Hunter #2
As the day winds down, fading into evening we spend another dinner with my incredibly loud family.
Tonight though, I manage to snag a seat next to Evans, not that it matters as he spends most of it distracted.
A few times I glance over, he’s busy typing furiously on his phone.
I can’t help but notice that Evans seems quieter.
He joins in when my mom or the twins encourage him, but other than that, he seems to give clipped, one word answers.
His birthday was in a few days, I wonder if that was playing on his mind. Since we usually spent spring break partying, it typically morphed into one giant birthday celebration, but this year was different. We’d all gone our separate ways.
Not wanting him to feel like we’d forgotten, I’d already contacted the local bakery and arranged to collect a cake tomorrow when I drive into town with Percy. I was hoping I’d find the perfect gift too, but being a rich asshole meant you usually already owned everything you could possibly want.
After the meal we walk back to my cabin, following the solar light trail through the woods.
He doesn’t say anything, our only real interaction was when he stumbled on some rocks and I wrapped my arm around his waist to steady him.
I admit, I may have held on longer…and tighter than I should have, inhaling those heady bergamot notes. Other than that, he was silent.
It was making me anxious.
“Do you want a beer?” I ask as we enter, and he kicks off his sneakers by the door. Today he’d borrowed trunks and a vest, and my alpha felt smug satisfaction seeing him in my clothes, surrounded by my scent.
He nods, looking tired as I grabbed four bottles from the fridge, a lighter and a joint from my bag before following him out onto the back porch.
Like last night, I sink into my sunlounger, Evans however strips off his—my—vest and lowers himself into the spring. Didn’t he get enough water today?
Sitting there, he dunks his face before leaning back on the stone and pushing his hair back off his face in silence for a moment. He’s lost in a world of his own until I press a cold bottle against the back of his neck and he yelps.
“What are you thinking so hard about?” My voice is barely above a whisper, something about the evening air and the serenity of it all feels almost reverent. “I’m afraid you might give yourself an aneurysm.”
“Don’t be a dick,” he says with an eye roll as he takes the bottle from me and pops the cap on the edge of the slab table. I place the other three bottles on the floor, near my feet and the lighter and joint on the sunlounger, ready to be smoked.
We sit in silence for a moment, surrounded by the noises of the water and the trees.
“What do you think life would be like if there were no alphas or omegas?”
Pausing, I try to imagine it for a moment.
“It would still be the same. The wealthy and powerful always find a way to marginalise somebody. There’s always some sort of ‘us’ and ‘them’ situation.” I open my own bottle of beer and gulp half of it down. “Isn’t this all a bit deep for you?”
It wasn’t like Evans to question his position in the world, he was a rich alpha, whose father had raised him with clear expectations. One day, he’d be a powerful rich alpha, just like Harrison Crawford, pulling the strings from behind the curtain in a capitalist world.
This was the kind of conversation I’d have with Callie and Soren after getting high and fucking around.
“Would you say that to Percy?”
“What?” I frown, what did Percy have to do with this? Before I can pull at the thread, he cuts it off.
“Forget it. I guess I’ve just been thinking about what it means to be an alpha.” He sits in the water, with his eyes closed, head tilted back.
“It means whatever you want it to mean,” I shrug, finishing off the bottle and tossing it to the side.
Evans makes a small huffing noise before taking a sip of his drink. He rubs his thumb over the rim of the bottle, a bitter tang clinging to him. “You know it doesn’t work like that in our world.”
What was going on inside that head of his? With a soft sigh, and the unlit joint resting between my lips, I get up and sink into the water beside him, not bothering to strip off my vest.
“We’re young, hot, rich and alpha—who is gonna stop us from doing whatever the fuck we want?” Twisting to reach my second bottle, I work the cap off and place it on the stone table. Turning back to the sun lounger, I find my lighter. Lighting up, I inhale deeply.
“These imaginary rules, who says we have to follow them?” I ask as I exhale, blowing a plume of sweet smelling smoke upwards, watching as it dissipates into the starry sky, knowing that I was being a hypocrite.
This afternoon I’d been having the similar thoughts, weighing myself down with the same societal expectations, but Percy was right sooner or later the rest of society would catch up.
Until then, I shouldn't waste time being afraid. Inhaling again, I hold the smoke in my chest until it aches and then I slowly exhale. Goddess, this was all way too fucking deep after a day spent in the sun frying my brain. I offer him the joint.
“Fuck it.” We share a grin. “Why not?”
We stay like that for a while, until we've smoked it all, the beer is finished and my ass is numb from sitting on the stone. My skin is covered in goosepimples, the temperature dropping as we move past midnight.
“Alright,” Evans grunts as he stands, “time to get out. I’m like a super old wrinkly ballsack.”
“Eloquent,” I snort, as I get to my feet and clamber out of the spring behind him.
With hush and on the cabin door handle, I feel this impulsive urge to keep him close.
“Don’t go yet.” I’m not ready for bed, my brain is only now slowing down to a nice buzz and there’s this need, itching beneath my skin to stay near him. “Want to watch a film and eat popcorn?”
He rolls his eyes, but the corner of his mouth lifts into a grin. He never turns down snacks when he’s not training. “I swear you’re addicted to that stuff. And it’s not even the nice kind.”
This was an argument we had frequently back home, since I preferred the bagged, already popped popcorn. “Would you trust my half-baked ass to make popcorn on a stove?”
We fall asleep in the entertainment room well after the sun rises with Evans curled against my side, his head on my shoulder.
The nice thing about spring break is that there’s no lectures, no training, no set time we need to haul our asses up until we’re ready, so when I wake before him, I sit for a while.
He was where he belonged, even if it was only for a little while. A stolen moment that would later be buried amongst the other memories of our friendship.
Mine.
Mine.
Mine.