Chapter 9
bishop
Jude waits until practice is over, which tells me he’s already decided to stay before he gives himself time to run.
He keeps to the equipment table while the team clears out, clipboard against his chest and pen tucked between his fingers.
He corrects Nelson once when the kickboards end up in the wrong bin, signs off on the lane assignments, and pretends not to notice Hollis watching him from lane four.
It would pass for normal if I didn’t know how Jude looks when he’s trying to make himself smaller without disappearing completely.
Hollis notices too. His hands are folded over the pool edge, chin resting on his wrist, goggles pushed up into his wet hair.
Every time Jude shifts, Hollis looks at me like he’s waiting for permission to climb out and go to him.
I shake my head once. Hollis hates it, but he stays where he is until the freshmen disappear into the locker room and Marsh shuts his office door behind him.
The pool deck quiets down to dripping gutters and the hum of the vents. Jude sets the clipboard on the table with too much care, then walks toward us. He stops several feet away, far enough that Hollis can’t touch him without making it a choice.
I touch Hollis’ wrist before he can move. “Slow, baby.”
Hollis pulls in one breath, climbs out of the pool, and wraps his towel around both hands instead of reaching.
“If you want to know why I ran,” Jude starts, the Omega looking absolutely tortured. “I’m only saying it once, and I don’t want pity. I don’t want an inspirational captain speech. I don’t want Hollis growling at walls because he can’t punch last year.”
Hollis' mouth tightens, but he keeps quiet. I stay turned toward Jude, hands visible, waiting him out without making him ask for the room to speak.
Jude bends the pen clip under his thumb.
“I was born scent-blind. I can smell coffee, chlorine, bleach, whatever Nelson eats that should probably require a waiver, but I can’t smell people in the way Omegas are supposed to.
Designations don’t register. Pheromones don’t register.
I don’t get Alpha, Beta, Omega. I don’t know when someone’s angry unless their face changes.
I don’t know when someone wants me unless their body gives it away.
I don’t know when my own scent changes unless people start reacting to it. ”
Hollis goes still beside me as Jude watches him for the reaction, and when Hollis only grips the towel tighter and keeps his feet where they are, Jude keeps going.
“The blockers weren’t just comfort,” he says.
“Everyone talks about them like I needed the world muted because I was fragile. The school required them because without blockers, my scent can hit a room before I know my body is doing anything. I don’t get a warning.
Everyone else does. So before meets, I checked everything.
Neck, wrists, behind my ears. Spare blocker in my bag, same pocket every time.
That was the deal. I could swim as long as my body stayed contained enough for everyone else. ”
Contained.
He says it like a rule he accepted because the alternative was losing the water. I move half a step closer to Hollis, shoulder against his arm. He doesn’t look away from Jude, but the touch keeps him with me, keeps him from letting his anger become another thing Jude has to read and manage.
My blood is boiling with what Jude is insinuating but at least I can keep my emotions locked down for the time being. Hollis... god, I love my Alpha, but he’d burn down the world if he thought it would help.
Jude glances toward the pool, his shoulders sagging a little.
“Last year, before the meet, my bag had been moved, enough that I noticed. Reece and Tate were being weird and the pocket where I kept my spare blocker was open when I checked it later, and the tube was gone. I told myself I forgot it because that was easier than thinking someone touched my stuff, and I didn’t have time to find another one before warm-ups.
The blocker I had on should’ve held. It always held before. ”
Hollis' breathing changes, and Jude’s eyes cut back to him immediately, tracking the change without knowing the scent of it. I put my hand at the small of Hollis’ back, not hiding the gesture from Jude.
“Stay with me,” I tell Hollis, low enough that it stays between us. “Let him finish.”
Hollis nods once, jaw locked. Jude waits another second, like he needs to see that the nod means something.
Then he looks back at the water and continues.
“When it failed, I didn’t know at first. I knew the noise changed.
I knew people were looking. I touched the wall, and everyone was too close.
Alphas from our team, the other team, people moving toward me like I’d pulled them in on purpose.
I didn’t smell anything. I didn’t understand what was happening until there were hands on me. ”
Hollis closes his eyes. Only for a second, but I feel the shudder go through him before he forces it down. When he opens his eyes again, they’re wet and furious, and his hands are still trapped in the towel where Jude can see them.
“The report called it voluntary hormonal failure,” Jude says.
His mouth tightens around the phrase. “Like I chose it. Like my body made a decision and everyone else just had to react. The official version was that I became unsafe in a high-stress environment and had to be removed for the safety of the team.”
Hollis says, very quietly, “That’s bullshit.”
Jude flinches hard enough for Hollis to go pale and drop his gaze. After a long moment, Jude lets out a short, humorless breath. “Yeah. It was.”
