“What do you want?” Oli asks, and his voice is the kind that scrapes a little as it leaves his throat. Hard. Suspicious. Not friendly.
Rhett doesn’t answer right away. He drops onto the stool next to him and waves to the beta behind the bar. “I’ll have what he’s having.”
Oli gives him a long, unimpressed look. “It’s ginger ale.”
Rhett frowns, surprised, before looking at the bartender. “I’m going to need something much stronger than that.”
The bartender pours a shot of something that smells sharp even from here. Whiskey, maybe. Cheap. Strong. I don’t have a nose like an alpha, but I can still taste the tension in the air. It’s in the way they both sit—too still. Like neither trusts the other not to strike.
The bartender asks if Oli wants another.
“Sure.” Oli throws back the last of his fizzy drink, then slams it down. “Put it on my friend’s tab.”
Rhett doesn’t flinch. “That’s fine.”
I don’t move. I don’t speak. I keep my head down and my breathing measured. If I act too beta, they’ll ignore me. If I act too bold, they’ll notice me. There’s a dangerous linesomewhere in between, and I’m trying to walk it with my shoulders tight and my eyes lowered.
“What do you want?” Oli picks up the fresh glass, cutting Rhett with a look so hard I curl my shoulder inward.Are they not friends?
“I’d like to offer you a job,” Rhett says.
“Why?” Oli snips as the bartender slides a new glass in front of him. “Thought you wanted me to mind my own fucking business.”
“I thought you needed work.” Rhett brings his glass to his lips. He takes a small sip of the amber liquid. His upper lip curls, telling me it must not taste very good. “Or did you find a job here?”
“Nope.” Oli downs his whole drink in one go, then slams his glass back on the bar. “I’m still looking.” He turns on his stool, facing Rhett properly. “What kind of job are you offering?”
Rhett sets his glass down slowly. “I’d like to pay you to pretend to be in my pack.”
Oli barks out a laugh, loud enough that several nearby heads turn. Then he looks at me likeImight be in on the joke. “You serious?”
I open my mouth to explain what exactly we need, but Rhett’s gaze slices to me like a blade. And I snap it shut.Shit.I forgot. If I’m going to be in his pack, then that means letting him speak for me in situations like this.
This is weird.
“I’d like some added security to help get my new omega to the airport.” Rhett lies cooly.
“So you want a bodyguard?” Oli scrunches up his face as if not understanding. “You don’t need me to pretend to be in your pack for that.”
“True.” Rhett leans against the bar. He looks so relaxed,like all of this is normal and easy. I’m a little jealous. I wish I could do that. “People are more cautious around unmated omegas when they're guarded by their soon-to-be mates. There are too many assholes out there who think they can take down a single alpha. They see two alphas, and they think twice.”
“Or three,” Oli says, glancing at me again, smirking.He’s obviously making fun of me.
I press my lips together and drop my gaze. I hate this, but I keep thinking of Autry. Of her small hands gripping mine. Her wide, frightened eyes when she realized she was being taken. The softness of her voice when she said she didn’t want to leave me.
It’s enough to keep me standing here, in a place where I feel like I might shatter from the inside out.
“Who's the kid?” Oli finally asks, his eyes still fixed on me like he’s trying to puzzle out what I am.
“He doesn’t matter,” Rhett says.
I flinch, but swallow my protest. Idomatter. At least to her. But I nod anyway, to no one in particular. It’s safer that way.
“How much?” Oli asks, getting back to business.
Rhett pulls the coaster out from under his glass, then digs a pen out of his back pocket. He scribbles something down before pushing it toward Oli. I can't tell what it says, but the alpha's brows shoot up.
“Just to the airport?” Oli flips the coaster upside down.
