Thirty-Eight
THIRTY-EIGHT
Mia
“I HOPE THIS gives you all an overview of the different career paths available within the restaurant industry,” I said, looking out at the classroom full of teenage faces. They ran the gamut from innocent to world-weary; from interested to bored to antagonistic. “Or perhaps I should have said, a taste of the different career paths.”
That garnered a few chuckles, at least.
I’d made good on my promise to put together an informational packet and a short presentation for my visit to the Hope Project. It wasn’t my first foray into public speaking—not by a long shot. It was my first in quite a while, though. Not to mention my first time speaking in front of a room full of kids with rap sheets longer than my arm.
Zalen rose from the table he’d been leaning against, hipshot, and joined me at the front. “Ms. Dimitriadis has been kind enough to provide us with a list of available scholarships for anyone interested in pursuing a degree in the culinary arts. See me privately during regular office hours if you’d like to discuss it further.”
A bit of chatter started up in the room, and Zalen raised his voice to be heard over it. “That’s all for now. Tomorrow, we’ll discuss budgeting and savings accounts.”
A few groans reached us, but they sounded surprisingly good-natured given the subject matter.
“I’m with them,” I said wryly, as my captive audience escaped toward the promise of freedom that lay beyond the classroom door. I didn’t even want to think about the state of the savings account I shared with Nat after the past few months.
Zalen chuckled, gathering up the folder of papers and contacts I’d brought along. “Thanks for doing this, Mia.”
I raised an eyebrow and made a noncommittal humming noise, stifling a smile. “Hey, I’m always ready to recruit for the restaurant industry. The pay isn’t usually that great, but at least the hours are terrible.”
Zalen let out a startled bark of laughter, and my smile broke free. Had I ever heard him laugh before? I wasn’t sure, but I didn’t think so. He was usually so controlled... so sober and self-contained. An unwanted thought floated through my awareness. Was he always so reserved? Or was he one of those repressed alphas who turned into a wild animal in the heat nest?
Cursing the little pulse of warmth in my belly, I quashed that thought hard and fast— damn the run-up to an omega estrous cycle. I was still two weeks out, but being around alpha pheromones was already enough to turn me into a shameless hussy.
When I’d checked the tracking on my illicit blocker shipment from Etsy this morning, the parcel had arrived in a facility in Indiana, with an expected delivery date in two days. It couldn’t come fast enough, as far as I was concerned. The idle musing about what it might be like to have a natural heat with Byron, Zalen, and even Emiel had wormed its way into my brain all too easily. I needed a concrete reminder that it wouldn’t be happening to keep myself from climbing the damned walls.
Maybe Luca would be up for a bit of stress relief tonight, as he insisted on calling it. He had to be even worse off than I was, with his heat due in a week.
Luca... or Luca and Byron together , whispered the little voice of my hormonal lust.
Nope. Nope, nope, nope .
We weren’t going there. Byron had been the poster boy for running hot and cold, and I wasn’t about to push him when he hadn’t made another move on me since the tequila incident. Luca’s ominous ‘let’s talk’ note had come to nothing... so far, at least. The first day had passed, and then the second—and then there’d been the scare over the heat blocker shortage.
But Byron clearly had mixed feelings about what had happened in his room, and... wait. Why was I standing here in front of Zalen thinking about hot, three-way sex?
Crap .
“Sorry,” I said. “I’m a thousand miles away.”
He looked amused rather than offended, thank goodness. “No worries. Did Luca give you the full tour earlier?”
I nodded. “He did. What you’ve done here is really impressive, Zalen. I know it’s not perfect, and you always feel like you should be doing more—but you’re really making a difference with this place.”
He offered me a tired smile. “I appreciate that. It’s an uphill battle, but... I can’t not do it, you know?”
I wondered, not for the first time, what had happened in his life to make this his calling. Because it was a calling. He hadn’t fallen into it like the others had. He hadn’t been in a gang.
Maybe I’d eventually get to know him well enough to feel right about asking. Until then, it wasn’t my business.
“You know, I still haven’t met Princess,” I said lightly. “Can’t miss that while I’m here.”
Zalen glanced at the clock hanging on the back wall. “Definitely not. Emiel should be finishing up with his kids in a few minutes. I’ll take you down to the gym, and he can handle the feline introductions.”
I didn’t protest that I could go alone. I’d known within thirty seconds of meeting him that Zalen had a chivalrous streak a mile wide. Besides, while he’d described the Hope Project’s clients as being ‘mostly good kids,’ that didn’t change the fact that they were kids who’d come from gang life of varying degrees of violence... and some of them had already presented as alphas.
I wasn’t about to go traipsing around the place on my own when I was a total stranger to them.
“Thank you,” I said, curious to see Emiel in his role as a teacher.
