9. Ember
Ember
There was something about being in the car, or the shower, and listening to music. It felt like the voice of the artist poured into my soul, breaking me and making me whole at the same time.
In a lot of ways, music saved me. I listened to albums on repeat during my recovery period, lying in bed at night and letting the haunting melody of Evermore West or the husky broken voice of Burns wash over me.
It was a safe way to feel when my own emotions would have broken me, dragged me under.
Alejandro was somehow exactly what I expected, but also nothing like it at all. Watching him cook made me want to lick him. A competent man in the kitchen? Now I saw what made Sunshine fall so hard for Logan.
But he didn’t push me, didn’t even ask for my number until I prompted. It seemed like he was perfectly fine to keep moving at a glacier pace.
Which was good. Right? I didn’t want anything to be too intense, too fast.
Maybe I’d try to get to know the alpha chef enough to see if West and I wanted him at our heat in two months. We hadn’t had an alpha during our heat in almost two years. West had an inflatable knot he used on me regularly. We didn’t need an alpha to get by, even if we ended our heat exhausted.
But wanting was a different matter.
I didn’t like how annoyed I was that Ben’s faint hint of scent was no longer on me. I didn’t know him well enough to want to carry his scent. Or the sexy omega. Two omegas were a stretch but three? I shook my head.
Holly had two male omegas in her pack, but she was a beta and had two alphas as well. A two-omega pack wasn’t common, but people made it work.
But three omegas seemed like asking for trouble.
No. West and I were fine, and my body was being stupid.
Traffic wasn’t too awful, and I arrived downtown.
Computer Solutions was a massive tech firm. I didn’t need to freelance for money, but I liked being in the middle of other programmers. It kept my skills sharp, and I stayed on top of the latest technology.
I found a parking space and headed up the elevator inside the parking garage.
The office was a cubicle hell, with a massive section of desks all sharing space in the center of the room. Around the sides were actual, real offices with doors.
I shuddered, wondering for the millionth time how West managed to work in the middle of a massive, brightly lit room.
Spite, I decided. Most people assumed an omega would get too twitchy to manage, and they’d be correct.
But West was good at ignoring everyone around him and usually wore heavy headphones during his workday.
He also got a cubicle to the far corner, so he only shared space with two people and had a hallway and wall to his other side.
I headed over to West’s cubicle. A couple of people nodded hellos, and I gave them quick smiles. I was dressed casually in a pair of jeans and a T-shirt, and that combined with my red hair made me stick out like a sore thumb.
West wasn’t at his desk, but catty-corner to his desk was Greg, a mutual work friend of ours. Greg saw me and brightened.
“Ember! I didn’t know you were coming in today.” He stood up and leaned over the half wall.
“Stopping by for lunch,” I said, lifting the black lunch box. I really should get West a cooler lunch box. Or maybe I’d get him something ridiculous, with pink and glitter and fluffy kittens.
I grinned. He’d carry it to work too, knowing how amused it would make me.
“West is in a meeting, but he’ll be out soon.” Greg gestured at his own computer. “Come check this out.”
I walked around West’s desk to Greg’s portion. Greg was a portly beta man, about my age, with thick, messy brown hair and glasses. He wore a white button-up shirt, dress slacks, and a tie with anime characters on it.
“Sit, sit.” Greg gestured for me to sit in his chair.
Hackles raised, I sat. I really didn’t want to marinate in his scent, but Greg was oblivious to personal space.
“Here.” Greg leaned over me to pick up his headphones and put them on my head, his musky patchouli scent making my eyes water.
I didn’t want to make a big deal out of nothing.
Greg was socially awkward, reading cues a second too late.
He was partially the stereotypical nerd grown up to become slightly angry and bitter about the world’s view of him, but he was also smart and could be charming when talking about topics that interested him.
West and I went out and got drinks with him and some of our other coworkers occasionally, but I never knew what sort of mood Greg would be in.
Sometimes he was the life of the party and considerate, like the time he made sure everyone got home safe during the ice storm last year. Other times he would complain about how all the pretty girls never wanted to dance with him.
He’d asked me out the first day we met. I’d told him I didn’t like to date people I didn’t know. A month later, almost to the day, Greg asked me out again since I knew him better.
I’d told him no again, and he seemed to take it gracefully. But ever since he flipped between showing me how awesome he was to low-key being resentful.
It was exhausting, and I didn’t have the emotional bandwidth for Greg today.
“What am I…” I looked at his computer. Code strung along the screen in complicated patterns. Greg was a computer whiz, and I could usually steer him out of his pissy moods by asking him about his latest project.
Greg hit play, and music shredded my eardrums. I yelped and yanked the headphones off. “Too loud, oh my god.”
“Sorry, sorry.” Greg leaned over me again, his arm almost but not quite touching my breasts to get to the mouse, and I scooted back. “That’s better. Try now.”
I put the headphones on again, trying not to wince at the overwhelming scent of patchouli and rosemary.
The rosemary smelled almost soapy, and I didn’t like it with the musky, too-sweet smell of patchouli.
It reminded me of New Age shops where the store owner never bothered to shower and burned too much incense.
The song started again, the beat coming through clearly.
It was a mash-up of Juliet Vale’s two newest songs.
Someone had layered her slow, heartbreaking ballad “Unfinished Goodbye” over the eerie background track of Horrors Untold , a hit horror TV show that focused on pop culture as much as it did the horrific trans-dimensional creatures that broke through.
I gave Greg a thumbs-up. I wanted to listen to the entire thing, but not while Greg was standing over me, basically breathing down my neck.
