Chapter Sixteen #2
Bennett locked his arm around my waist. “Nope. This is your first night off in a week and I’m keeping you for myself. Ally will be fine.”
“Gee, thanks, bro. Glad keeping your lap warm is more important than the service I provide my patrons,” she said.
“Bye, Ally,” Bennett said, waving her off.
“Wait,” Reid yelled as she walked away. “BBQ wings, onion rings, nachos!”
Ally kept walking, her long blonde hair swishing across her back.
“Ally!” Reid yelled. “I’m starving and it’s Wyatt’s turn to pay! Oh, and sliders!”
“I already put in our order,” Bennett said, shaking his head at Reid. He turned to Wyatt. “No more coming here for guys’ night. I don’t want guys’ night with my sister anymore.”
The bar door opened, and Oakley walked in with a tall white guy with short, dark hair. They both glanced at our table and Oakley quickly averted her eyes while the guy smiled and waved.
“Who is that?” I asked as the three guys held their hands up in a wave.
“My idiot brother,” Reid said.
“My deputy, Donovan,” Wyatt said. “He’s actually very intelligent.”
“Oakley’s kind-of boyfriend?” Bennett asked with a question in his tone. “Are they even dating or are they still doing the casual thing?”
Reid shrugged and took several gulps of his beer, watching them out of the side of his eyes as they sat down at the bar. “Oakley doesn’t date.”
Wyatt gave Reid a sympathetic look. “All right, I have a story about Bennett for you, Felix. It’s a pretty good one.”
Reid turned toward the bar as Oakley stood and walked down the hallway toward the restrooms. “I’ll be right back,” he said. “Enjoy the story.”
Bennett and Wyatt started arguing about how the story started as Reid headed in the same direction as Oakley. A wave of anger rolled off Donovan as Reid walked past him. He stifled it quickly, but any omega in the room would have been able to feel it.
Wow, they really do hate each other.
“Why is traffic so backed up?” I asked, lifting my head from Bennett’s shoulder to peek out the windshield.
The red taillights from dozens of vehicles in front of us were too bright for this late at night.
The drive from The White Fang to my apartment was only about fifteen minutes on backroads or five minutes when we jumped on the interstate.
Either way, we should have been home already.
“I don’t know,” Bennett said. His phone buzzed from the mount on his dash with a text from Wyatt. Bennett glanced at it and said, “Well that would have been helpful five minutes ago.”
I touched the screen to prevent it from going dark and read the message.
Wyatt: If you’re headed to Felix’s, don’t take the interstate. There’s a three-car accident headed south that’s going to have the road shut down for at least an hour. I’m headed there now.
“Shit,” I said. “An hour? What are we supposed to do for an hour?”
Bennett lips quirked upward. “I mean, I can come up with an idea or two.”
I chuckled and settled under his arm.
“Sex aside, though let’s keep it in mind,” Bennett said, kissing my head, “maybe we could use the opportunity for you to explain the situation with your mom. I’ve been wondering about it since the comment you made during your heat. Do you have a relationship with her?”
“There’s no good time for this conversation, but I suppose being trapped is as good a time as any. Besides, I drank three beers and I have to pee really badly, so I’m going to need a distraction from that.”
I hadn’t had three beers in one sitting in a while, and I’d forgotten how fast alcohol hit the bladder.
I’d only been drinking again in social situations for the last year.
After rehab, I’d avoided all substances because I was worried about how I’d be able to handle drug cravings if I was inebriated, but now I trusted myself enough to drink casually on occasion.
I just clearly didn’t have the tolerance that I used to, because I had a small buzz that was making the idea of talking about my mother not seem like the total hell it usually felt like.
Bennett squeezed my knee encouragingly. “You don’t have to share anything you don’t want to.”
“It’s okay,” I said, breathing in the pine-scented pheromones filling the truck.
“My mom wasn’t a bad mom. She was present and she showed up to things physically, but emotionally, she was completely wrapped up in herself.
When I was in rehab, I spent a lot of time talking about my relationship with her, and one of the therapists gave me a book about being the child of a narcissistic parent.
I laughed at first because you hear these tales about narcissists being manipulative and horribly uncaring.
She wasn’t like that. But when I was reading, I realized that she didn’t have the ability to see anything from anyone’s perspective but her own.