We went down to the basement level of the old brick building, where the alpha in question was overseeing a sparring match in the boxing ring. Two teenagers were circling each other warily, throwing the occasional jab.
They wore face guards and protective mouthpieces, along with fat red boxing gloves. The scene was about as far away from Emiel’s illegal underground cage match as I could imagine. It still jarred me for a second, though.
But this Emiel wasn’t the dead-faced Emiel who’d suffered a sadistic beating without a flinch, only to turn on his opponent and steamroll them at the last possible moment. No... this Emiel shadowed his two charges like a hawk, stepping in to offer advice and correct tiny imperfections of form.
Papa bear , I thought nonsensically, and my stupid hormones immediately jumped into the fray with opinions about how much they liked that mental picture.
Zalen and I watched from the edge of the room while the match wound down. Emiel spoke with both of the boys as they peeled off their gloves and protective equipment. He ruffled the hair of the one who’d seemed more intimidated by the idea of being hit, and the boy ducked his head, muttering something unintelligible.
When the boxers and the handful of onlookers had all left the gym, Zalen ushered me over to the ring. “Hey, Em. If you’re all done here, you need to see a woman about a cat.”
Emiel glanced up and nodded. “Okay. Just a minute, Mia. Let me put this gear away.”
I smiled at him and went to sit on the edge of the raised boxing ring. “Dinner’s at nine,” I called after Zalen. “Don’t be late.”
“I wouldn’t dare,” Zalen said over his shoulder. “See you both then.”
“What are we eating?” Emiel asked from the locker he was leaning over.
I grinned, though he couldn’t see it. I’d decided to make dinner for everyone on Mondays since it was my day off.
“Lasagna,” I told him.
“Sounds good,” he said, closing the locker. “I’m going to go put Princess’s food out now. She usually comes to say hi when I do.”
“Lead the way,” I told him, and followed him up the stairs to the first floor.
He stopped at a storage closet to retrieve a bag of cat food, then ducked into an office and emerged with a bottle of water tucked under his arm. He led me to what looked like a service corridor running along one edge of the building, and opened an unassuming door onto an alley that smelled overpoweringly of trash and urine.
“Sorry,” he said. “I don’t think anyone ever comes back here. Not to clean, at least.”
“It’s fine,” I said gamely, even though my eyes were starting to water.
He set the bottle and the bag of food down. “Here. You can sit on the steps.”
Before I could decide if I trusted the unidentified stains on those steps, he’d whisked off the navy blazer he was wearing over a blue button-down shirt and laid it on the concrete.
“Thank you,” I said, taken aback that anyone would actually do that in real life. I sat gingerly on the off-the-rack wool blend, trying and failing to catch any hint of bergamot from the fabric. But Emiel was already busy with the food and water pans laid out next to the steps, cleaning them out and refilling them.
A soft meow emerged from behind a collection of trash cans, and a silver-gray form darted out. The little cat trotted over and immediately started winding between Emiel’s ankles, clearly more interested in his presence than the food.
“Hi, Princess,” Emiel said, more gentleness in his voice than I’d ever heard there. “This is Mia. She wants to meet you.”
Princess paused in her rubbing to peer at me with yellow-green eyes. Then she plopped down and started licking one lithe gray shoulder, ignoring me completely.
“Her name suits her,” I said, amused and charmed in equal measure.
“Yeah,” Emiel agreed. “She’s too good for this place.”
He finished with the food and water and came to sit across from me on the steps. Princess rumbled a purr and immediately walked her front paws up his shin to knead at the wool of his dark trousers. He rubbed her head, and she pushed into the contact, purring louder.
“Emiel,” I said seriously. “You need to bring this cat to live at the house.”
He paused in his gentle petting. “You really think so? She’s a feral cat. She might scratch up the furniture or pee on Zalen’s floor.”
I wanted so badly to scoot over and take his free hand... but instinct warned me that would be a mistake. I poured the feeling into my voice instead.
“I really think so. Look at her, Emiel. This cat is yours. She shouldn’t live in an alley.”
He didn’t look up, but I could tell he was listening. Had this man ever had a pet of his own? Had he ever been allowed anything of his own while growing up, simply because he cared for it, and it cared for him?
“Zalen already said it was okay,” I added, hoping to close the deal.
Emiel looked up then, from beneath lashes that were surprisingly long and dark. He drew breath, only to hesitate for a moment before finally speaking.
“I guess he did.” He licked his lips. “Maybe you’re right. But I still have to buy all the stuff she’ll need. I didn’t get anything yet.”
I couldn’t help the smile that stretched across my face. “Can you take a long lunch today? Let’s go to the nearest pet store and get it right now. You can set everything up tonight and bring her home tomorrow.”