Poker Night
Nico
"Call." I slide my chips into the pot and lean back in my chair.
Mack immediately folds, then leans back and rubs his bare chest. "Too rich for me."
Adrian is staring at his cards like he's trying to set them on fire with his mind. The two guys from the worksite, Tony and Pete, are still in. Tony because he’s on a winning streak and Pete because he doesn't know what he's doing.
My sister, Renata, sits across from me, feet on the empty chair beside her.
Her sketchbook is open on the table next to her half-finished beer.
She hasn't drawn anything in twenty minutes.
She's been watching us play. She said she'd rather watch us lose money to each other than win it all herself, which means she’s broke.
"Are you going to keep staring at me, Manita?" I ask Renata.
Her dark eyes playfully narrow. "I'm just waiting for you to play that shit hand you were dealt."
I can’t help but laugh. She can always tell when I’m bluffing.
"I don't mind you hanging out and eating all my food," I say. "But it's a little weird that you keep watching me like I'm a zoo animal."
"You are a zoo animal," she says, popping the last chip in her mouth.
Adrian snorts from the seat beside me. "She's not wrong."
The alpha gives me a smirk when I glare at him, then he sets down his cards before grabbing the empty bottles around him. He's been on his feet half the night, bringing everyone drinks, refilling the snacks, and sliding chips back across the table when someone knocks them over.
I watch as he walks toward the kitchen, checking out his firm ass. His short, brown hair is pushed back under the baseball cap he basically lives in, a few curls sticking to the back of his neck where the sweat from a long day has dried into them.
"Hey Adrian, grab me another beer while you're up?" Mack calls after him.
"You got it."
Adrian rounds the corner of the table on his way back, setting a cold one in front of Mack. But before Adrian can escape, Mack reaches out, catching him by the wrist. He pulls Adrian down for a quick kiss on the side of his head.
"Thank you, baby," Mack rumbles, pushing his dark blond hair out of his face. It’s grown out and pushed back off his face, the ends brushing his collar.
The alpha needs a haircut.
"Knock it off, you menace." Adrian smiles at Mack and keeps moving.
"Yes, please knock it off," Tony says as he frowns at his cards. "No mushy shit while we're playing." He pretends to glare at the two, making Mack laugh.
Tony and Pete are aware that they’re a couple. All the guys at work think Adrian and Mack live in the apartment over the garage, the one we actually use as a gym. As far as everyone knows, I'm married to Owen and Mack and Adrian are a couple who rent the apartment from us.
Two normal, separate relationships under one roof.
They have no idea we're a pack.
We don't tell people. Not the guys at work, not the neighbors, not anyone who doesn't need to know.
Pack life still gets the wrong kind of attention in this city. People lose jobs over it; some even have their tires slashed, or worse. I hate hiding my mates, but it’s easier this way.
"If you don’t like it, don’t look." Mack smirks at Tony, unbothered as always. He's the one who has the easiest time with lying because he gives less of a shit than the rest of us combined.
My phone vibrates on the table. Owen.
I tip my chair forward to grab it, being careful to hide my pair of eights.
"Hey."
"Hey." The beta’s voice is low, like he stepped somewhere quiet. "Just checking in. How's the game going?"
"I'm winning." I lie glancing at Tony's massive pile of chips.
"Go easy on Pete and Tony," he says. "It’s a bad look for the boss to take all his employees’money." There's a long pause on his end. The kind that means he's deciding whether to tell me something or save it for when he gets home.
"Everything okay?"
"Yeah." He’s quiet for a second, then he whispers, "It’s a little overwhelming here. I wanted to hear your voice."
Something warm blooms in my chest, the way it always does when he says things like that out loud. Eight years and he still does this to me.
"You heading home soon?"
"Another hour, maybe two. I have to do the rounds."
"Drive safe."
"I will. Love you."
"Love you."
I set the phone back down. Renata is finally drawing something in her sketchbook. Mack and Tony are bickering about the rain forecast for next week, debating whether the foundation pour at the Eastside site can happen Wednesday or whether it’ll have to wait until Friday.
"All right." I look at Pete as he stares at his cards. "You in or out, beta?"
"In."
"You sure, man?" Tony gives Pete a careful look.
"I know what I'm doing."
"You called on the last hand with a pair of fours."
"They were pretty fours." He smiles, making him look especially young. Which he is. Most of the guys on my crew are. Hard labor is easier on young backs.
The hand plays out. Tony wins again, then he sighs, signaling the end of the night.
