Thirty-Six
THIRTY-SIX
Zalen
I HATED HOW familiar this feeling of exhaustion and inadequacy was becoming in my life. Either I was so tired that I fell asleep early, only to wake up at two in the morning in a state of existential dread... or else I couldn’t get to sleep at all.
Tonight was one of the latter nights, and apparently, I was going to have Mia as an audience. I’d given up on sleep around midnight and come in here rather than staring at the ceiling in my room until morning. Grabbing the bottle of almond milk from the counter where it had been sitting, I stuck it back in the fridge and lifted a mostly empty box of red wine from the bottom shelf.
“Ooh, wine in a box?” Mia teased as I set it on the edge of the counter and went rummaging for glasses. “Classy.”
As tired and demoralized as she seemed, she still dredged up a smile and a bit of humor for me. In that moment, she reminded me of Julie so much it hurt.
“Only the best boxed wine in this establishment,” I told her solemnly, placing one glass down and filling the other from the super-classy plastic spout. I handed it to her and filled the second glass for myself.
“Thanks,” she said. “Just the one for me tonight, by the way. I’m still recovering from too much tequila.”
As soon as she said it, a blush darkened her olive-tinted cheeks and her scent deepened. I could only imagine what tequila plus Byron might have led to last night. Possibly I was happier not knowing, since I didn’t really have the extra bandwidth to deal with any Byron-related drama at the moment.
“Smart,” I said, painfully aware of the picture I made—a grown-ass alpha sitting alone in his own kitchen in the middle of the night, wearing pajama bottoms and a T-shirt with a worn terrycloth robe thrown over them. “And honestly, I do know better than to treat insomnia with wine.”
She lifted her glass in an informal toast, raising an eyebrow. “Special circumstances. Besides, moderate intake of red wine has been shown to have a positive correlation with heart health and longevity.”
She was still teasing... still going out of her way to lighten the mood.
I tapped the rim of my glass to hers. “Here’s to moderation and cardiovascular health, in that case.”
We sipped what was, in the end, a very mediocre grocery store red, each lost in our thoughts. Since my own head was just about the last place I wanted to spend time these days, I asked, “What happened to your employee today?”
She scowled and let out a very un-omegalike grunt of displeasure. I tried not to find it charming.
“Picture a great big, welded steel rack for storing pots and pans, hanging from the ceiling by heavy chains and hooks.” Her tone was grim. “Now picture two of the hooks snapping when someone goes to reach for a skillet.”
My eyes widened. “Good god. And you say they weren’t hurt badly?”
Christ, I’d never thought of restaurant work as being a physically hazardous career.
“Bruised shoulder, graze to the temple,” she said, still scowling at her glass of wine. “Omegas have good reflexes, fortunately.”
It was stupid and patronizing, but knowing the employee who’d been banged up was an omega sent an extra little spark of distress through me. Then something else she’d said penetrated.
“Hang on—two hooks on this thing snapped at the same time?”
Her look of anger transformed into one of deep disquiet, her scent souring with distress. “It could have been a coincidence,” she said, not sounding like she believed it. “Like, one of them had a manufacturing defect and when it failed, the sudden stress on the other corner snapped the second one.”
I hesitated. “You don’t sound too certain of that.”
Her addictive floral scent sharpened further, and she took a deep draft of her wine. “Nat thinks it was sabotage.”
Nat. The husband and co-owner. I remembered him barging into the singles bar that first night and making an ass of himself. From the tiny amount of contact I’d had with the man, I wouldn’t immediately assume he knew what the hell he was talking about on any given subject. But I also hadn’t been the one to marry him.
“Is that kind of sabotage common in the restaurant industry?” I asked, aware of the note of skepticism in my tone. Still, two pieces of industrial-grade hardware failing at once did seem awfully strange.
“Not common, no.” Mia toyed with the stem of her wineglass, then lifted it and knocked back the rest of its contents. She set it down with too much care, as though she was fighting the urge to slam it onto the counter with frustration. “But then again, most restaurants don’t have the only Michelin-star rating in the Midwest. Or, at least...”
She trailed off, and her already distressed pheromones flooded with the curdled-milk sourness of grief.
I recognized that scent far too well. I’d had more experience with it than I cared to dwell on.
“’At least’...?” I prompted, uncomfortably aware that she’d come home a bit upset after a hard day, but after only a few minutes’ conversation with yours truly, she’d graduated from being ‘a bit upset’ to ‘borderline distraught.’
“Sorry,” I said quickly. “You don’t have to—”
“We’re losing our Michelin star,” she said in a rush, cutting off my words. “The updated guide publishes in January, and it’s pretty clear we’re not going to be in it.”