I pulled the headphones off. “That’s a great mash-up.”
“I thought you’d like it.” Greg sounded smug. “We were talking about doing a movie night soon, so maybe we can do Horrors Untold and have a listening party.”
“I’ll have to check my schedule, but that sounds fun. We should see when Sabrina and Jace are free too.”
“We can do it my house. I just had this really sweet home theater built.”
“We’ll talk about it,” I replied, standing up. I couldn’t say yes and then change plans later. Greg was the sort of person who took one offhand “yes” as a contract signed in blood.
I looked around for West. Damn it, my omega had horrible timing.
“You brought West lunch? That’s so sweet. We can put it in the break room.” Greg gestured to the left, and I bit back a snarky reply that I knew where the break room was. I followed down the short hallway to the room in question.
The breakroom had a microwave, fridge, and full-size table and chairs. It was normally a great place to hang out.
“You want some food? We could order something.” Greg held a chair out. “My lady.”
“I just ate, thanks.” I sat down, and Greg sat next to me, almost brushing against my shoulder.
He normally wasn’t this over-the-top, and I wondered if work was stressing him out.
“What are you working on?” I asked, and sure enough, that made him launch into a detailed description of his current projects.
He could be really boastful, but he also could back it up with the skills.
That managed to kill ten minutes, but he stopped sooner than normal to lean closer. “I’m glad I have you to myself for a moment.”
“Oh?” I raised an eyebrow. “That sounds ominous. I didn’t do it.”
He didn’t acknowledge my joke. “I was wondering if I could go through the matching process at Cosmic Bonds.”
“Of course.” Relief loosened the knot in my stomach. I’d thought he was going to ask me out again, and then I felt like a conceited jerk for worrying about that. “You can sign up online and then make an appointment to start the process. Let me know when you do.”
“So long as your profile’s in there,” he said and winked. Somehow his winks hit differently than Alejandro’s and it wasn’t only because I found the alpha chef sexy.
“It’s not actually.” My mouth went dry. “I don’t date clients.”
“Oh.” He deflated, his face getting sad. He had big brown eyes with long lashes, his best feature. “Look, I know I’m just a beta.”
The phrase set my teeth on edge.
Sunshine and Holly struggled with feelings of worth as betas.
Society acted like they were the support system propping up alphas and omegas.
But there was a difference between Sunshine being told she wasn’t as desirable just because she wasn’t an omega and Greg complaining he couldn’t get any dates because he was a beta.
Sunshine’s wound was reinforced by shitty alpha behavior. Greg used the phrase like a sword he would throw himself on the second something didn’t go his way.
Besides. People wanting me because I was an omega wasn’t exactly a compliment. I wasn’t a person to them, just a designation. They wanted what they thought was a submissive woman who turned into a sex slave once a quarter, which was why the world treated male omegas like West was second best.
“It doesn’t mean I can’t take care of you.” Greg leaned closer, his soapy-musky smell heavy in the air. “I have money. You and West manage without an alpha, so it’s not that I’m not…” He flushed, pausing and looking down at his pants.
Oh my god, I wanted to scream.
“I know that,” I said quickly. “But I’m not dating anyone right now.” I immediately hated myself for not just saying no. But the last time I told someone no, he told me I was a slutty bitch who led men on. Making Greg mad didn’t seem worth it.
Greg sat back, pushing some of his greasy hair out of his face. “I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”
“It’s okay.” I searched for something to say that wouldn’t seem like encouragement.
The door opened and West came in. It took all my willpower not to jump up and rub myself all over him, just to get rid of Greg’s secondhand scent.
West raised his eyebrow. “All good?”
“Yep.” Greg stood up. “I’ve got to get back to work. Nice chatting with you. We’ll do that movie night next week?” He did finger guns at me.
I fought not to roll my eyes. “I’ll post the question in our group chat.”
Greg nodded at West and left.
I let out a breath and switched seats. West sat next to me, and I rubbed my face all over his shoulder. He smelled like milk and honey, a soft scent especially for an omega. When he was in heat or I got him really worked up, a hint of almonds came out.
West put his arm around me. “Did he ask you out again?”
His silky black hair was braided back today. If we weren’t at work, I’d pull it out and play with it. West was Korean American and had lightly tanned skin with brown eyes. His hair was my obsession, thick and silky, hanging to the middle of his back when it wasn’t pulled back.
“No, but he was working his way there.” I slid his lunch over. “I stopped by Talk of the Town.”
West scowled at the door one more time and let me change the subject. “And?”
“Alejandro’s smoking hot. And he smells good.” I let out a breath. “Some tropical fruit I can’t place, and palm leaves, warm and green. Like being on the beach.”
West opened the box. “How dare he smell good and know how to cook.”
“Right?” I fiddled with a fast-food napkin someone left behind. “He looked horrified when I told him we were living off cold cereal and takeout before he cooked for us.”
West chuckled. “When’s the date?”
“He didn’t ask.” I watched West eat. I didn’t make the food myself, but my omega instincts were satisfied that West was getting a good lunch. Maybe this is what Alejandro felt. “He let me take the lead. I had to offer my phone number.”
“Not pushy. Good.” West dove into his food, and I pulled his braid into my hands, playing with the ends. I wasn’t made of stone; his hair was right there. For the touching.
West was right. Not pushy was good. Preferred. I’d just bury myself in work and see what happened.
I would absolutely not overthink this. Not when I had a turtle pond to wheedle out of my family.