Fifty-Two
FIFTY-TWO
Byron
IT WAS NEW YEAR’S EVE , and for some reason, I was sitting at a table on the edge of a laser-and-fog-filled dance floor at an exclusive nightclub in downtown St. Louis. Why had I agreed to this again?
Oh, right. Because Mia and Luca had fluttered their eyelashes at me and said things like, “Come on, it’ll be fun ... you have to come, Byron.” And I’d folded like a wet dishrag.
Not to say I had anything against dance clubs as a concept. I didn’t. They’d been good hunting grounds for me, once upon a time. Now, however, with my damned old-man cane leaning up against the table and Emiel sitting across from me, looking vaguely overwhelmed, all I could think about was how badly I wanted three of the four people currently grinding away on the dance floor... and how fucking terrified I was to do anything about it.
Emiel, too, had spent a good chunk of the time we’d been here staring wide-eyed at the pair of omegas dressed in smoking hot clubwear as they laughed and danced without a care in the world.
Intellectually, I knew I held some culpability on that front. Luca already had a closet full of clothing suitable for a night out. But a few days ago, Mia had come to me with those huge brown eyes and asked where the best place to buy a dress for New Year’s Eve would be. At that point, I pretty much had to take her shopping so I could be sure she ended up with something that would do those gorgeous hips justice.
Everyone seemed to agree that the slinky, metallic-copper sheath dress she’d settled on was doing an admirable job.
“I like this more than I thought I would,” Emiel said, over the sound of the DJ shifting from a representative song that came out in 1991 to one that came out in 1992. The distinctive, throbbing beat of “Rhythm Is a Dancer” swelled over the sound system, and the club crowd went wild.
I waited for the cheers to die down before trying to reply.
“You should get out there and join them. As you may have noticed, there’s no requirement that the dancing be good .” In all honesty, I hadn’t meant that as a jab. I realized an instant after it came out of my mouth that it probably came across that way, regardless.
This strange, new Emiel who was apparently still in his Zen phase only shrugged.
“Maybe in a bit.” He dragged his attention away from Mia and Luca on the dance floor, eyeing me up and down. “You don’t seem happy. Is it just the leg, or something else?”
The big screen hanging from the ceiling flashed 1993 in neon letters, and the music shifted to the Pet Shop Boys.
“Why do you care?” I asked, genuinely bewildered. “I’ve treated you like shit for years.”
Emiel shrugged one brawny shoulder. “You’re just an ass. To everyone, I mean. Figured it wasn’t personal, really.”
I frowned. “It was , though. I resented the way you always seemed ready to dip back into gang life, while I was trying to get as far away from it as possible.”
He gave me an odd look. “Think you might’ve chosen the wrong line of work for that.”
“You know what I mean,” I snapped. “We were trying to get kids away from that life. And you were taking weekend vacations to the cage fights.”
Emiel’s eyes darted away. “Yeah,” he admitted. “Didn’t know any other way to release the pressure inside me when it got too bad. Not back then.”
A hint of guilt pricked at me, and I couldn’t decide if it was deserved or not.
Emiel met my gaze again. “Used to hate the way you’d sleep with anything that moved, when you had Luca right there, always looking like he thought he didn’t deserve to even be in the same house as us.”
The prickle of guilt became a sharp stab. I slumped back in my chair.
“I didn’t know any other way to release the pressure, either,” I muttered. “You know damn well that I’d get my ass handed to me in a cage fight.”
“I get that now,” Emiel said. “And yeah, you would .”
On the screen, 1994 flipped over to 1995, Real McCoy giving way to La Bouche.
“Do you think this thing with the pack is going to work out?” I asked, the words out of my mouth before I could stop them.
Emiel went still, knowing exactly what ‘thing’ I was talking about.
“Dunno,” he said. “I think we’ve gotta try, though. Don’t you?”
A burst of longing grabbed me by the throat, cutting off my words.
Across from me, Emiel fiddled with his half-finished drink. He seemed to be deciding about something.
“I told Luca that him and me should bond,” he said.
I stared. “You... what ?”
“He hasn’t said yes. Or no, for that matter,” Emiel continued. “Think I freaked him out some, to be honest. But neither of us can risk being in a bond with Mia until we’re sure we can protect her from our pasts. Seemed like an obvious way to find out, but I don’t know if he wants to do it.”
I continued to gape at him, frozen in place like a statue.
