43. Rafe
Chapter forty-three
Jordan is not an Omega that I could call delicate.
That's not an insult. It's just a fact. She's tough. She always has been. Seeing a softer side of her these past few weeks has been strange but welcome.
It's like I'm getting a glimpse of who Jordan could have been if my pack wasn't full of thick-headed boys.
But right now, she feels breakable in my arms. Her body is limp, her breath slow as I pull her to my chest and try to soothe myself by basking in her pheromones. Tart mango and salted lime nearly overwhelm my senses.
Once Icarus fell out of guard, he was taken down to an Alpha floor for a quick once-over. Alpha guard and Omega drop are not common conditions, and it's unknown what kind of health effects they can have. Cyrus went with him, and Simon went to grab coffee.
Leaving me alone with my Omega.
Despite our connection at the rage room, I still wonder if I have fully earned her trust and forgiveness.
Our relationship feels different, better even, but maybe her heart is still holding out.
"Any change?" Slime's voice rumbles behind me.
I sigh, burrowing my face in her neck. "No, not as of yet."
"You did great handling Icarus," he says as he slumps into an uncomfortably firm metal chair.
"I have some experience handling unruly Alphas." My face heats with a memory of him wild with a rut, and I try to look anywhere but directly into those piercing hazel eyes."Sorry, Si, I didn't mean to bring up old memories."
"It's fine. We don't have to talk about it. How do you know so much about Alpha guard?" He tries to deflect.
"My Pa went into it once. We got into a car wreck, and Dad got hurt, which made Mom drop. It was just the four of us in the car, and I was only like seven, so I got an up close and personal crash course." I adjust my hips to wrap Jordan up in me as I turn to get Slime better in my line of sight. "Pa felt horrible after, but it's not like he could help it. His packmate and Omega were in trouble. It'd happen to any of us, I think."
"Even though we're not much of a pack anymore?"
I whip my head towards him, glaring. "How can you say that? We've been living together since Jordan came back in our lives. Icarus just said he wants to form an official pack with the four of us."
He ruffles his hair, wincing as his fingers get snagged on knots. "I know, I just…"
"You just what, Simon? You're looking for another reason to leave me?"
"Leave you?" He sputters, looking up at the ugly can lighting. "What do you mean leave you?"
"You left saying we weren't a pack, heartbroken over Jordan. Jordan is in my arms, and you're still saying we're not a pack! How am I supposed to think it's anything but that?"
He shushes me, peering through my arms to ensure Jordan is still sleeping. "I wasn't leaving you, you know that."
"No, I don't know that Slime," I snarl, "how could I? We fuck a few times, and you go running."
He leaps to his feet, pointing a furious finger at me. "How are we still having this conversation? It's been nearly a decade, Rafe."
I hate myself for letting it affect me so much. I hate that he can hear the hurt in my words. "We've been sleeping beside one another for weeks. Are you going to tell me it means nothing?"
He throws his hands up in the air. "It means there are only three beds in the condo, and someone has to share, Rafe."
"Bullshit!" My heart is in my throat, and my eyes burn. "How many times have you woken up with your legs entwined with mine? Your head on my chest?"
He avoids my question and gaze, frantically running his fingers through his hair.
Is he really still saying that there is nothing between us?
That he doesn't feel this, too?
"Rafe, I'm not sure if this is a good idea," Simon whispers against my lips. "Last time we were drunk."
"Which lowered your inhibitions, Simon," I say as I run my hands through his white blonde hair. "That doesn't mean the underlying desire wasn't there. I care for you."
"I know," he gulps, the motion nearly pressing his lips against mine, "and I care for you too, but this isn't what a pack is supposed to be." He rolls off of me and stares up at the shitty popcorn ceiling of our apartment. "We're supposed to be like brothers, centered around our Omega."
"Who says? Who says that's the only way to be a pack?" My eyes water, and I bite my tongue to stifle the frustrated tears that threaten to spill over. "Three of my dads-"
"And that's wrong!" he nearly shouts. "That's not what packs do."
