Chapter Three
Dex
When the door closed behind Otto, the bar was the quietest I’d ever heard it and I had been there after some truly terrible karaoke numbers.
I shoved my lemonade away and started to get to my feet, but Myke caught my wrist gently.
“Wait for a bit, okay?”
“Everybody is staring,” I choked out. “I want to go home.”
“They are and I know you do,” Myke acknowledged gently, “but if you leave now, that’s going to be the part of the drama that everyone remembers. If you sit here and finish your lemonade while they all discuss Otto’s outbursts, his behavior is going to be what they gossip about instead of you.”
“Okay,” I agreed weakly, settling back onto my stool. “I am so sorry about all of that.”
Myke shrugged. “None of it was your fault.”
“I..” My words faltered as the impact of Otto’s shouting hit me. “Oh, hell. Myke, everyone is going to think you’re the father. We have to clear that up!”
Myke surprised me by laughing lightly and patting my knee. “Does it bother you that people might think we’re sleeping together?”
“Um, no. Not really,” I said slowly, “but surely you don’t want people thinking you knocked me up?”
Myke shrugged. “Since you didn’t set Otto straight while he was winding himself up, I’m guessing you don’t want him to know who the father is?”
I huffed a breath, my mind racing while I tried to decide how much to tell Myke. Granted, he stepped in to help me when it counted, but we were still only casually acquainted.
“You don’t have to tell me,” he said quietly, “but it isn’t going to matter to me if people think the baby is mine.”
All I could do was stare. “But you know what people will think. What about when you find an Omega and he thinks you’re a, well, a bad Alpha for knocking me up?”
Myke shrugged again but there was a slight pink tinge to his cheeks.
“I’ve already found my Omega and he isn’t interested in a relationship with me,” he said, the matter-of-factness of his tone belied by the pain in his eyes as he chuckled lightly.
“Honestly, I love kids and it’s pretty unlikely I’ll ever have any of my own, so there’s no reason I can’t be an honorary Uncle, if your kiddo needs one. ”
“That’s..wow,” I finally said. “I mean, that’s incredibly generous of you.”
“Just think about it,” Myke suggested. "I won’t be hurt if you want to correct Otto’s confusion, but I also don’t have any reason to think that my life will be negatively impacted by the town thinking the baby is mine.
” He drained his glass and looked at my nearly empty lemonade.
“The gossip should have died down. Should we head out?”
“Gods, yes,” I said with feeling, shrugging when Myke laughed at my eagerness. “I already said I wanted to go home,” I reminded him with a small smile.
“So, you did,” Myke agreed easily, shifting to his feet and offering me a hand. “Come on, Dex. Let’s get you home.”
“Yes, please.”
Myke kept up light, casual chatter as we made our way out the door and to the parking lot, following slightly behind me as I wound through the puddles and parked cars to the corner space where my moped waited. He stopped suddenly and caught my wrist. “Is that what you drive?”
I nodded, unsure what he objected to.
“It’s cute,” Myke said, a slight hesitation in his voice, “but it rained pretty heavily earlier and there’s a lot of water on the road.
” He glanced over his shoulder to the wet pavement and looked back at me.
“Would you consider taking my truck home?” Before I could answer, he continued, “I’ll drive your moped back so you have it, but I’ll just feel better with you in a safer vehicle in this weather. Please?”
My heart twitched a little and I nodded. “Myke?”
“Yeah, Dex?”
“I, um, you should know that the baby is Otto’s.”
Myke flashed me a smile, not concerned with the abrupt admission. “I’d guessed that from your reaction when he walked into the bar. Now, how about I help you up into my truck and I’ll follow you home to reclaim my baby?” He snorted. “The truck, I mean.”
“Okay.” Impulsively, I leaned up and kissed Myke’s cheek. “That sounds like a plan.”
~*~
Otto
Even after the damn werewolves removed the silver restraining band and shoved me out the bar door, I couldn’t make myself leave the parking lot.
Instead, I paced back and forth along the perimeter, staring through the large plate glass window where that alphahole was pawing my.
.pawing Dex publicly for all the world to see.
Inside me, the bear pushed against the invisible threads keeping him back, his growls rumbling through my gut as he made his displeasure known. A displeasure that matched my own even though I knew it didn’t make any sense.
I was the one who stepped back to protect his reputation, who told Dex we could never have more than the one roll in the leaves and that he needed to move on and find a suitable mate, so why did my Alpha senses scream that he was mine?
My anxiety increased when Kravets led Dex out into the night, crossing the parking lot to where Dex’s little scooter sat.
I watched as they spoke, heads bent together and the words too low for me to hear.
Then, I forced back a snarl when Kravets urged Dex over to a truck and helped him into the driver’s seat.
He watched the truck pull slowly out onto the street before throwing his leg over Dex’s scooter and following suit, pausing to wave at me.
Leaving no doubt he knew I was watching them the entire time.
Bastard.
I fucking hated him every bit as much as I loved Dex.
Fuck my life, I did love Dex. Even though I was determined to be the bigger man. To let him move on to find a mate and start a family, did it have to be so damn soon?
Ridiculously, even knowing he was carrying another Alpha’s cub did nothing to dull the protective instincts that rose when I thought of him. If anything, those instincts grew stronger when I let myself dwell on the tiny life growing in my Omega’s belly.
Not that Dex was mine. I knew he wasn’t. Of course, I knew he wasn’t, so there was no doubt my reactions to him were ridiculously overblown.
The afternoon after I was unceremoniously ejected from the bar was a prime example.
In the small community of Unity City, the medical offices sat clustered in a row across from the hospital. So, it was probably foreseeable that Dex and I might cross paths and at what might have been the worst possible time, that’s exactly what happened.
It was when I was leaving my second mandatory reintegrating to society after involuntary confinement therapy session.
My head was down as I walked, reading through the action plan I was assigned for the month when a smaller man walked directly into me, his head also bent down over a paper in his hand.
“Sorry,” I said automatically, catching him by the shoulders to stabilize his balance. “Are you okay?”
“Fine and it was my fault,” a familiar voice said before the man looked up and I was staring into the face of my obsession. “Oh!” Dex gasped and tried to take a step back when he realized who was supporting him.
“Dex? Are you okay?” It probably made me a dick, but I didn’t release his shoulders, telling myself I didn’t want him to fall.
“I..” The color drained from his face and he began to vibrate under my hands. “Please..I can’t..”
I was trying to make sense of his words, to find out what he couldn’t when he shifted on his heels, slipping out of the coat I held and taking off on foot down the alley while I stared dumbly at his desperate exit.
Shaking my head, I laid his caramel-colored pea coat over my arm and then noticed that the paper he’d been staring at was lying on the sidewalk. He must have dropped it when he saw me.
With a mental shrug, I leaned down to snatch it up before the wind could.
My heart stuttered when I saw that it was an ultrasound picture of a fetus only slightly larger than a peanut.
After a long moment, I carefully tucked the picture into my breast pocket and began walking to my car, mentally planning the best way to see Dex.
I mean, it was only right to return the picture and coat, wasn’t it?
That’s not even close to stalking. It was just being a good friend.
And Dex and I could still be friends, right?