe him anything.
Milo: Shay’s right. You can always leave. ??
Jude: okay FINE shay’s right but also do you want me to call you with a fake emergency? i have scripts prepared. option A: your cat is on fire. option B: you’ve been selected for jury duty effective immediately. option C: i just scream into the phone for thirty seconds.
I almost smile. My friends are completely insane and I love them with something so enormous and specific it doesn’t have a name yet. Maybe I’ll coin one. Friend-ache.
Derek is still talking. Something about meal prep now. I’m watching his mouth move and feeling the wrongness of this settling into my body like cold water.
I put my phone away. I take a sip of the latte I didn’t order. It’s sickly sweet, no lavender, sugar and milk and nothing.
”—and honestly, most omegas don’t get the discipline it takes to look like this,“ he’s saying. “It’s a full-time commitment.”
“Derek,” I say. My voice is steadier than I feel. “I don’t think this is working.”
He stops. His expression doesn’t change to disappointment or even surprise. It just hardens. Like a light going off behind his eyes.
“What do you mean?”
“I just... I don’t think we’re a good match.” I’m already grabbing my bag, pulling the strap onto my shoulder. “You seem nice, but—“
“We’ve been here twenty minutes.”
“I know, and I appreciate you coming, but I don’t feel—“
“You didn’t even give me a chance.” His voice drops. It’s not a full alpha command, but it’s the warning before the command, the low-frequency pressure that vibrates in my chest and makes the hair on my arms stand up. “Sit down. Let’s talk.”
“I’d rather not.” I stand. My chair scrapes against the floor, too loud. The girl with the headphones looks up. “Thank you for the coffee, but I’m going to go.”
I turn for the door, and his hand snaps around my wrist.
His grip isn’t painful, but it’s firm.
“Hey.” He’s standing now, too close, and that cologne is everywhere, choking the air out of the space between us.
He’s steering me, subtly, toward the little alcove by the bathrooms, away from the windows.
“Come on, don’t be like that.” His voice drops to a fake-friendly murmur.
“We both know why you’re here. You’re an omega on KnotMe.
You didn’t swipe right to talk about poetry. ”
My scent sours with panic. I can smell it myself—sharp and acrid, burnt sugar where there should be lavender.
“Let go of me,” I whisper.
“Relax.” His thumb digs into my wrist. “I’m not doing anything. Just saying you could loosen up. Have some fun. Isn’t that what the app’s for—“
Someone steps between us.
It’s not a gentle thing. One second, Derek is all I can see and smell, and the next there’s a back. A solid wall of gray blocking everything.
And then.
Oh.
Something floods in where the cologne was. Something that pours through the panic like warm water through ice, and my whole body goes, I don’t have a word yet. Every tight, wrong, terrified thing uncoils at once.
His scent. The person between me and Derek, his scent is clean and warm and green, like walking into a sunlit room full of growing things, and underneath there’s something I can’t name—resinous and steady and so right that my knees actually buckle. My hand flies out and grabs the back of his shirt.
He’s not huge, average height maybe, compact, but he feels immovable.
I can’t see his face. Just the back of his neck, the tendons drawn tight. The collar of his shirt, frayed at the seam. A smudge of something on his forearm where the sleeve is pushed up, and his hands, his hands, scarred across the knuckles.
He hasn’t said a word.
He doesn’t need to. He’s standing there, and I’m standing behind him, and every cell in my body is leaning toward the warm line of his back like a plant someone turned toward the sun.
My vision blurs. I might be crying. I am definitely shaking.
I hold on tighter.