6. Jorge
6
Jorge
As I step out of the restaurant, I follow the scent of cigarettes. It’s mostly the scent of normal cigarettes, probably Caleb’s, but I also catch the light undertone of Mathew’s special ones.
Most people would think that he simply prefers his cigarettes flavoured —which might still be true— but it’s mostly to hide the scent of the pheromone suppressing chemicals. Flavoured cigarettes hide the chemical scent better than unflavoured ones and don’t give off a different scent than normal flavoured cigarettes, so it’s perfect.
Walking around the corner of the building, I find Caleb and Mathew leaning against some benches. Caleb looking only lightly irritated while Mathew’s face is scrunched up in anger. Ah, fuck.
I’d hoped that if I followed them a little later, he would have calmed down some, but that clearly didn’t work.
Maybe I should have gone outside with them immediately, that could have at least saved me the awkward questions from Riley…
The moment Mathew spots me, he stalks over, his eyes blazing. “Why didn’t you tell me about Riley? Why did you keep her a secret?”
“You kept Vera and Caleb a secret from me.” Though, even as I say it, I know that it’s a bad excuse. They’re two very different situations.
“That was a week , and you and I had zero contact in that time. You kept Riley from me for years .” He stalks back over to Caleb, stabbing out the lit but unsmoked cigarette in the ashtray.
As long as I’ve known him, he’s never actually smoked a cigarette, always lighting it and letting it burn until he would put it out. It’s like the actions of lighting it and the scent of them are what’s important to him not the smoking itself.
I follow him, anger boiling in my chest. “I kept her from you for years?” My voice is quiet, but the way my heart races is far from it.
He’s making this all about himself, not considering Riley or my feelings. Not everything is about him. He can’t always get his way. And this time, I chose to do something that was in Riley’s interest, not his.
“Yes.” He turns to me, though something changes when he meets my eyes, something angry but also sad. “You kept her from me . She’s mine .”
“No, she’s not yours . She’s ours , and I did what I thought was best for her. You wouldn’t even accept my scent match. You were already pushing me away, refusing to bond with me. How was I going to allow you to treat her like that too? It was better if neither of you knew of the other.”
I shake my head slowly, years of anger and frustration flowing through me. “Why would I let you put her through what you were putting me through?” I turn to him more.
“Were you going to bond with her? Before Vera and Caleb came into your life, would you have accepted a bond with her?”
Would you have accepted her while you were denying me?
Even though the thought of him accepting Riley but still pushing me away hurts, if I thought that there was even a slim chance that he would have done it, I would have introduced the two. But I never believed that he would have, which is why I did what I did.
He looks surprised at my anger and shakes his head. “No. I wouldn’t have.” His voice is quiet, almost apologetic.
Which makes me even angrier. “Then what the fuck would have been the use of introducing you two? You were already feeling guilty enough that you couldn’t go into heat, so you couldn’t form a full bond with me. I wasn’t going to add even more to that by telling you about Riley. And I wasn’t going to put her through the same pain as I’ve felt for years. Why would I hurt either of you like that?”
I’ve felt plenty guilty over not introducing the two, but I’m still convinced it was the right choice. This way, Riley at least had a chance to find someone who wanted to be with her, even if that person wasn’t her scent match.
We didn’t have to both go through the pain of being near but never bonding with our scent matched Omega.
“When did you meet her for the first time?” Mathew’s voice is soft, hard to read.
“About a year after you and I met. You’d already made it very clear that because you couldn’t go into heat, you didn’t want to be more than friends with benefits and that I should find some other Omega to start a family with.” Those words still hurt, even now.
“When did you realise that she was a scent match?”
“Immediately.”
That makes him look up. “Really?”
“Yes.”
“How often do you see her?” It’s like he’s speed-running through trying to get to know her, at least what I know about her.
“About four or five times a year. Only when I’m in her area and she’s not away on business. Which isn’t very often.” And definitely not as often as I would like.
Even if we’re not into each other sexually, she’s great to hang out with and still makes me feel like I’m at home.
“Have you ever had sex with her?”
I burst out laughing, shaking my head as I pluck the pheromone cigarette from between his shaking fingers, lighting it up and taking a drag.
“I’ve never had sex with her. Neither of us have any interest in each other in that regard. We just hang out, complain about our jobs, lack of a love life and eat food.”
Pheromone cigarettes don’t do much for me, my pheromones are too strong to be suppressed with them, they’re only really useful if you already use other suppressing methods, or barely have any, like Mathew. But since he’s got this scent around him, me also being covered in it will make it more convincing.
Caleb’s voice is deep, quiet. “Why is she so angry with Mathew?”
The one question I’d hoped to put off until we were back home…
I think back to what Riley just said and try to come up with a way to say it without Mathew getting angry with me.
“She knows I’ve been waiting for years for my scent matched Omega to finally accept me, to create a pair bond with me. And now she suddenly finds out I’m part of a pack with an Omega who clearly isn’t the Omega in question and it’s also run by a ruthless Alpha. She’s just being protective.”
I glance at Mathew. “I never told her your name or even gave a clue that you could be the Omega. She thinks my scent matched Omega is someone who works at a company I sometimes work with. That’s all she knows. Which could literally be hundreds of Omegas.”
He looks surprised. “She never asked more?”
“We don’t really share details, safer that way in our line of work.”
“Right.” He nods. He looks surprisingly calm after I just confessed that I’ve been waiting for him for years. Though, he probably already knew that, no matter how much we both tried to ignore it.
“I only did what I thought was best. If you had at any point shown any interest in bonding, I would have introduced you two. But I wasn’t going to do that if it was only going to make both of you unhappy.”
“I still would have wanted to know. You should have told me.” He looks sad, though not angry anymore, which is progress.
“No, what Jorge did was right.” Caleb finishes up his cigarette. “He made the right choice. If you weren’t going to bond with her, it was better to let her find her own path.”
He looks at both of us. “A chosen relationship instead of a scent match might not be the ultimate goal, but it beats waiting for someone who might never return your feelings. He did the right thing.”
I stare at Caleb, not sure what to say. I expected him to get angry with me for keeping a secret, not that he would agree with me.
“So, now I’m the bad guy for getting upset?” Mathew crosses his arms over his chest, glaring at us.
“No. But that doesn’t mean that what Jorge did was wrong. If you want Riley to stop being suspicious of you, you’re going to have to act friendly with Jorge. Any anger you still have, you can deal with when we’re at home.” He looks at both of us, quiet for some time, then he nods, like he’s made a choice.
“We’ll stick to Derrick’s plan. Always have one of us between you and her. Then, you can ask her over for dinner or whatever tomorrow, so we can explain the situation to her in private. Unless either of you doesn’t want her to join the pack?”
I watch Mathew, who looks down to the ground. “I want her to join. She… She smells really good and I think Vera really likes her too.”
It’s pretty clear what Vera thinks of Riley, she’s been eye-fucking her from the start.
“You? What do you want to do?” Caleb eyes me.
“I want her to join. I want to tell her the truth.” There’s been nothing I’ve been wanting more for years, to finally tell her the truth and to stop lying.
Just one more evening. One more evening of keeping all of this a secret and it will all be over.
An image pops in my head, it’s of how Riley was staring at Vera and Mathew, the total adoration she seemed to feel for them, even if she didn’t fully understand why.
And the way Vera and Mathew were looking at her, the way their full attention was on her, like the rest of us had disappeared for a moment.
This is the right time. After all these years, this is finally the right time.