Page 19 of Mating the Omega
“When are you going?” His expression wavered between excitement and trepidation.
“Travel permit is dated Monday.”
“Oh.” Dismay won out over the other expressions on Jason’s face.
“What’s wrong?”
Jason fidgeted at the side of the truck, drawing in the dust on the side of the box. “I…uh, I have my tutor that day.” He glanced up at Mac and sighed. “No, I’m lying.” His cheeks turned pink and his eyes focused everywhere except on Mac. “I’m, uh, I’m coming into…season.” The last word was almost a whisper.
“Oh. Oh!” Well, that explained why Mac hadn’t been able to take his eyes off Jason all morning, to the point of stumbling over some of their supplies at one point. A sense of relief washed over him and he was able to commiserate with Jason over missing the outing without too much awkwardness, except for the normal awkwardness of talking about such an intimate bodily function.
“What really frustrates me,” Jason said, his hands on his hips and a frustrated look on his face, “Is that I’m going to lose a bunch of time here, and there’s still things that need to be done before the tomatoes can be transplanted, and this is going to put me behind by at least a week.”
“It doesn’t have to. I can take a few days and help out. If you’ll figure out what needs to be done, then write it out for me. Step by step, okay? I’m not a gardener.”
“Really?” Jason’s face lit up. “I’ve never had anyone offer to help me with anything, except maybe another omega, but they’re usually so busy keeping up with their own responsibilities, it’s hard to find anyone to help.” Doubt crept into his expression. “You’re serious about this, right? I mean, I don’t mind if you don’t want to. I don’t expect any help. That only starts after I’m mated.” He looked down and poked at a clump of grass with the toe of his sneaker. “I know where omegas stand in the scheme of things.”
“I mean it.” And, because he now knew that the feelings he’d been having for Jason were hormonal, he reached out to give the young omega a hug. It sent a shock of desire through his body, and stirred all his protective urges, but it wasn’t real.
Just hormones.
Jason stiffened, then relaxed into Mac’s hold, his arms coming up automatically to wrap around Mac’s waist. They stood there, until Jason suddenly twitched and stepped back.
“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t lean on you like this. Please don’t tell the Alpha.”
“Isn’t that what friends are for?” It was interesting, and mildly unsettling, that Jason still called his mate-to-be by his title. Mac was going to talk to Abel about this tonight. By this point in time, they should be comfortable talking about each other by first name, but Jason very obviously felt some major status difference between them. It was no way to start a mating.
“I’m trying to be a good omega for him.” And just like that, the happy young man from this morning, the one who’d laughed and dug in the soil and discussed several years’ worth of plans with Mac, was gone.
Yeah, Mac was going to have a talk with Abel.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Sunday evening, Mac dropped over to the Alpha’s quarters. Top floor of the highest building in Mercy Hills, it was a software magnate’s perfect hideaway—wired for every possible purpose, with furniture so comfortable a wolf could spend hours slumped in it while they worked on a particularly difficult problem. Mac knew it was possible, because he’d seen Abel do it. The Alpha put in most of his day running the pack, and running the business. Coding was entertainment for him, and stress relief, and Mac knew exactly where to find him.
He used his personal security code on the elevator and rode it up the twelve floors that made up GoodDog Software’s home base. He turned right out of the elevator—left were the guest apartment, and meeting rooms where potential human customers might come. If they were brave and sufficiently money conscious to recognize that hiring the shifter company was more cost-effective and got them a better product than going with the next best competitor. Eighty-five cents on the dollar, Abel had explained to him once, was the going rate for shifter labor. It pissed him off royally, and Mac was expecting his mood would be no better tonight.
A quick knock, just in case Abel was doing something Mac shouldn’t see, and then he walked in. He found Abel right where he expected, sitting in a huge beanbag chair, while the projector in the ceiling shone on the wall, showing lines of what Mac called gibberish, and Abel called the future.
Mac pulled a chair over and straddled it, leaning his arms on the back. “How did it go?”
“We got the contract.”
“And?” There was always an ‘and’. Or a ‘but’.
“They tried to undercut us. Again.”
“What did you do?”
Abel shrugged, tapped two keys, then did something else that popped up a message on the screen. “Damn. What the fuck is wrong with this?” He put his keyboard aside and leaned back, the Styrofoam beads crinkling beneath him. “I told them that if they wanted to pay that much, they’d take what they got, and there’d be no support after, no matter how badly they broke it installing the thing. They caved.”
“Good. Come run with me.”
“It’s not full moon.”
“When did we ever need the moon?”
Abel glanced around the room, and Mac could almost hear him listing off all the things he should probably be working on.