"Fuck you, Simon!" I'm off the bed in a moment, pacing around my tiny room. Our apartment is shitty, but it's all the three of us can afford. We're still in school, and while we all have small amounts left over from our scholarships, it's not enough to pay for anything nice. We work our asses off to keep a roof over our heads, and it shows in the shitty, water-stained walls of this place.
"I'm serious," I snarl. "Fuck you. There is nothing wrong with the way my dads love one another. You think you'd know that. You have two moms. How can you condemn my dads for the love your moms share?"
"They're not a pack! Packs are centered around their Omegas. Two Alphas together? It doesn't make sense." He buries his face in his hands, shoulders heaving with frustrated breaths.
"Doesn't make sense? What about the way our bodies fit together doesn't make sense? How is the way I melted under your touch confusing, Simon?" I bite my cheek to stave off the angry, hurt tears that want to spill from my eyes.
"There's no one way to be a pack, Simon."
Silence stretches awkwardly between us. It never used to be this hard to be around one another.
Is everything ruined between us forever?
"What about Cyrus, huh?" He challenges. "This would make him uncomfortable as hell."
"You don't know that! We've never talked to him about it. He may surprise you."
Why am I working so hard to convince him to be with me?
This is embarrassing.
If he doesn't feel the same way about me, I should move on, right?
But how can I?
He's my best friend.
When we lost Jordan, I held him as he sobbed, and Cyrus shut down. When his mom, Momma Lucy, died, I was the one he turned to.
He clutched my hand so tightly at that funeral I thought it'd bruise. But I didn't pull free.
There isn't a world in which I ever would.
Because I love him.
I love him in every way that you can.
But he doesn't care about me, does he?
Not in the way I care about him.
Not in the way I long for him to.
"Never mind," I say, my throat thick with the grief of memories that I buried deep below the surface. "I don't know why I bothered bringing this up."
I slip out from under Jordan, careful not to wake my sweet, tired Omega.
I have to get out of here.
I can't look at him when my heart is breaking. When I'm hanging onto my sanity by a thread, and emotions that I have hidden for almost a decade have decided that they're tired of being forgotten and threaten to drown me.
My knees are weak as I stumble towards the door, my vision blurry with hot tears, when a strong, tattooed hand wraps around my upper arm.
"Rafe."
My name has never sounded so tortured on someone's lips.
"I'm just going to get a coffee or something. You be with Jordan."
He doesn't let go of me, his hand still tightly grasping my upper arm. I can't speak. If I let myself talk, I'll embarrass myself further and be unable to look him in the eye.
We're packmates. We have to get through this. We have to hold this together for Jordan.
I wrench my arm from his grip and start to leave the room when he grabs me again, spinning me around and pinning me against the wall.
"You can't just walk away from me," he growls. "You can't just leave."
"I have to, Simon. Please let me go." My words are rough as they squeeze past everything I long to say to him. "It's clear we were never on the same page."
His eyes flare with an emotion I'm terrified to identify. "You can't just leave," he repeats. "We have to work through this."
"There's nothing to work through. I thought, naively, that I could have you both. That's on me." I scrub my hand across my face, hoping to disguise the red that has no doubt risen to the surface. "I should not have pushed the issue when you made it very clear before that this wasn't something you wanted."
He slaps the wall beside my head in frustration. "It's not that simple!"
"It is, though, isn't it?" My voice sounds so small for an Alpha of my size. "It is simple. You care about me in that way, or you don't. Jordan has made it clear to me she's okay with this." His eyes flash with heat that he quickly smothers.
"Well, what about Cyrus?"
"Quit hiding behind the specter of a maybe. Maybe he'll be furious. Maybe he'll be uncomfortable. We cannot possibly know until we talk to him. Cyrus can't be your excuse." I drop my voice to barely a whisper. "Not again."
He shoves away from me and begins to pace, pulling on his green hair. "I don't know what I'm feeling, Rafe. You're my best friend, and it has been fucking miserable being away from you all these years. I don't want to mess this up. Mess us up. That's all I care about. Jordan deserves a functional pack."
