Page 21 of Alpha's Sunflower Smiles

I murmured my sympathy. Pregnancy looked like an awful lot of hard work.

Alder nodded in agreement. “Itoldhim he shouldn’t have let Liam near him with his knot, but Waggoner said he thought he was too old to get pregnant. For the smartest man I know, he’s a bit of an idiot. It’s like he thinks he’s a hundred and two or something. He’s barely into his forties. And now he’s lugging his alpha’s massive baby around inside him all day. The man’s exhausted.”

For someone who was looking forward to seeing his own partner ‘all round and pregnant’ he didn’t seem that taken with Waggoner’s pregnancy.

“Don’t you like Waggoner’s alpha?” I asked. Not that it was my business, but I didn’t like to think of an omega – especially a pregnant omega – in a relationship with someone who didn’t treat them right.

Alder sighed in a long-suffering way.

“He’s awful. He’s all… big and alpha-y. It’s only because he’s pretty smart about engineering that I put up with him at all. He still owes me a second lesson on that, but he keeps avoiding it. I think I can get him to talk to me again, though, when I take this to Waggoner. He can have a ginger tea and take a nap and Liam can tell me more stuff.”

Alder really did like to absorb information in a way I’d never seen before. I could tell by the steely look in his eye that he actually meant it. He’d have that poor alpha backed into a corner and make him tell him what he wanted to know.

“But is he… nice to your friend?”

“Oh yes, he takes good care of Waggoner. I’d have dismembered him by now if he didn’t.”

The casual way he mentioned it made me cringe. I wasn’t sure whether to believe him or not.

He carried on, seemingly oblivious to my reaction.

“He does his fair share of the cooking and he never treats Waggoner like he doesn’t know his own mind – good thing, too, since Waggoner’s smarter than anyone else – and he satisfies Waggoner sexually—”

I choked on air as I handed over the tea.

As I coughed, Alder looked at me in surprise.

“Are you okay, Wilfred?”

“Yes, I just wasn’t expecting to hear about your friend’s sex life, that’s all.”

“Oh. TMI?”

“Maybe.” I smiled as I said it, though, so he wouldn’t think I was mad or anything.

“Yeah, Ty keeps reminding me that other people are prudish and I shouldn’t talk sex stuff with them. But it’s important, right? And it’s nice, to know that Waggoner’s being given a thorough seeing-too on the regular.”

I nearly choked again.

Alder cackled at me, making me think he’d said that deliberately.

“What about you, Wilfred? Has that alpha of yours made a move on you yet?”

My face fell. “Oh,” I said, stumbling over the words. “I don’t have an alpha.”

“No?” Alder’s eyebrows went up almost to his hairline. “Are you sure? Because last time I was here, you were telling me you had an alpha who wanted to protect you with a new door. Alphas are weird like that. Very particular about their doors, they are.”

“Pete’s not my alpha,” I repeated.

“Pete…”

I realised I’d just given Alder a name, which actually worried me. The man was a bit unpredictable, especially without Ty there to restrain him. And I also realised I’d basically confessed that I wanted Pete to be my alpha, or else I wouldn’t have had a specific alpha in mind, would I?

I hurried to rectify my mistake.

“He was just being neighbourly.”

“Are you sure? Because he got awfully growly with Ty when he caught him in your workshop. Ty said he was a totally stereotypical alpha. But I’m sure he’s got good points, too.”

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