Page 118 of Slow Heat
“Xan…” They were never going to start up again. He didn’t know how to be clearer without ruining the tentative peace they’d made.
“I know, I know. I need to stop pressuring you. You don’t feel what you don’t feel.” A group of alphas from their school filed in, enlivening the coffee shop with noise and raw energy. “Shit, do you want to go? This conversation isn’t going to be private for long.”
“Look who it is,” Wilbet Monhundy’s voice rang out over the group lined up to order their lattes and mochaccinos. “Sabel, how’s it hanging, buddy? How’s your slutty omega doing? Sucking your cock and taking your knot yet?”
Jason gritted his teeth. “Ignore him,” he whispered to Xan. “He’s not worth it.”
Monhundy and two of his friends, guys Jason had never bothered to learn the names of, broke free from the line and headed over to their table. Smirks and nastiness were screwed firmly on their faces.
“So are you gonna be in class at all this week, Sabel?” Monhundy drew up behind Jason, putting his hands on Jason’s shoulders and rubbing like they were old pals. “Or will you be too busy screwing your nasty, used-up omega?”
Jason’s fists clenched and he stood up. “Say that again.”
“Yeah, say that again, asshole,” Xan said, popping up, too, and getting in Monhundy’s face.
“Aw, Jason, do you need your widdle pal here to protect your widdle feelings?” Monhundy laughed, but then his eyes grew beady and small, his lips drawing into a sneer. “Maybe the rumors are true then, yeah? I hear he’s unmanned and you’re the one who did it.”
Xan growled and threw himself at Monhundy. He landed a solid punch, but it wasn’t anything for solid Monhundy to grab small Xan and toss him against the table, spilling their drinks everywhere. Jason launched in to the fray, ready to fight, when a fist knocked his jaw, and the room went wobbly and dark. He fell to the floor next to Xan, pain radiating through his face, and his mind spinning.
Monhundy loomed over them, a foul grin on his face. “Let’s stomp these unmanned bastards,” he said over his shoulder to his brutish-looking pals.
“Hey, hey, no fighting!” Garth, the muscular beta owner of the coffee shop, flew out from behind the counter with a wet towel over his shoulder. He snapped it at Monhundy, thwacking his exposed forearm hard. Garth’s dark red hair was a curly mess, and his red cheeks shone with irritation.
Jason struggled up from the ground, the floor unsteady beneath his feet. He pulled Xan up, too, and then regretted it when he had to hold Xan’s arms to keep him from flying at Monhundy again.
“Take it back,” Xan yelled. “Say whatever you want about me, but take it back about Jason!”
Monhundy laughed and said, “Hear that? He’s as good as admitted it.”
“Fuck you, I’m gonna kill you,” Xan snarled, rearing against Jason’s hold.
“Stop!” Garth clapped his hands in Xan’s face. “Stand down, boy.” Then Garth turned to Monhundy and his crew. “Get out. All five of you. And don’t come back until you’ve grown some manners to go with your alpha posturing.” He hunched his shoulders and flexed his arms, mimicking Monhundy’s size and strength. Straightening, he poked his finger at Monhundy’s chest fearlessly. “Don’t make me call the police on you entitled alpha brats.”
Monhundy and his clownish friends jeered and laughed, but apparently took Garth at his word. The courts, no matter how much money their father had, looked down on adolescent alphas harassing beta storeowners. So Monhundy and his friends vacated quickly, calling insults over their shoulders.
Monhundy, of course, had to get the last word. He shouted at Xan, “Unmanned alphas don’t belong at Mont Nessadare. Better find a new school to prepare you for your upcoming career sucking alpha dick on a street corner for a nickel. Maybe Mont Juror will take you.”
Xan snarled, but he’d given up trying to get free of Jason’s hold.
“You boys all right?” Garth asked once Monhundy had gone. He looked them up and down carefully. “You come in here all the time and never cause problems. But as soon as these jerks turn up, suddenly there’s trouble. You’re not the first young alphas he’s picked a fight with recently. I’m considering banning him.”
“We’re fine,” Jason said, but Xan was trembling with rage, wordless and pale, his blue eyes trained on Monhundy’s exiting back with a loathing Jason had never seen in him before. “Right, Xan?”
“Fine,” he gritted out. “Just jolly, thanks.”
Garth raised a brow at Jason and said, “You can both stay if you want to clean up the mess. Or you can go and leave it to me.”
“We’ll clean up.” Jason didn’t know if Monhundy and his pals might be waiting to continue the brawl in the street, and he was in no hurry to engage them again.
“No, let’s go,” Xan said, grabbing Jason’s arm and pulling him with his surprising strength. “Sorry, Garth. I need some air.”
Xan tugged him out the side door and onto a back street that led away from where Monhundy and his crew had headed. “That was rude. Garth’s always good to us. We should have stayed to help him.”
“I don’t care. I had to get out of there.” Xan set off toward the piers. “I hate Monhundy. I hate him so much. And I hate myself. I hate everyone.” He darted a glance at Jason. “Except you. I justwishI could hate you.”
Jason didn’t know what to say. ‘Me too’, didn’t seem quite the right response, but he did wish that whatever Xan felt for him was a lot less complicated and scary. But he couldn’t change that any more than he could change what Vale had done in his past and what he’d said to him in his room. He just didn’t know how to accept it yet, either.
He followed Xan down to the warf, vaguely aware that though he’d initially gone to Xan for comfort, now he was in the position of needing to comfortXan. It wasn’t an uncommon development between them, and so long as he couldn’t be completely honest about the situation with Vale, maybe it was for the best.
