Chapter Fourteen – Asher
We eat at the table. Luckily there’s plenty of lasagna to give Rourke a plate too.
Mason and I both claimed the chairs around Jess, while Rourke chose the one opposing her.
She digs in right away, while I take my time.
My brother is much slower at eating, preferring to openly glare at the newcomer the whole time.
And Rourke? Rourke takes generous portions on his fork every time, and while he eats, he tries not to stare at Jess too much, but he fails.
I don’t blame him, of course. Jess is… well, she’s more than just pretty. She’s beautiful, downright gorgeous. She’s everything an omega should be and more. I hate that I turned my back on her all those years ago, right when she needed a friend the most.
I was a shitty kid. I let peer pressure get to me. Beyond that, I don’t know what to say about it, other than I still feel guilty.
Deciding to break the silence of the table, I ask no one in particular, “How’s the lasagna?”
Jess turns her head toward me and gives me a tiny smile, while my brother ignores the question entirely. She nods gently as she brings another forkful to her mouth, clearly too engrossed with eating to give me any praise for my cooking skills.
My cooking skills of which, I’d like to mention, I didn’t know existed before all this. Now? Now I want to cook for her. I want to feed her. I want… I want to take care of her, prove to her that I won’t turn my back on her again.
The mere fact that she reached out to me to begin with is crazy, and it tells me she really has no one in her life she trusts. That’s just sad. It’s downright depressing, and I hate it for her.
“You’re a pretty good cook,” Rourke says, the only one at the table who addresses my question out loud. “You make meals like this often?”
Even though I don’t trust him, I figure Mason has the glaring and brooding part taken care of. No use in both of us acting the same. I decide to hold a conversation with the other alpha, trying to act like all of this is normal. “Actually, no.”
“Really?” Rourke sounds impressed, and for some silly reason, it makes me feel good knowing I impressed this über alpha. “That’s something. Either you got real lucky, or you have some innate skill when it comes to the kitchen. I can’t even cook regular pasta right. I can never get it just right.”
When he says that, I can’t help but laugh. I mean, pasta, really? When that laugh escapes me, my brother tosses me an annoyed look, as if he’s pissed I’m playing nice with the other alpha, but I dutifully ignore him as I say, “Pasta is literally one of the easiest things you can cook.”
Then again, some people might say that about pancakes, so I can’t talk.
“Maybe for some people, but not for me. I’m more of a takeout kind of guy.” He shrugs, as if it’s no big deal.
I glance next to me, at Jess, and find she’s trying her best not to look across the table at him, and I recall what she told me and Mason in the hall. She thinks Rourke likes her, and I assume that means he’s not bonded to another omega.
Curiosity gets the best of me, and I ask, “Are the rest of your pack fans of takeout, too?”
He shrugs. “I don’t have a pack. It’s just me.” He points his fork between me and Mason. “I don’t have any siblings, and I’ve pretty much thrown myself into my career the moment I graduated.”
Oh, he thinks Mason and I are in a pack together. I don’t say anything to that, but Mason does: “We’re not a pack.”
Rourke appears somewhat shocked, and he leans back in his seat as his dark brows lift. “Oh. Sorry. I just assumed… you know, you were, especially since you’re here together.” Now it sounds like he’s fishing for more information, information ultimately regarding Jess.
My brother glowers. “I was here first, like I said before. I was not aware my brother was going to come up here and bring Jess along.”
Rourke takes it on the chin. “Huh. Interesting. I assume, then, your family doesn’t know either of you are here?”
“The fuck’s it matter to you?” Mason hisses out.
He chuckles, taking my brother’s attitude quite well, all things considered. “I’m only making conversation.”
“Ignore him,” I say. “He’s… never been one for polite conversation.”
“That’s all right. I work with a lot of alphas who are rough around the edges.” Rourke’s blue eyes study both me and my brother. “What do you two do, then? If you’re not in a pack, I assume you’re trying to further your careers or something.”
I’m the one who answers, not my brother, no surprise there. “I’m still in school. I’m getting a degree in business and marketing, and once I graduate I’m going to learn the ropes of Thompson Co. from our parents. My brother is… doing his own thing right now.”
“Thompson Co.,” Rourke says, rubbing his chin as he thinks. “That’s that watch company, right? You guys make those fancy, expensive watches most people could never hope to afford.”