The questions line up in my head: Reece, Tate, the missing blocker, the bag, the report, Marsh’s fierce protection of him, the adults who signed their names to language that made a sabotaged Omega sound like a disciplinary issue.
I want all of it. I want it badly enough that my own hands feel too still.
But Jude didn’t come here to be interrogated, and my anger won’t help him if I hand it to him before he has somewhere to put his own.
I keep my voice even. “Thank you for telling us.”
Jude stares at me. The pen clip snaps under his thumb, and he looks down at the broken plastic like he forgot he was holding it. He waits for more, already braced for questions about how bad it was and who touched him. I don’t ask.
“You don’t owe us anything, Jude. When I said we wanted you this morning, that didn’t come with stipulations. That didn’t come with any expectations.”
“I thought you should know,” he says, quieter now, “before you decide you want something you don’t understand.”
“I still want you,” Hollis barks out. Then he sighs, leaning into my side, softening his voice. “I still want you, Jude. Please? Nothing has changed.”
Jude looks him over slowly, reading his hands and shoulders and face. When his gaze comes to me, I give him the same answer without turning it into a promise he has to respond to.
“We still want you, sweetheart,” I say. “You don’t have to do anything with that tonight.”
Jude’s jaw works like he wants to fight the words and can’t find a clean way to do it. The edge comes back into his expression for half a second. “That almost sounded like a speech, Captain.”
“Correction,” I say. “Not a speech.”
The corner of his mouth shifts, almost there and gone before Hollis can fall apart over it. Then Hollis lifts one hand a few inches, catches himself, and drops it back to his side. “Can, can I touch you?” It’s the only thing my Alpha lets himself ask for, and I feel how much he wants the yes.
Jude looks at Hollis’ hand first, then his face. “I...”
Hollis nods immediately. “Okay.”
That’s all. No wounded pullback. No step forward.
No attempt to make Jude soften the answer.
The silence that follows does more than anything else could.
Jude tilts his head to the side and then steps forward, before placing his ear to Hollis’ chest. He rests there for a few seconds and I realize he’s listening to my Alpha’s heartbeat, a sound he can trust, one he can read where scents don’t work.
Then Jude just pulls back and walks out the door, Hollis gently reaching for him even though the Omega is out of reach.
The moment Jude disappears, anger swells up in my chest. Hollis holds himself until Jude’s footsteps fade, then turns into me like the effort has taken his energy.
His forehead drops to my shoulder, wet hair cold against my neck, hands gripping the back of my shirt.
I wrap both arms around him and hold tight while the first shudder moves through him.
“I’m going to kill them, Bishop. I’m going to fucking kill them.”
I chuckle against his skin, placing a soft kiss to his cheek. “Baby, we have to find out who did it first. I know who we want it to be but I’m not punishing people for being assholes. Though, I did bring it up to coach that Reece was behind Jude being on stage.”
I run my hand around the back of Hollis’ neck before pulling him back just enough to grab a kiss from him. Hollis grumbles against my lips. “Why didn’t he let me touch him? I would have been gentle.”
“Because we have to take it at his pace. He seems to be having a hard time trusting and why would he after last year?” I cup my Alpha’s face in my hands before guiding him toward the locker room.
“We have to make him believe that this world of his, that the water, that the thing he loves most is still safe.”
Hollis perks up a little as I shove his shorts down his massive thighs and push him into the shower. “What are we making safe, Bishop?”
“The water,” I murmur against his chest before stripping myself out of my clothes. “We bring back the one thing he loved and then maybe, just maybe, he’ll see we’re not the same as everyone else during that incident, okay?”
He nods, letting out a small gasp when I turn him around to face the water. He fumbles with the shower head, heated spray raining down on both of us a second later. “Is my Beta going to fuck me right now?”
“I am, baby. To show you how much I love you and adore you and how proud I am that you didn’t scare our Omega.” The last words surprise me just as much as they surprise Hollis. I could ignore it but the fact of the matter is that Jude has been ours. I just have to help him believe it.
“Our Omega,” Hollis parrots as I reach over the threshold to drag a packet of lube from my pants pocket. “Our Omega,” he starts repeating, only stopping when I stuff two lubed fingers into his ass. He arches toward the wall before pushing his ass back at me. “Oh my god, yes, please.”
I never thought I’d find an Alpha, not with my inability to submit. But Hollis is perfect. More than perfect and the cuddles after are divine.
I work him open, a little faster than usual, needing to sink into his perfect ass. Hollis lets out a delicious whine as I fuck into him, leaning my head against his back with relief. One day, we’ll share Jude, fully, completely.
He’s the only person I’ve ever let take charge in the bedroom. He’s the only who didn’t try to dominate the moment. He just needs to know he can trust us.
And that comes with proving it.
I pull out and slam back into my Alpha, laughing when he all but crumples against the tile. If I only I had a fucking knot. I would love to see how deliciously Hollis would scream.