I paused, having no idea how the vagaries of restaurant stars worked. She, however, did —and I doubted she’d appreciate some kind of bullshit pep talk about how she might be wrong.
“I’m sorry,” I told her. “Getting one in the first place was an amazing accomplishment. I can’t imagine how difficult it must be to face the prospect of losing it.”
She stared at the empty wine glass for a few more seconds. Then her face crumpled into an expression of emotional agony that tore at my heart like claws.
Idiot , I berated myself, jumping up from my barstool and stripping off my tatty robe. She’s already had a bad day, and you thought this was a good topic for conversation?
“Mia.” I approached her slowly and lifted the robe to cover her shoulders, giving her plenty of time to duck away or tell me to stop. It settled over her, too large and painfully plain. “Forgive me. I shouldn’t have pushed the topic.”
She hesitated, then shook her head sharply, grabbing the edges of the robe and pulling it tight around her body. I quashed the heady rush of satisfaction as she tucked her chin, burying her nose in the worn fabric of the lapels and breathing in my scent.
Rather than give in to the purr trying to rumble up from my chest, I reseated myself on my kitchen stool and let her regain her composure. It took several minutes, but she finally lifted red-rimmed eyes to mine.
“No,” she whispered. Clearing her throat, she continued in a stronger tone. “I’m the one who’s sorry. The restaurant stuff... it’s all so stupid and petty , when you and the others are dealing with kids facing life and death every day.”
I reached out and covered her hand with mine, ignoring the little voice in my head saying what a bad idea that was.
“It’s not,” I said firmly. “That restaurant is your life, and just because other people are facing different struggles, it doesn’t mean your struggles are somehow less real.”
For a moment, I thought she might start crying in earnest... which was very much the opposite of what I’d intended. But this was a woman who’d built an award-winning restaurant from the ground up, in a place she should never have been able to do it. She firmed her lips, lifted her chin, and nodded.
“I know,” she said. “It’s just...” A sigh. “Rough year, I guess.”
“Rough year,” I agreed, giving her hand a final squeeze before releasing it. I was a bit alarmed by how difficult it was to let go.
She licked her lips. “I should... uh...” She tilted her chin toward the door and the hallway beyond.
“Yeah,” I managed. “Okay. Goodnight, Mia.”
“Goodnight, Zalen,” she said, and disappeared into the depths of the house.
I sat at the kitchen island, breathing in the scent of elderflowers and grief for a long time afterward.
The following morning, Luca sidled into my office at the Hope Project as I was mainlining my third cup of coffee. Furtiveness was written all over his body language, which usually meant only one thing.
“Hey,” he said awkwardly.
“Hey,” I echoed. “What can I help you with, Luca?”
“Nothing.” The reply was so quick it was nearly instantaneous. He coughed, not meeting my eyes. “I mean, I don’t need help with anything. I just... thought you should know that I’ll be using a heat suppressor again this quarter. In case you were, y’know... wondering.”
I nodded, knowing the worst thing I could possibly do would be to make a big deal out of it. “Okay. I can get it for you if—”
“No.” Luca bristled slightly. “I’ve been getting my own suppressors forever. I’m handling it.”
I lifted my hands in a gesture of surrender. “All right. No problem. Thanks for telling me.”
Luca still looked like a cornered animal. He lifted his chin defiantly. “It’s your house. So, I figure you should know. I’ll get back to work now, I guess.”
He slipped out as quickly as he’d come in, not leaving me time to reply. I waited until he was out of earshot to sigh and rub at my gritty eyes.
This city was my home, even if I’d left it for years before returning. But there were times when I fantasized about living in a place where parts of the law weren’t still mired in the times before the Alphomic Accords.
In most of the civilized world, getting suppressors was a matter of a quick visit to any doctor or clinic and a trip to the nearest pharmacy. Here, it was wrapped up in a fundamentalist culture war that insisted any interference with reproduction was an affront to the creator, or some fucking thing.
I was pretty sure the undeclared war on omegas’ self-determination had been devised as a test case for going after beta birth control as a next step. But in practical terms, it meant that Luca—and any other omega who used blockers or suppressors, presumably including Mia—had to get their drugs on the black market.
It was one more way my little pack-that-wasn’t remained tied to their murky pasts, and I hated it. Every time, I offered to get Luca what he needed so he wouldn’t have to dip his toe back into that world. Every time, he refused.
If I wasn’t so sure that Luca was too smart to get his supplies from anyone even remotely associated with his old gang, I would’ve put my foot down. Maybe I should have anyway. But Luca already dealt with enough trauma related to his heats. He didn’t need me adding to it.
He’d said it himself, after all. He’d been getting his own suppressors since he’d escaped the gang. There was no reason this time should be any different.