Chapter Thirty-Four
The day of his meeting with Dane, his father sat at the head of the dining table with his dressing gown pulled tight across his chest. He hadn’t spoken a word to Lysander since the night before when dinner had gone disastrously wrong.
Lysander sat at the opposite end, six feet of polished walnut between them, and matched his father’s stony silence.
His notebook was in his back pocket. He was going to see Dane today, and nothing Colin had said last night (the twenty-minute lecture about Dane’s manipulative tendencies, or his pointed reminder that Lysander was right now getting therapy to unpick the damage the alpha had caused) was going to change that.
Diwa moved between them anxiously.
“More rice, Colin? You’ve barely touched yours.” He set the bowl beside Colin’s plate, his hand brushing Colin’s shoulder as he passed. “And there’s more longganisa coming. I’ve got a second batch in the pan.”
Colin’s gaze remained fixed on a point three inches above Lysander’s head. “Diwa,” he said, in his most pleasant voice, “will you tell my son, since he clearly won’t listen to me, that he needs to finish his food, or your feelings will be hurt.”
Diwa paused with the serving spoon hovering over the garlic rice.
“Lysander,” Diwa said, turning to face him, “you’re fine. Honestly. Don’t strain yourself if you’re full.”
Colin opened his mouth to respond, and Diwa picked up a longganisa from the serving plate with his fingers and posted it directly between Colin’s parted lips.
Colin’s outrage stalled. His jaw worked once around the sausage, his eyes narrowing into slits above the protruding end, and for a fraction of a second the coin spun between his fury and capitulation.
He bit down, chewed, and swallowed.
“That’s quite good,” Colin admitted, in a tone that made the compliment sound like a personal failing.
“It’s my grandmother’s recipe,” Diwa said, already retreating to the kitchen. “She’d be upset if you didn’t have another.”
Colin reached for a second sausage without breaking his stare at the space above Lysander’s head.
Lysander let out a slow breath through his nose. His plate held a scoop of garlic rice, two longganisa, and a fried egg whose yolk was still intact. But his stomach had been in open revolt since he’d woken up at quarter past five with what today was sitting on his chest.
He picked up his fork. The longganisa was sweet and garlicky, dense with fat, and he could admit that under normal circumstances he’d have demolished three of them by now.
He cut into one, brought it halfway to his mouth, and Cassian’s arm shot across from the seat beside him, his fork spearing the sausage clean off Lysander’s and transferring it to his own plate.
“Thanks, Sander,” Cassian said, already chewing.
Lysander stared at his empty fork.
“You weren’t eating it,” Cassian pointed out, through a mouthful of stolen pork. “It was just sitting there. I watched it for ages.”
“It was on my fork, Cass. I was lifting it to my mouth.”
“But you hadn’t committed.” Cassian swallowed and reached for Lysander’s remaining sausage. “If you’re not going to commit to a sausage, Sander, somebody else has to step up.”
Lysander slapped his hand away.
From the far end of the table, Colin’s mouth twitched. “Good boy, Cassian,” Colin said.
Cassian’s entire body lit up. His shoulders rolled back, his chin lifted, and he practically vibrated in his seat.
Lysander looked between the two of them and wondered whether he should be concerned about the devotion Cassian was developing for his father.
It had been building through little acts since they’d arrived.
Cassian trailing Colin from room to room, fetching his rooibos before Diwa could get there, positioning himself at Colin’s elbow during every meal as though guarding a flank.
Two days ago, Lysander had walked into the bedroom to find Cassian sitting cross-legged on the floor beside Colin’s chair, examining the silvery stretch marks on his father’s belly and sighing about how wondrous it was that he’d brought life into this world three times.
Colin set his mug of rooibos down with a crack that made Diwa look over from the hob. He’d been building to this since the longganisa, and Lysander could track his approach in the tightening of his spine.
“Take Hamish with you,” Colin said.
There it was.
Lysander kept his voice level. “No.”
“You shouldn’t be going on your own, Sander.”
“I’m twenty-seven, Daddy.”
“And Dane’s bigger than you, and older than you. He spent seven years taking whatever he wanted from you, so don’t sit there and tell me your age like it changes anything.” Colin’s jaw was set so hard that the tendons in his neck stood out. “Take your alpha.”
“Dad!”
Colin turned to face Hamish. “You’re his alpha. You should be there. I’m asking you to sit in the room while my son has a conversation with the man who—” Colin’s voice caught, and he pressed his lips together until they went white. His hand trembled on his mug. “With that man.”
Hamish set his knife down. He didn’t look at Colin, but instead focused on Lysander.
“Do you want me there, Sander?”
Lysander thought about Dane sitting across a table from him, those long legs taking up too much space, the easy grin and the charm offensive already loaded and ready.
He thought about Hamish in the chair beside him, solid and calm and smelling like home.
His whole body flinched away from the image.
Dane didn’t get to sit in the same room as Hamish.
Dane didn’t get to look at him, assess him, and dismiss him as the bloke Lysander had downgraded to.
Hamish was a big part of the life Lysander had built on the other side of the worst thing that had ever happened to him, and Dane’s presence didn’t belong anywhere near it.
And beyond that, this was a door Lysander needed to close with his own hand.
“No,” Lysander said. “I want to do this on my own.”
“Okay, then.” Hamish picked up his toast and went back to eating.
Colin stared at both of them. Whatever he’d been about to say, he swallowed it down. He’d just watched his son make a decision that his alpha accepted without flinching, and there was nothing in Colin’s arsenal that could argue with that.
“You’ll ring me afterwards,” Colin demanded.
“I’ll ring you right after.”
Cassian had gone very still beside Lysander, his fork suspended halfway to his mouth. He’d never seen an omega parent pull rank on an alpha before, and he was taking mental notes.
“He’ll be fine,” Hamish said, and went back to his toast.
Cassian leaned into Lysander’s arm. “I think your daddy’s worried about you,” he whispered, at a volume that carried clear across the room to every person in it.
“Thank you, Cass. I hadn’t picked up on that.”
“You’re welcome.” Cassian speared the last longganisa and bit it in half. “Colin,” he said, around a mouthful of sausage, “would you like to look at baby hats on the iPad until you feel better? Because that worked really well the last time you were upset.”
Colin’s lips pressed together in a failed attempt at severity. “I’m not upset.”
“Bloomers maybe, if you don’t feel like hats today? Tala only has twelve, I counted.”
Diwa turned away to face the hob, his shoulders shaking with laughter.
After breakfast, Lysander took longer getting ready than he had for anything short of a professional shoot.
He stood in front of the bathroom mirror and worked through his hair with product until it sat exactly the way he wanted it, then changed his shirt twice before settling on the black one that made his jaw look sharper.
Hamish was waiting in the hallway when he came downstairs. He held Lysander’s coat open without being asked, and Lysander turned and slid his arms into the sleeves while Hamish settled the collar flat across his shoulders.
Hamish turned him around, straightened his lapel, and kissed him, his hand resting briefly on the side of Lysander’s neck before he stepped back.
“If he gets too close,” Hamish said, “kick him right in the balls.”
Lysander laughed, kissed him once more, and walked out the front door to his waiting Uber.