Page 16 of Mating of Convenience
“Yeah...” I licked my lips. “You still in touch with Jake at all?”
“I see him around town,” Conner said, fidgeting with the hem of his sleeve. “It’s not like weavoideach other.”
“It’s sad, though. I mean you used to be--“
“It’s okay, Raph. I’m over it.”
“Cool. I think I’m gonna head to my room,” I said, trying not to let Conner’s words get to me. He wasover it.Wasn’t that just great? Everyone was over everything these days. Fucking fantastic.
9
Nathan
Friday evening, before it was time to go over to Conner’s place, I was at my Dad’s house, helping my twelve-year-old brother Henry with his math homework the way I did every week. My little brother had a lot of talents--he could do things on a skateboard that I’d never seen anyone do--but math wasn’t his strong suit. So much so that sometimes our other brother--seventeen-year-old Caleb--joked that he’d skated without a helmet too many times. A wholly unsubstantial claim of course, because our parents would never let Henry go anywhere near the board without a helmet—and neither would I.
“C’mon,” I said, pointing to the equation on the lined notebook paper in front of us. “You know this. We went over this same thing last week.”
“I don’t remember,” Henry claimed, chewing on the bottom of his pencil. “It’s too hard. Why do I need to know how to do this anyway? I have a calculator on my phone.”
“A calculator isn’t going to help you when you don’t know what numbers to put in it.”
My little brother groaned and let his pencil fall to the table. “Can we do this another time? I want to see my friends.”
“Homework first,” Rhys called from where he was sitting in an armchair in the corner, leafing through the latest issue of the newspaper he worked for. Rhys was my step-father, but the birth parent of Henry and our little sister Clara, who was out getting groceries with Caleb and our dad.
“This is not fair,” Henry whined. “I have the whole weekend!”
“You have the whole weekend to regret not doing your homework when you were told to,” Rhys countered.
“Actually, I do have to leave early tonight,” I spoke up.
Rhys put the newspaper down. “You’re not sticking around for dinner?”
“Nah, not tonight. Sorry.”
“Important plans?”
“I’m... hanging out with Raph.” I tried to make the words sound casual even if I hesitated before speaking them.
“Oh.” One of my stepfather’s eyebrows arched up. “Well, I guess maybe then you should leave early. You don’t want to be late.”
“It’s not like it’s anything super important. We’re playing video games.”
At that, Henry perked up. “Video games? Can I come?”
“No, you can’t come. You’re meeting your friends, remember?”
“Besides, you still have to finish your homework,” Rhys added. “And if you don’t do it quickly, you’ll have to do it without your brother’s help.”
“No fair,” Henry whined again, but he focused, finally and I got out of the house almost on time.
“Enjoy your video games,” Rhys told me as I left, but the way he looked at me said he didn’t believe my story for even one second. I refrained from trying to convince him otherwise. It didn’t matter what people were thinking. Raph and I weren’t a couple anymore and we would never be a couple again and that was that.
I’d spent too many years of my life chasing after Raph--and sure, I’d been in heaven when I finally got him, but it’s like they say. The higher you soar the deeper you fall. I wasn’t gonna go through that again.
So when Raph opened the door to Conner’s place and his scent drifted into my nose, I didn’t linger on it. Lots of omegas smelled good. It was no reason to go crazy over them. I was here to hand his ass to him in a video game, nothing more.
“I set the system up in the living room,” Raph said as I was taking my shoes off.
