Page 70 of Game Over

“Glad your stream went well,” I tried.

“She’s gone, you don’t need to pretend anymore,” they said, walking past me and throwing themselves on the couch. They picked up the remote to turn the TV on, blatantly ignoring me.

My anger at the way they brushed me off, the way they acted like I didn’t give a shit about them, was really beginning to rub the wrong way. “I’m not pretending anything. We’re friends, Jesse. Family. Or at least I thought we were.”

“Yeah, I did too.”

Hurt panged my chest. I couldn’t stand there and look at him seeming so… indifferent about me. Hating me would have been fine, but the pure lack of care there was… too much.

“Will you just talk to me?”

They began ripping into the brown paper the food was in. It crinkled loudly as he pulled the black plastic container out, putting it on the counter along with the rice.

“There’s nothing to talk about. You and Tara are mated. I’m dating Tara. What more is to say?”

My anger was starting to rise. I didn’t think I’d ever been mad at Jesse, but right now, I didn’t appreciate his tone.

“So that’s all you want. The two of us dating each other and never speaking.”

“We’re speaking right now,” they said, grabbing the spoon and eating, acting casually as if they weren’t hurting me right now.

“I get that you’re mad, and you have every right to be. I fucked things up. But you’ve always meant everything to me. Always will. And you can hate me, throw things at me, yell at me, I don’t care. But this utter… indifference is killing me.”

The last part came out broken, but it couldn’t be helped. I felt broken.

I didn’t even glance back at him, couldn’t as I stepped out the door and shut it harder than needed.

The door slamming mademe jump. Charlie wasn’t the type to slam doors, or get mad, so I knew how upset he was.

I grabbed one of the couch pillows and brought it to my chest, squeezing it to me. Did I want to upset him? No. I hated seeing him upset, especially when I was the reason. But didn’t he understandIwas upset?

My omega girlfriend mated my best friend during her heat, which I guess wasn’t his fault implicitly, but why did he have to be so… perfect? He’d always been so tall and handsome and kind. Everyone had always fallen all over him. Men, women, omegas, betas, alphas, it never mattered. Everyone loved that charm.

And now my girlfriend did too.

The poor pillow in my arms had to bear the brunt of my wrath, but I didn’t care. Most of the time, being a beta didn’t bother me, smelling everyone all the time so strongly and having to deal with a rut felt like it would be annoying, but I couldn’tdeny at times like this I wished I’d ended up in that three percent of the population pool who got to be different.

That wasn’t even the worst part. The worst part, the anger I held the deepest and wouldn’t even acknowledge to myself…

Why didn’t Charlie fuck me?

When we kissed during that heat, something inside of me flipped. Something about the way he did it, the almost yearning look in his eyes made me think… I’m not even sure. Made me think he could like me? Could be attracted to me. It made me understand why everyone seemed to fawn over him. Being caught in that intense gaze was almost addictive. Having Charlie’s attention on me felt like I was at the center of the universe. He was so gravitational that it seemed impossible to pull away, even if I wanted to.

But now it was all about Tara. And of course it was, she was his omega, and we all knew what that meant. Pack was an unbreakable bond—a tethered experience I couldn’t even begin to compare to, for either of them.

And though Tara didn’t treat me any differently, it was clear there was this thing now between us. A connection that they had that I didn’t know if I would ever get. Sometimes betas joined packs. It was good to have someone not so lost in lust that they couldn’t get food or water for everyone during heats and ruts. It’s why I knew to get water and food for everyone, it was almost instinctual at that point. But many packs had no interest in having a beta. They didn’t provide any real function beyond that to the pack, and what could I provide Charlie or Tara outside of a protein bar and some water?

Which only led to me thinking about how long it would take for me to be pushed out of the picture. It made sense that it would happen eventually. Probably gradually. I knew neither of them would intentionally hurt me, but soon dates would become just them, Charlie would convince her to move in and I’d seethem less and less until I became just an image in the rearview mirror.

The thought made me nauseous, but I couldn’t see it going any other way.

I stood, needing to move, my curry long forgotten. I paced back and forth in front of my couch, circling my coffee table as I did. Was I being dramatic? Maybe, but I couldn’t help imagine all the ways I was bound to get pushed from this relationship.

As I circled, my eyes caught on the box of diamonds sitting there. I paused and picked it up, opening the lid and examining them again. Before Tara left, I should have asked her to help me put them on. I could have also asked Charlie if I had been less of a dickhead, but that apparently wasn’t happening.

They were beautiful, though that wasn’t surprising, Tara had excellent taste, as did Charlie. And something about knowing they picked this out for me together made me warm, though I wasn’t sure I wanted it to.

It made me think about the one around Tara’s neck. If these were supposed to be handcuffs, then what was hers supposed to be? A leash? I had never seen her like that. She always told me she didn’t have as much interest in being a sub—that it was for her viewers for the most part. But now I felt curious. I wanted to see if that was how she really felt.

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