Page 31 of Shades of Scars

I want her to wink at me like that. I want to be in on all of her jokes. I want to know everything there is to know about the beautiful omega sitting across from me.

Cosette snorts at that and shakes her head, wild curls bouncing around her head when she does. Finally, her eyes shift to me when she pulls out her order pad from the pouch pocket on her uniform shirt. “And who might this lovely thing be?” She looks me up and down, but not in the same way Rosa had.

I open my mouth to introduce myself, but Scarlett surprises me again when she speaks, “Cosette, this is Lark, one of my scent matched alphas. Lark, this is Cosette. She’s the one that set me up in my apartment with Kate when I first moved here. Her alphas own the complex I live in.”

Cosette’s eyes widen slightly during the introduction, but then a wide smile stretches across her face shortly after. “Well, I’ll be damned. I never thought I’d see the day when you brought an alpha around, let alone a scent match.” She gives me another once over, but it’s brief. “Aren’t you the fella that opened that new PT office on the North edge of the Parkway a few months back?”

My smile is genuine this time and I nod. It doesn’t even make Scarlett all that twitchy, either. “That would be me.” I can feelmy omega’s curious eyes on me as I speak, and when I look over at her to offer her the same smile, she blushes and looks away. Well, I’ll be damned.

Cosette looks between the both of us. “You might know one of my scent matched alphas, Frankie Donahue.”

“Ah, yes. Torn ACL about a month ago cage fighting.” I recognized the name right away. I liked the massive, yet oddly quiet, man a lot. We’d been working at repairing any lasting damage from the injury since he’d been referred to my office. He sometimes brought a little dark-skinned boy with him that I immediately deduce must be the two year old she’d been talking about with Scarlett before.

Cosette offers a sigh, and she nods. “I keep trying to get him to cut back, but the cage is an outlet for him.” She doesn’t have to explain it to me, but I nod anyway. Frankie’s admitted as much to me in the short time we’ve been working together. As an alpha myself, I understand the need to let loose pent up energy.

Nothing good ever comes of an alpha that doesn’t know how to handle all the hormones that come with our designation.

Especially when an omega is involved.

“Don’t worry. I’ll get him back into shape before you know it. He’s a tough one.” I assure her, and she offers me a tight, but genuine smile.

“Enough about me. It’s busy here and I’ll have my ass handed to me by Jerry if I don’t hustle. Can I start you two off with anything to drink? Do you know what you’d like to order yet?” Her gaze returns to Scarlett.

“I’ll take a chocolate milkshake and a stack of blueberry pancakes with a side of bacon.”

I smile at that when Cosette turns back to me. “Coffee, please. No cream. Also, an order of the cream cheese stuffed french toast with fresh strawberries and a side of bacon as well.”

Cosette ducks off after scribbling our order, and I return my attention to my omega. She’s looking down at a crack in the surface of the table like it might hold all the answers to her problems. When I reach out a hand towards her, she startles at the movement, but I don’t think it’s out of fear.

Fuck, Ihopeit isn’t, anyway.

“So, tell me why you left the diner.”

Her eyes snap to me, and I really don’t like the way she shudders when I return to the topic we’d been on before Cosette had arrived. I just hoped whatever came out of her mouth wasn’t bad enough to make me lose all sense over my thinly veiled morals.

If she starts crying, all bets are off.

18

Scarlett

Ishould’ve picked the damn restaurant like he’d wanted me to…

Tension coils tight within me, and I know he can sense it. I really don’t want to tell him why I’d had to leave the diner shortly after I’d started when I moved to Black Tide Valley. When I look him in the eye, I can also tell that he’s not going to let it go now that he’s seen my reaction to the subject being brought up.

I decided to give it a try, anyway. “I’d rather not talk about it. It’s in the past, anyway.” Reaching for my silverware roll, I unwrapped it before I began to fold the napkin; one of my anxiety fueled habits kicking into gear.

He’s quiet for so long, that I actually pause to look up at him. Of course, I get caught in his stare, his eyes hard as granite and unyielding. “Tell me, Dream Girl.” He murmurs, the softness in his tone so at odds with the way he’s watching me.

I get a short reprieve from answering when Cosette returns with our drinks, setting my shake down in front of me, and I reach for it to give myself something else to do with my hands, now that I’m done folding the napkin into a little origami swan. My old co-worker and sorta friend arches a brow at me when she notices the little napkin figurine, but she doesn’t comment on it.

“I’ll be back shortly with your food.” Her voice is sultry and sweet, before she turns and walks away, voluptuous hips swaying with each step. Sometimes, I get a little envious of how confident she is in her own skin. Lark doesn’t even glance over at her. He keeps all his focus trained on me. It makes me absolutely terrified he’s going to look so deep inside of me, that he sees down to the core of my nightmares, and still judges me for them.

Despite all of my bravado, I won’t survive a rejection from him. Fromanyof them.

Yeah. I have it bad.

I take a sip of my shake, trying literally anything to get out of talking about that brief nightmare in a recent train of events that have consumed my life. My not so stellar introduction to the type of people that run in this city. Not just the rejects. The monsters that have crawled out of the gutters, desperate to carve out a place in this world of their own.

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