Page 9 of Two For the Show
When I throw open the door, I find my partner sprawled out on the bed with one of Alex’s shirts thrown over his face. He collected them out of her trailer and has been cycling through them since.
My Alpha is shirtless and looking thinner than he has in a while. His hip bones jut up enough that his jeans gape open over his pelvis.
“Teo,” he says, though it’s slightly muffled. “What’d you find out?”
“We’ve got suspects,” I say dismissively. I’m not as concerned about updating him on our progress as I am about making sure he’s not spiraling. “Are you okay?”
“Bad day.” He reaches for me, and I climb onto the bed, pulling him into my arms. The fact that he’s admitting that is a huge deal. Most of the time, he tries to conceal how deeply he is affected by her absence.
I’m not sure why he feels the need to do that. None of us are doing well, and we wouldn’t begrudge his struggle. I cannot imagine how hard it must be for him to start feeling better, to have his Rot recede, only for it to come back in full force like it has.
My Alpha buries his face in my neck and groans as he rubs his nose along my scent gland. “So fucking good.”
Since bonding with Alex, my scent has changed, as my pheromones have morphed to include some of her markers. My whole life, I’ve always smelled buttery, salty, and sweet, like kettle corn, but since she gave me her bond, I’ve also taken on hints of chocolate, giving me a more pastry-like scent.
Quinton loves it, and I think it helps some of the symptoms of his Rot. Not as much as it would if she were here, but way more than my Beta scent did on its own.
“I need you,” he whispers against my ear. “Bad.”
He’s been using sex to hide his broken heart. Out of all of them, I think Quinton is dealing with Alex’s disappearance the worst. He blames himself since he was the last one to see her. He says he should’ve stopped the show and gone to her, but that’s his retrospective Alpha thought process pushing through his logical brain. He had no reason to suspect that she would leave.
I’m trying not to let him bury himself in sex, but Iknow it helps him feel better and forget for a little, so I give in more than I should. A good partner would force him to talk about it, to work through his complex feelings.
I love him too much to let him hide himself away right now.
“Q, I’m worried about you.”
He nuzzles into my neck and takes a deep inhale, nipping at my skin. “Don’t worry about me, just fuck me, Teo.”
I push him away and grab his chin, forcing him to look into my eyes. “You can’t continue like this, Quinton. She wouldn’t want this for you.”
“Well, she’s not here, is she? She can’t be upset about what I need to do to plug the hole her absence left!” He rolls away from me, crossing his arms over his chest as he stares at the ceiling. “I’m doing the best I can, Teo.”
“I know you are, baby,” I say, curling up into his side. “But we’re so close. So close to making this place safe for her so that we can get her back. You have to hang on a little bit longer.”
“Okay,” he says, but he sounds defeated. “I can hang on. I can do this.”
“Is your pain that bad?” I thread my fingers through his. “This place smells like a concert in the desert.”
“No, it’s… I’m fine. It’s more my brain than anything.”
I’m not sure I believe him. Part of me thinks he’s hiding how much he’s hurting from me, so I don’t worry.
He’s a fool. I’m always going to worry about him. That’s what love is. You worry about the people you love.
It doesn’t take long before he’s snoring, clinging to me in his sleep as if he’s afraid I will run. I don’t know how much longer we can go on like this. He’s wasting away in front of me, and the only cure feels further away than ever.
Chapter 4
“Here’syour s’mores latte, sir,” I say to the Beta who’s standing outside the cart on his phone. He looks up and nods, reaching out to take the coffee from me, not breaking eye contact. We get a lot of people on the way to their offices, and this guy looks like every other finance bro I’ve seen this morning.
Except most of them order a black coffee with a few extra shots. The s’mores latte is sweet, with chocolate syrup and a marshmallow topping that I have to brown with a culinary torch.
It’s really, really good, but most men aren’t secure enough in themselves to order something like it.
People’s coffee orders say a lot about them.
They can say I’m exhausted, I’m depressed, I’m trying to impress someone. Or they can say that they’re watching their diet, or can’t handle caffeine but like the ritual of it, or that they’re an old lady at heart.