We look across the sterile hospital room to where our Omega rests on the oversized bed. The monitor on her pulse is slow and steady, and we breathe a collective sigh of relief that our argument hasn't woken her.
I drop my voice to a low hiss. "And you don't think ignoring what happened between us will mess up the pack? You don't think it's going to kill me every time I see her kiss you in the way I fucking dream of? Seeing her lay her head on your chest and wishing I was right there beside her?"
The tears I have been holding back make good on their threat and rush down my face. "After all these years, Simon, can you really, truly, say that what happened between us back then was just two guys fucking around?"
I watch as his Adam's apple bobs when he swallows. The silence stretches between us for so long that every second feels like an hour. Eventually, he shakes his head and turns his back to me, staring out the small window that lets in the early evening sun.
"I don't know what it was, but I wasn't using you. It's important to me that you know that you weren't just somewhere warm to rest at night."
It's so close to what I want to hear him say.
So close.
But not it.
"I love Jordan, Simon. I think you know that." I pull a scratchy paper towel from the dispenser above the sink and scrub my face with it. "I think you've always known how much I love her." He looks at me strangely, his hands hanging loose by his sides. "But you should know I love you too. I won't make this any weirder than it already is, so this is the only time I'll say it, but I wanted you to know."
"Rafe, I-"
"You don't have to say anything, Simon. I know a rejection when I receive one. It was stupid of me to try again."
A frustrated noise rips from his throat, and he grabs me roughly by the arm again. "Rafe." An Alpha bark slips through his lips. "Shut the fuck up for two seconds, please."
He stares at me, eyes searching for something I can't identify. His rigid body relaxes, and he drops my arm and steps back. "I … I felt something between us," he whispers. "In our pack bond. Back then."
My heart seizes with hope, but my brain tells it to chill the fuck out before it breaks into pieces.
"You have to be patient with me, okay?" He takes a slow, measured step towards me and cups my cheek. "Don't write me off yet."
It's so close to what I want to hear him say.
So close.
But not it.
"I can't let myself hope for a maybe, Simon."
While I've been busy baring my soul, Jordan was busy waking up. Like the goddess she is, she doesn't bring up the intimate conversation she no doubt overheard. Instead, she starts to cough.
It's fake. Incredibly fake. But Slime doesn't seem to notice.
"Oh my God, peaches," he coos as he rushes to her side. "Are you okay?"
"Yeah, I'm okay." He pulls her into his arms, and she falls into them, but not before giving me the saddest look I've ever seen over his shoulder.
I perch on the edge of the bed and cover her hand with mine, studiously avoiding her IV. "Jordy, baby, what happened?"
Simon scooches over on the bed, allowing me to move closer to our Omega. The three of us sit side by side, facing the window with its ugly pink curtains.
"Mr. Woods had a problem with me being an Omega and not telling him. He had expressed a passing interest in me when I was still presenting as a Beta and was furious I didn't give his pack a chance before bonding Icarus." She rubs absently at the bite on her neck, and I try to keep my brain from wandering down the path of imagining where my bite would rest.
"He was trying to say that there have been complaints about my performance, and I told him I was done talking until an HR representative was there. He started calling me Omega, trapping me against the door, and barking at me." She looks around the hospital room and sighs. "And then I woke up here."
"You went into Omega drop," a deep voice says from the doorway. The older Alpha, Dr. Carr, comes in with Russ and Cyrus behind him, smiling at my Omega. I feel myself bristle, pulling her tightly to my side.
I know he's not going to hurt her – he did her exams while she was still out. But still, he doesn't need to look so happy to see her.
He rolls his eyes but holds his palms out in an attempt to calm me. "I'm not a threat to your Omega, Mr. Stargazer. Jordan, can I examine you?"
She nods, scooting back on the bed away from Slime and me to allow him to listen to her heart and do a basic physical examination. When he seems satisfied, he takes a step back.
"Okay, so far so good. But before we get into it, Jordan, can you tell me what happened?"