Chapter Eight
Chapter Seven
Dex
Avoiding running into Otto was much easier than trying to avoid running into my best friend.
As much as I loved Taylor, there was no doubt in my mind that he would take one look at me and know exactly what happened after he left me the night before, so avoiding him until I had a better grip on myself was the obvious answer.
Unfortunately, it was as impossible as it was obvious considering Taylor knew my schedule, my hiding spots, and had a key to my apartment. However, since the door lock was broken during Otto’s surprise entrance, the key probably didn’t matter.
“There you are!”
I sighed at Taylor’s chipper greeting as I slunk down the hall to my apartment after a five-hour shift that felt like twenty. “Hey.”
Catching up with me, his step faltered when I didn’t stop for our usual hug. “Dex? You okay?”
“Of course,” I lied, waving the ultrasound images clutched in my hand. “Just getting back from the clinic and want to get these someplace safe.”
“Oh, okay.” Taylor fell in beside me, talking cheerfully about his morning class.
I listened as he spoke, wondering what it would be like to love my job as much as he loved his.
Instead of looking for a better use of my business degree after college, I settled into my job at the local coffee shop, happily accepting the management promotion instead of finding something more, well, grown-up while I waited for Otto to come back to me.
That thought reminded me that I was going to need to reach out to the area manager and let him know about my situation.
I listened to Taylor with half an ear on the way to my apartment, then left him on the couch while I fumbled through the coat slash storage closet for the box of picture frames I knew I had in there somewhere.
Finally pulling it free with a grunt, I hefted it and set it on the floor in front of the couch.
“Help me pick out frames?” I grabbed my craft scissors and carefully separated the accordion of images into five separate pictures.
“Sure,” Taylor agreed easily, lifting the frames free one by one and separating them into sizes. “Boo, do I want to know why you have this many used picture frames?”
“I bought them at an estate auction a few years ago. There was one in the box that I had to have but I had to buy all of them to get it.” I shrugged. “I figured I’d use them for something eventually.”
Taylor nodded agreeably and continued sorting through the box, handing me the occasional frame until I had a set of not-quite-matching frames that would make an adorable grouping.
“These are going to be perfect.” I scooped the frames up and headed to the kitchen. “Let me just get the dust off and polish the glass, okay?”
Taylor murmured in agreement and I heard the television come to life in the other room, sighing to myself when it seemed like I had gotten away with my encounter the night before.
It wasn’t until after we had all of the pictures neatly framed and moved them from spot to spot, finally settling on the place of honor on the sofa table as their new home that Taylor quirked a brow at me.
“Now are you ready to tell me why this place reeks of sex?”
“Um,” I gulped, promptly choking on the air I swallowed.
Taylor pounded on my back, easing up as soon as he was sure I could breathe again. “You okay?”
I nodded weakly, focusing on drawing in air until his eyebrow creeped up again. “I, um, I had sex with Otto last night,” I admitted, hating the way my cheeks flushed with shame.
Taylor’s scowl eased into a grin. “Really? That’s great! I knew Otto would come around! Is he happy about the baby?” When I couldn’t meet his eyes, Taylor’s smile slowly faded. “You slept with him but didn’t tell him about the baby? Dex, tell me what happened.”
Slowly, painfully, I walked my best friend through the events after he left the night before.
I told him about the flash heat, about Otto showing up out of nowhere, then in a voice so small that I wasn’t sure he could even hear it, I explained how he left without a word after throwing a stale snack bar on the bedside table as some sort of discount payment for services rendered.
“Oh, baby.” Taylor scooted closer and opened his arms, folding me into them and rocking from side to side. “We’re gonna get you through this. You don’t need that prick of an Alpha, anyway.”
~*~
Otto
Another heart yearning for yours.
Long after Clark, Jackson, and the others returned with Mitch safely in hand and I was listening to the silence in my house, those words continued to play on a loop in my head.
Had I crushed on Dexter since hitting puberty? Well, yes but he was -always had been- adorkably hot, so it wasn’t as though I was the only one drooling over him. There had to be more to the fated mates mumbo-jumbo than that, didn’t there?
And Dex had never given me any reason to think that he felt the same way.
Hasn’t he?
The damn bear snorted in my mind, choosing that moment to replay a memory from years before – specifically from my last night as a carefree, non-criminal young Alpha with my entire life before me.
