Page 103 of One for the Money
“But was she as hot as the doc?” Nathan says as he takes a bite of his sandwich.
It’s midday before our last show at this stop, and I stepped out of my trailer to clear my head a little. Since I slept with Alex, I’ve been fighting every Alpha instinct I have not to run to her and beg for her to claim me.
That whole fucking forty-eight-hour time frame was a shitshow, culminating in me losing my virginity to the Omega, and I can’t get it out of my mind. The way her body moved with mine was like a dance we had practiced a thousand times. It felt so right to be wrapped up in her.
But then the haze of the minor rut faded, and fear took over. The look on her face when I tried to disentangle us is the image of my self-flagellation.
“The doc isn’t that hot, you just think that becauseshe’s an Omega,” Chet responds dismissively. “Omegas aren’t all that, anyway. I’ll take a Beta any fucking day of the week. Dexter agrees with me, right, bro?”
I look away from my shoes at the crew. I told Jude I’d try to find out who it was that’s been terrorizing Alex, and this is the first opportunity I’ve had to do that.
Maybe, if I find out who attacked her, I’ll feel better about how my actions hurt her.
“I’m not a fan of Omegas, personally,” I tell them, sitting in one of the folding chairs pushed up to the plain white table. Its top is scuffed from countless times being set up and broken down, but it’s the closest thing we have to a picnic table. “More trouble than they’re worth, honestly.”
“Thass what I’m talking ‘bout,” Chet says around a mouthful of food. “They’re prissy and high maintenance. She shouldn’t be here.”
Nathan shrugs casually. “I mean, sure, but a doc’s a doc. Not like you get hurt a lot.”
They go back and forth, arguing the benefits and pitfalls of having an Omega, not like either of them knows. But I chime in when appropriate, trying to guide the conversation along to see if either of them harbors the secret of what happened to Alex.
Nathan seems pretty indifferent to her presence here, so I don’t think it’s him. But I’m going to have Jude look more into Chet, because the guy is an asshole, and it doesn’t seem so far-fetched that he’d try to force an Omega out of here by any means necessary.
“Dex?” I look up at my twin, who’s currently blocking out the sun’s rays as he stands in front of the table, looking at me. “Can we talk?”
I was wondering when we’d have this conversation, when he’d come to beg my forgiveness for the things hesaid while he was in a rut. I grunt in affirmation and push back to the table. I mutter my goodbyes to the roadies and follow Dario to his trailer.
His setup is almost identical to mine, although we didn’t plan it that way. After a lifetime of sharing a space, it seems that we’ve taken on similar design habits. He’s got two red pillows on his worn couch, and he pulls one to his chest as he sits down.
“I’m so fucking sorry, Dex. I’m so sorry I said those awful things to you.” The tip of his nose is red, and his eyes are bloodshot. I genuinely believe he is torn up about what he said.
However, there is one thing that bothers me.
“Did you mean it?”
“What?”
“Are you sorry about what you said because it wasn’t true, or because it was true but you didn’t mean to say it?” I know what answer I want, and what the truth is, but they’re not the same.
And he knows it as well as I do.
“Dex…”
“I get it,” I say stiffly, pushing up from the couch. “I don’t think I realized how much you resented me until now.”
He exhales heavily, looking up at the ceiling as he talks. “It’s not that I resent you, not entirely. I feel invalidated by you a lot of times, and like everyone expects me to be the agreeable, go with the flow one, forgetting that I have needs, too.” His voice drops to barely above a whisper. “I think sometimes, even I forget it.”
“Why haven’t you ever said anything?” I sink back down onto the couch and rest my hand on his knee. “Seriously, you’ve never said anything about this before.”
My brother shrugs dismissively. “What was I supposedto say? That I was tired of living the bachelor life and wanted to settle down, but couldn’t because you’d never be ready?”
“Why not find a nice Beta?” I ask him genuinely. “You don’t have to wait for me to be ready for a hypothetical relationship to seek one out yourself.”
“I know you’re right, but I don’t want a Beta. I want our Omega. And she’s here, and you’re being an ass, and she clearly doesn’t want to, or can’t be with us, and I just feel like my happily ever after is over before it even had the chance to begin.”
“Well, Prince Charming, that’s not fully my fault.” I pat his knee a couple of times and then head to his fridge, pulling out two beers. When I hand him one, he sucks down half of it. “I can’t make her stay, Dario.”
He rubs his face with one hand. “I know. But she’d be more likely to if all of us were all in.”