And that explained a lot of the absence of emotional support she provided when I was growing up. ”
Bennett’s pheromones thickened and he kissed my head, putting the truck in park since traffic was at a complete standstill.
My eyes stung. “My dad was the parent who met our family’s emotional needs, which is why his death hit me so hard.
My mom was relieved when Clara presented as a beta at eighteen because she’d been worried that Dad would give even more attention to Clara than he already did.
When I turned eighteen and presented as an omega, she told me that I’d better get ready to move out because she didn’t want me going into heat at the house.
Dad had tried to explain some elements of being an omega to me, but he was an alpha, so he couldn’t really prepare me for how it would feel to be me.
I had no idea what to expect for my first heat, and when it happened, I went to Ryder.
He was the only person I had at the time—even if he was unreliable—and we got through it together.
Dad died a year after that, and I was completely incapable of coping with losing the person who had loved me most. I started spending more time with Ryder to escape my house, then I started using heroin with him.
My mom used my addiction as an excuse to cut me out of her life.
I’m not saying I didn’t hurt her and Clara—I know I put Clara through hell—but I don’t think my mom wanted me to stop using because then she’d have to deal with my pain about my father’s death and she didn’t want to deal with anyone accept herself.
Clara and Michael were already together by then, and he gave her the support she needed to get through it, but I had no one accept Ryder. ”
“What about Clara? You keep saying you had no one, but what about her?” Bennett asked.
I shrugged. “We weren’t that close back then.
Mom used to complain about her a lot to me and vice versa, and that impacted our ability to have a relationship for a long time.
It wasn’t until Clara tried to help me stop using and paid for my rehab that we became close.
She showed up for me over and over again, and I finally started to appreciate the sister I could have had all along.
I know I have to want to stay sober for myself first and foremost, but I also want to do it for her because she deserves that basic respect after everything she’s done to help me. ”
“I’m sorry, Felix,” Bennett said, tightening his arm around me. “Does Clara have a relationship with your mom?”
“Minimal. They still have contact, but it’s not meaningful. That’s how Clara wants it though. When Mom turned her back on me, Clara lost what little respect she still had for her.”
“Understandable. Can’t say I’m fond of the woman at all from that story,” Bennett said.
“What was your mom like?”
He smiled. “It’s so stereotypical, being the orphan to a loving mom, but as far as I was concerned, she was great.
Ally and Oakley had more problems with her than I did, she had a lot of opinions about who they dated and what type of person they should end up with.
Mom was very concerned that Ally was committed to another alpha, she thought it was a situation that would only end badly.
Oakley’s only ever said that Mom’s priorities in a partner and hers didn’t line up, though Oak was fourteen when they died, so I’m not sure what she means by that.
Both of my parents were betas, so I know Ally and I were a lot during our teenage years, constantly challenging them as we came into our designation, but they loved us.
There wasn’t a single day growing up that any of us doubted that. ”
“How’d they know Ally was an alpha? Did she present before eighteen?” I asked. I’d never heard of anyone presenting before the age of eighteen.
Is it unique to female alphas?
“Yep, she was sixteen when she shifted for the first time,” Bennett said with a fond smile.
“Wow,” I said, “That must have been a shock.”
Bennett scoffed. “You have no idea. I was watching a movie in my room when a skittish white wolf walked into my room and jumped onto my bed.”
I laughed. “No shit. How did you figure out it was her?”
“She bit me.”
I sat up, laughing even harder. “Fuck that hurts my bladder,” I said, squeezing my legs together. “She bit you?”
Bennett chuckled. “I mean, I was kind of freaking out and she tried rubbing her head against my hand a few times first, but when I didn’t calm down, she nipped me in the back of the knee.
I figured out it was her because when we used to wrestle and fight as kids, she’d always win if she managed to tickle the back of my knees. It’s my Achilles heel.”
I kissed his neck. “I think I’m going to have to remember that.”
Bennett groaned as I placed soft kisses on his neck. “You know, if you’re looking to shift from heavy conversation to sex, you’re going about this the right way.”
“Good,” I said, sliding onto his lap. The shift in movement caused my bladder to pulse. “Though, I’m not sure how much I can really do right now given I have about three beers worth of urine fighting to escape.”