Chapter 2
CHAPTER TWO
Enzo
God, it was so embarrassing to come face to face with such a hot, obviously rich alpha like the one who stepped out of the Dark Fantasies Club office right when I was headed back in. It was even worse that I didn’t manage to form the words “excuse me” or “thank you” or “God, you smell so good”.
And he did smell amazing. Like fresh rain on a marble balcony overlooking Lake Cuomo, or something equally expensive and out of my reach.
“Hey, Enzo. Did you forget something?” Denny asked as I stepped back into the DFC lobby.
I shook my head, bringing myself back down to earth where I belonged.
“Yeah, I…I think I left my wallet on the table where I was filling out the application,” I said, spotting the painfully thin bit of fake leather that usually lived in my back pocket. “I’ll just grab it and be out of your way before….”
I didn’t finish my sentence as I crossed the room to swipe my wallet from the table. I didn’t really know what to say. My brain was complete mush these days. Nothing stuck in it and very little made its way out the way I wanted it to.
“Are you sure you don’t want one of my special donuts?” Denny asked, wiggling his eyebrows, as I attempted to hurry for the door.
“No, that’s fine, I’m fine,” I lied as my stomach growled.
I almost made it to the door when Mr. Caden Kuhl, one of the owners of the DFC came up from the hall carrying a file folder.
“Hey, Denny, can you put this application—” That was as far as he got before he spotted me.
“Hi, Enzo,” he said with that soft, more or less pitying voice that way too many people used around me. “How are you getting on these days?”
They knew, of course. Everyone in the DFC office knew about my papa.
I’d been an idiot and blubbered all over the day Papa died.
I hadn’t known who else to turn to, and since the DFC club’s office was right around the corner from the hospice Papa had been taken to in his last week, it was the only place I’d felt like I could go to break down.
I couldn’t break down in front of Dad. He would have found a way to use it against me.
I couldn’t break down in front of Jeff, because he wouldn’t have cared.
And breaking down in front of the doctors and nurses who had seen me be Papa’s strength and advocate for years would have just been embarrassing.
“I’m fine,” I repeated, lying again. “Just, you know, getting on with things.”
Caden hummed. “Is there something we can help you with?” he asked.
“No,” I answered quickly. “I just came in to fill out an application for the omega auction thing. I left my wallet, so I had to come back and get it.”
“I see.” Caden smiled. “Are you sure we can’t do anything else for you? We don’t exactly offer grief counseling, but we have a slush fund to help people out when they’re in a tight spot.”
“Oh, thanks, but no thanks,” I said, flushing up a storm.
I wasn’t a charity case. I had a job, an apartment, and everything else I needed. Well, not everything. I didn’t have a car. And the job barely paid anything. And the bills just kept coming for Papa’s medical care, even though he’d been gone since May. But I couldn’t take charity, not from the DFC.
“I’ve got to go,” I said, forcing a smile and holding up my wallet. “I don’t want to be late for my shift.”
God help me if I was. Mr. York already spent half his time telling me I was on thin ice for taking so much time off to care for Papa. I’d had spot-on perfect attendance for the last five months, since the day after Papa’s funeral, but he still liked to scare me by threatening to fire me.
Not that losing a crappy job would be such a bad thing.
“If you need anything at all,” Caden said as I turned the door handle, ready to escape, “just let us know.”
“I will. Thanks. Bye.”
I had to get out of the cozy, comfortable office.
Cozy and comfortable were two things I’d always known were way out of my reach.
Dad liked to remind me of that, with his words and actions, whenever he could.
He liked to say that omegas weren’t born to be comfortable, they were born to serve and have babies.
I wanted more than that, but at twenty-three, I was pretty sure none of it was within my grasp anymore.
I’d graduated high school at the top of my class, sure, but then I’d had to go straight to work as Papa’s health failed.
Neither Dad nor Jeff were going to get Papa what he needed, after all, so it had been up to me.
I tried not to dwell on any of it and not to feel resentment as I walked on, hugging my too-thin coat against the wind that was blowing down from the nearby mountains. It was only late-October, but because of its proximity to the mountains, Norwalk got cold early.
It was actually a relief to step into the warm but slightly run-down big box store where I’d worked as a “store support rep” for the last two years. That was a shit job title that basically just meant Mr. York could make me do whatever grunt job none of the other cashiers or stockers wanted to do.
