Page 10 of Alpha's Two Omegas

“Oh, I, um, I’m not sure- I’m not hungry, thank you.”

He was giving me that same uncertain look he had before. Clearly, I hadn’t got to the bottom of whatever was worrying him.

So I pushed again.

“When did you last eat?”

“This morning.”

“What did you have?”

“An apple.”

“Is that all?”

“Yes.”

“Then you should be hungry, right?”

“Ummm.” He drew the sound out like he was desperately trying to think of something to say.

“Look, I know moving is stressful, so you don’t have to eat with me and Ty if you don’t want to. You can grab your pizza and bring it up to your room. But we’d love to have you eat with us.”

His eyes widened. Ok, that was a shock to him. I glanced at Ty automatically to see if he had a better read on Ronnie than I did.

He looked just as baffled as I felt.

At last, Ronnie said, “I can’t—”

And it clicked. He couldn’t afford it.

I cut him off when he started to struggle. “Are you allergic to anything?”

“No.”

“Cool. Ty always makes too much of everything so you’re welcome to have dinner with us any time you like. For today, though, I’m getting pizza. It’s a celebration!”

It looked like Ty had come to the same conclusion I had. He added, “Our treat. Trust me, it reallyisa celebration – we’ve found a housemate that Alder likes. I thought we were going to takemonthsto get somebody so a celebratory pizza sounds perfect.”

Ronnie still looked stunned.

“Do you want the Barbeque or the All-In-Veggie? Those are the best.”

“I don’t know.”

“I’ll get both and you can try them. We’ll share.” I flapped my hands at them. “Now you get on with your jobs while I order.”

I sat on the top step and listened to Ty talking Ronnie through each step and showing him how to use the drill and praising him for keeping everything so neat. At first, I had an uncomfortable flash of jealousy. Ty usually only used that voice with me. The soft one. Therealone.

Then I twisted round to peek through the door at them and saw Ronnie’s face practically alight with pride. Damn, he looked good like that. And Ty, he was smiling to himself and watching what Ronnie did carefully to make sure he didn’t hurt himself. How could I be jealous when they both looked so happy?

Chapter 4: Ronnie

Living with Alder and Ty was both the best thing that had ever happened to me and utter torture at the same time.

The more I got to know them, the more I fell for them. Both. How was that even possible?

Alder was lean and gorgeous and his whole face lit up when he was talking about something that interested him. Which was a lot. He found everything fascinating and I had already learned more than I expected to about deep-sea fishing and glass blowing, both of which he’d become fascinated by in the past two months.

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