There were things I wanted to say. There must be. I just... couldn’t seem to think of them right now. And then, in the next moment, two laughing omegas descended on us, glowing brightly with exertion and happiness.
“Come on!” Mia said, tugging at Emiel’s arm. “You two do not get to sit here feeling sorry for yourselves all night!”
“Up,” Luca said, poking my shoulder. “And stop making that face. You look like someone just insulted your puppy.”
“But my leg,” I told him, gesturing at it as though the point needed illustrating.
“You barely use the cane anymore,” he shot back. “You can stand around and sway back and forth for a bit.”
“Get a move on, it’s almost the year 2000!” Mia said, just as the distinctive strains of Darude’s “Sandstorm” began to pulse through the club.
Still feeling like I’d been smacked with a two-by-four, I let myself be herded onto the dance floor—Emiel undergoing the same treatment beside me. Before I could rethink any of this, a slender male body pressed against mine, his back to my front. The smell of sweat and summer sweetness filled my nose, and I pretty much had no choice but to rest my hands on Luca’s hips, steadying myself.
There was a kind of wildness to my broken omega tonight—a sense that he’d thrown off his chains for this night of dancing, and he was dragging me along with him. My body started moving in time with his to the sharp, pulsing beat before I even realized what I was doing, the twinge from barely-knitted muscles a distant and unimportant distraction.
Across from us, Mia had Emiel by the hands and was leading him in a twisting dance, while Zalen snugged up behind her, his hands on her shoulders. I was a bit shocked that Emiel didn’t seem to be completely out of his element—he followed Mia’s lead easily enough, matching the beat of the music and watching her with a private little half-smile.
When strong arms slid around me from behind, I had to cover an instinctive startle. That was new—I never used to be one to turn down dirty dancing from a stranger at a club.
“It’s just me,” Nat’s voice said in my ear. “I figure, if I’m committed to doing this bisexual thing, then fuck it. I’m doing it all the way.”
My little jolt of adrenaline gave way to a different kind of jolt when Luca craned around to see what was happening and smiled, never losing the rhythm.
Sandwiched between them, my brain kept doing flip-flops, trying to figure out what I should be feeling. I came to places like this to lose myself in the arms of strangers. But, why shouldn’t I lose myself in the arms of people I already knew?
And... well... I did love this song, with its hectic techno energy.
Slowly, my tension slid away, leaving a strange kind of euphoria in its place. One song slid into another under the talented hands of the alpha DJ behind her spin table. Flashing light played over shifting bodies, the omegas changing partners like water shifting through winding river channels.
Nat, I noticed, never wandered far from me. My leg was starting to ache in earnest as the songs—one per year—closed in on the present day... midnight approaching. Driven by some impulse I couldn’t name, I turned so he and I were facing each other, practically chest to chest.
Ignoring the nagging pain of my wound, I reeled him in and slotted my uninjured thigh between both of his, not letting him reclaim any space as we practically rutted against each other. His eyes had grown wide and dark as we danced, and this close, there was no hiding the fact that we were both hard.
Post Malone faded to stillness in the background, our movements slowing with it until we were simply standing there, staring into each other’s eyes.
“Ten!” the crowd chanted. “Nine! Eight! Seven! Six!”
I was frozen as the countdown to midnight went on around me. Just as the final second approached, Luca darted between us, shooting me a half-wild, almost gleeful glance and grabbing Nat by the shirt. I watched, paralyzed, as he pressed a kiss to Nat’s lips and slipped away just as quickly, more or less smashing the two of us together as he stepped to the side.
Without thinking, I wrapped a hand around the back of Nat’s head and practically shoved my tongue down his throat, swallowing the deep groan that rumbled up from his chest. Luca leaned close and brushed a kiss to the edge of my mouth, his breath tickling my ear as he murmured, “Happy New Year, Byron.”
A moment later, I dragged myself away from Nat’s lips, only to find myself with an armful of Mia.
“Oh my god. So hot ,” she said, diving in for a kiss first from me, and then from Nat—much to his apparent shock. From the look of her swollen lips, she’d been busy with the others when the clock struck midnight.
“I knew it would be,” she added, her expression smug. “So, forget the champagne. Can we all go home and fuck now?”
I met Nat’s eyes helplessly, pretty sure that there were reasons I wasn’t allowed to feel this euphoric. He looked like a deer in the headlights, but he still managed to recover faster than I did.
“Yes, please?” he said, neatly encompassing my thoughts, as well.