I didn’t complain, though. I made fifty cents per hour more than most of the other stock people, which helped pay for my membership in the Dark Fantasies Club.
It was nice, but I’d had to give Mr. York a blow-job to get that raise last year.
That hadn’t been worse than some of the things I’d done while playing through the Dark Fantasies Club, but it hadn’t exactly been the good kind of humiliating either.
At least Mr. York was a beta and couldn’t really hurt me the way an alpha could.
“Yikes, watch out, Zo-Zo,” Amy, my best friend and fellow employee, said as I turned the corner into the hallway that led down to the warehouse on one side and the breakroom on the other. “You look like you’re a million miles away.”
“Please?” I asked, breaking down into a lopsided smile for my friend. “Can I please be a million miles away? Preferably on a beach somewhere with a handsome, protective alpha taking care of me?”
Amy laughed. “Sometimes you make me wish I was an alpha so I could do the job for you,” she said.
A lot of people mistakenly thought Amy was an alpha. She had a strong, alpha build, which was why she worked stocking shelves and unpacking shipments, and she had her hair, which was currently magenta, cut short. But no, Amy was just a beta, and in a lot of ways, she was closer to me than family.
“Sometimes I wish you were an alpha, too,” I said with a weak smile.
I was sure she had other things to do, but Amy walked with me to the breakroom while I clocked in. “You definitely need someone to take care of you for a change,” she said, crossing her arms and leaning one shoulder against the wall as I punched in.
“Why? What makes you say that? I’m perfectly capable of taking care of myself and other people,” I said a little too fast. I could feel my face going hot, too.
There was no way Amy knew what I’d been thinking of doing lately, even though she was my best friend.
She might have guessed I was up to something because we were best friends.
“Some guy came in here looking for you earlier,” she said, making me flush even hotter and my stomach tighten.
“Some guy?” I asked with pretend innocence, moving to the row of lockers and taking out the apron I wore over my nasty store uniform.
It really needed a wash, or I needed to buy a few more store shirts, but A, I didn’t have twenty bucks to spare on a new shirt, and B, I hated going into the laundry room in my apartment building, because creepy Mr. Tindall always seemed to be lurking there, and he was an alpha.
“Yeah.” Amy pushed away from the wall and walked with me back to the hallway as I tied my apron. “Some alpha. Tall, scruffy, dressed in a suit. Ring any bells?”
“No, none at all,” I lied, hurrying ahead to the duty station at the end of the hall, where my assignment for that shift would be posted on the board.
Amy stared at me like she didn’t believe me as I read the list of stuff I had to reshelve from the front and the new endcaps I was supposed to build.
I felt awful hiding the truth from the one and only friend I had in the world, but if things went the way they might, I wouldn’t even have her as a friend anymore.
“I’m worried about you, Zo-Zo,” she said, lowering her voice when Larry, one of the supervisors, walked past us. “You’ve been struggling since your papa died.”
“I’m doing fine,” I said, much the way I’d lied to the guys at the DFC. “It’s just, you know, grief is hard.”
That was the understatement of the year.
Grief was horrible. As long as I’d had Papa to take care of, I’d been the strong one, the one on top of things.
I’d approached the world with single-minded focus, taking care of Papa and advocating for his care, even though we didn’t have any money.
I’d been the strong one while Dad bailed on us and Jeff cut ties so he wouldn’t be asked to help. In the end, I’d been all Papa had.
Now he was gone and I had no one.
Some days it was too much. Some days I just wanted to give up, let go, and check out of the world.
Not literally, of course. I was too big of a coward to take my own life, and really, I wasn’t suicidal, not at all.
But for an omega, there were dark cracks and shady middle grounds between pushing ahead as a brave little soldier and death.
That was where Rick Deluca came into the picture.
“What do you want me to tell this guy if he comes looking for you again?” Amy asked as we headed out onto the shop floor to start work.
“Um….” What did I want her to tell him? What did I want to tell him myself? “Don’t tell him anything,” I finally said.
“Zo-Zo, are you in trouble?” Amy asked seriously.
“No,” I laughed, pretending it was all a joke. “Not yet, at least.”
That wasn’t a joke at all. That was a real possibility.