"All right, gentlemen." He stands and stretches. "I gotta go. Wife's gonna kill me if I'm not home by midnight."
"She's not gonna kill you." Pete stands, too. "Not after she sees how well you did."
"True." Tony winks at me, proud, and I can't help but laugh.
I count out his chips at the table while he tugs his jacket on, then pull cash from the lockbox in the kitchen drawer. He bought in for forty and is walking out with a hundred and ten. I peel off the bills and hand them over.
"Don't spend it all in one place."
"Gonna spend it in exactly one place." Tony grins. "Gas station on the way home. Gotta get the wife some flowers so she doesn't actually kill me."
Pete bought in but didn't win much back. I hand him his twenty and he tries to wave it off.
"Take it, Pete."
"That’s real nice of you, Nico. But I didn’t—"
"Take it."
And, thankfully, he does. I know how hard-up he’s been for extra work lately.
I walk them to the door. Tony claps me on the shoulder. Pete shakes my hand with that slightly-too-formal energy he always has around me at work, which I have given up trying to fix. The door closes behind them and the house gets quieter.
Adrian is already tidying up. Collecting glasses and pushing chairs back in.
The house is small enough that I can hear the dishwasher running in the kitchen from the front door. Two bedrooms, one bath, with the living room and the dining room running into each other without much of a wall between them. But it’s a solid build. I made sure before we bought it.
"Is Owen heading home?" Adrian asks as he turns the corner into the kitchen.
"Not yet. Another hour."
Mack stretches in his chair, his arms over his head, his shirt riding up, showing off his soft abs. "He too busy flirting with the billionaire bookworm?" He takes a long drink of his beer.
Renata looks up from her sketch book. "The what?"
Adrian comes back in with a dish towel slung over his shoulder. "There’s an omega that comes into the library multiple times a week." He stops next to Mack, wiping down the table. "She always stops to chat Owen up."
"Is Owen interested?" Renata shifts forward, sitting a little taller. "Are you guys looking to expand the pack?" A smile brightens her face. "Maybe start a family?"
She’s always wanted to be an aunt.
"Not with this omega," Mack snorts loudly.
"Oh." Renata’s brows raise. "So she’s an omega?"
"Yup." Mack reaches out and runs his hand up the back of Adrian's thigh before circling it around his waist.
Adrian leans into the contact for half a second before he looks at Renata. "It's an innocent crush. Owen mentions her sometimes, that's all. We tease him about it because he gets flustered."
"And what did you call her?" Renata asks.
"The billionaire bookworm," Mack says with a grin. He's so proud of that nickname.
Adrian shakes his head, biting back a smile as he folds the dish towel. He finds Mack the most charming when he's being ridiculous, which is exactly why Mack keeps doing it.
"Her name is Lyra," Adrian says.
"I thought it was Lisa." I tilt my head, trying to remember.
"It's Lyra, Nico."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes. I'm sure. Owen has said her name probably eight thousand times. It's Lyra," he says firmly.
"Lyra. Got it."
"You know." Renata's brows raise as she leans in. "They say omegas are actually more open to joining packs, despite what monogamists want people to believe. Maybe she’d—"
"Her last name is Van Houten." Adrian cuts in, stopping Renata’s fantasy of a dozen nieces and nephews right in their tracks. "Her father owns the library where Owen works."
Renata goes still as her dark eyes find mine and hold them. "Are you serious? Van Houten? As in Aldric Van Houten? The head of the Monogamist Alliance."
I can’t help but snort as I nod. "The very one."
Owen might be a pretty straightlaced guy, but when it comes to his heart, the beta has a taste for trouble.
"Holy shit." Renata sags backward into her chair. "Aldric Van Houten is on the news every other week telling the country that pack life is the moral collapse of civilization." Her voice rises, clearly getting agitated, and I get it.
We grew up having to hide the fact that our family was a pack because of assholes like him. It wasn’t easy.
"Last month he gave a speech to the legislature about quote, 'the urgent need to protect omegas from the spiritual violence of communal mating arrangements.'" She mimics the air quotes with sharp jabs of her fingers. "That was a real sentence, Nico. He said that shit out loud."
"I know." I rub at the back of my neck. "Believe me, I know."
"Why is Owen even giving a girl like that the time of day?" Renata shakes her head, not understanding
"Cuz she’s pretty," Mack says simply. "I mean, I haven’t seen her, but Owen says she’s a knockout."
Renata stares at him for a long second, then drops her head into her hands. "What an idiot."