“Yeah.” The high-end side of the business isn’t something I’m super proud of. If anything, I think we should do something different. Keep the high-end stuff for posterity’s sake, but expand into other markets. A lot of people go for their smart watches these days.
Rourke chuckles. “No wonder your family can afford a place like this in the mountains. I guess Jess is lucky she had you to go to.”
At the mention of her name, Jess’s grip on her fork tightens, but she still doesn’t say a word. She is oddly quiet this whole time, as if she has to mentally wrestle with herself, the opposite of how she’s been so far with me and Mason.
I wonder why. She can’t like Rourke back, can she? The mere thought of her returning feelings for the alpha across from me is something I don’t want to face if it’s true.
I keep the conversation going, “How long have you worked for Alabaster Security?” I recognized the name immediately; they’ve been making waves lately. Taking over the academies that handle the orphaned and the unwanted, for one. It doesn’t sound like a bad company to work for.
“Since I got out of high school. Skipped college. Books and tests were never my thing. I’ve always been more focused on the action and the doing than the thinking. I let the higher-ups do the thinking.”
“Except when it comes to Jess,” I say before I can think better of it. “You made the decision not to take her back.”
Rourke grins. “Yeah, guess I did. Didn’t have to think too hard about that, though.
” His piercing stare moves to the omega between my brother and me.
“You’re awfully quiet there, Jess. What’s the matter?
Don’t have anything to say to me now? You had a hell of a lot to say to me at the Omega Garden. ”
“What is there to say?” Though she finally speaks up, her voice is nowhere near as strong as it typically is, and I can’t help but wonder why that is. Why in the world does Rourke make her act differently? It’s enough to make me jealous, and I am not the kind of guy who gets jealous.
Mostly because I’ve never been interested in an omega before, but that’s beside the point. These feelings in me, they’re new and I don’t know how to deal with them. It also makes me wonder if my brother is wrestling with any of the same emotions. He’d probably never tell me, if he was.
Rourke shrugs. “I don’t know. Whatever you want. You didn’t hold back before, so why are you holding back now?”
Wow. Even he can pick up the fact she’s acting a little weird. Not sure what that says about him, or a possible connection between them.
“Maybe I said all that stuff to you just to make you go away,” Jess says off-handedly.
“And it worked, so I don’t have to bother saying anything now.
” If she’s trying to sound like a bitch, she’s failing, and I think she realizes it.
“What does it matter to you, anyway? You’re here to guard me and make sure I don’t run anywhere else. ”
The alpha across from us places his hands on his lap as he exhales a loud sigh. “I am here to make sure you don’t disappear again, yeah, but two things can be true at the same time. Maybe I’m just wondering who the real Jessica Dryers is: the omega I met that night, or the one across from me.”
It looks as though she’s going to say something, but all she ends up doing is jerk to a standing position, scraping the chair across the floor as she gets up.
The sound is loud and jarring. She doesn’t say a single word as she turns away from the table and leaves.
From where the table is in the dining room, I can see her head up the stairs out of the corner of my eye.
Going to her room, probably, to get away from Rourke and his line of questioning.
Mason growls out, “You upset her.”
“No,” Rourke says. “I just asked her a question. She’s the one who didn’t want to answer.”
“You shouldn’t fucking talk to her like that.” There’s a trace of my brother’s dominance in that statement, and I tense a bit in response. I always hated when he lorded the fact he was an über over me. They’re like the kings of alphas, a step above the rest.
Rourke, though, doesn’t so much as flinch at the way my brother said it.
“And who the hell are you to tell me that, hmm? Why do you even care? Were you trying to get with her while she’s here?
” The accusation is thrown out just like that, and I assume what little civility we had before is utterly gone now.
My brother’s nostrils flare as he fumes. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means that maybe you were hoping to slide into Jess’s good graces when you know she’s going to be out of her mind with need, the weakest she’ll ever be. Maybe the fact that I’m here isn’t helping your little plan—”
“There’s no fucking plan,” Mason growls out. “I told you, I didn’t know Asher and Jess were going to be here, and I fucking meant it. I didn’t come here to have company.” He stands abruptly, much like Jess just did, and also like Jess, he leaves without saying another word, storming to his room.