“Ohmygod! He’s right there!” Dex was tipsy, his cheeks flushed as he pointed over the bar at me while the gaggle of friends helping him celebrate his birthday tried to quiet him down. “I will not shush! Otto is right there!”
My boss, Darren, the owner of the bar I was working at had cocked a dubious brow when I shrugged it off, assuring him that Dex and I were just friends. Had I been misreading the signals all this time?”
I continued to pace through the house. When I got to the kitchen, my gaze went to the funky cut-glass bowl sitting on the counter.
The fruit flowers were long gone, but a bundle of wooden skewers still poked out of the floral foam.
Plucking the card from the holder, I scanned the neatly typewritten words.
Otto,
I’m so glad you’re home! I’ve been trying to get ahold of you but you’re not answering. Call me, please?
Love,
Dex
He’d tried to call me several times. I’d finally blocked his number to make it easier to ignore him, to give him a chance to move on with his life instead of ruining it by association with me but he still didn’t give up.
Instead, he’d taken the initiative to break into my property and through the barriers around my heart.
My bear’s memory of his smaller body rubbing against me, marking me as he chuffed in pleasure rose. Heat flooded my body at the thought of the startled squeal when I surrendered to temptation and entered his tight body, of the enthusiastic way he responded to my intense rutting.
It had been..everything.
And then I gave him the brush off and sent him home, tried to shut him out of my life again. For his own good, of course. I groaned out loud. Apparently, I really am a dick and, obviously, I needed to talk to him.
To apologize.
To make sure he knew that even if he didn’t want me, I wasn’t going to leave him to bear the brunt of his boyfriend’s temper after what we’d done the night before.
To find out if Leia was right, if Dex and I really did have a fated bond.
But first I had to find him.
I wasn’t surprised when my phone call went straight to voicemail.
Or when my text never switched from pending to delivered.
Stalkerish or not, the next choice was showing up on his doorstep again.
It wasn’t any harder to follow a neighbor in than before, but Dex wasn’t home.
As a last-ditch effort, I made my way across to Bean There, Drank That, the coffee shop he’d worked at since high school and looked through the front window as I walked past.
Bingo!
Not wanting another public altercation, I decided to wait and see if I could catch Dex when he left at the end of his shift.
Wandering around to the back of the building, I settled in against the brick half-wall enclosing the small employee break area and closed my eyes to soak in the sun while I waited.
I must have dozed off because the next thing I knew I was hearing small sobs from the other side of the wall.
I drew in a deep breath and my bear bristled at the scent of a distressed Omega, of my distressed Omega.
“Dex?” I clambered to my feet and found Dex staring at me in shock, tears staining his face. “Baby, what’s wrong?”
“What..” Dex shook his head. “What are you doing here?”
“I wanted to see you.” I reached for him, hesitating when he recoiled and bumped the wall behind him. “We need to talk.”
Dex was shaking his head before I even finished. “I can’t. I’m working.”
“You’re not working, you’re crying,” I countered. “What’s wrong?”
Dex sighed. “I’m just tired.” He glanced past me toward the door. “I need to go back.”
“Okay, I didn’t mean to interrupt your work, I just want to talk to you. Can we meet after you’re done?”
Dex’s head drooped. “Yeah, I guess. Where?” His head jerked back up. “Not my place.”
Um, okay.
“That’s fine,” I assured him. “Do you want to come to the house?”
“I guess.” Dex looked past me again. “Can I go now?”
“Yeah, of course you can.” I stepped aside but reached out to gently pat his shoulder as he walked by. “I’ll see you later?”
He nodded and scurried toward the door. “Yeah. I guess.”
Well, it wasn’t exactly a declaration of love, but it was a start, right?
Chapter Eight
Dex
This was a bad idea. A really, really bad idea. A terrible one, honestly.
But even knowing that, I’d walked through the open security gate and was standing on Otto’s front porch trying to convince myself to knock.
“Made up your mind yet?”
Otto’s voice came from behind me, making me jump. I spun around to find him leaning against a tree several feet away, watching me.
“About what?” My voice was unnaturally high.
“Whether you’re going to knock or run away.”
Oh, that. I shrugged. “Not really.”
Otto gave a small smile. “At least you admit you were thinking it.”
I shrugged again. “Not like I haven’t already run.”