Spencer blamed his lack of immediate recognition on the dim lighting. Then his heart gave a little skip-beat thump he blamed on not taking his own hydration advice.
But he knew these two dudes. He knew them very, very well.
“Ash and Ryyyyder!” he crowed, lifting his hand for a high five that neither of the stone-faced men gave him. “Oh man, did you come to visit me?”
Ash rolled his eyes. “We came to see if Noah was working.”
Oh yeah, that made sense, since Noah was Ash’s older brother. He was also one of Spencer’s roommates, one of his two very best besties in the whole wide world, and an occasional barback at this very bar. He was a gorgeous ray of calm alpha sunshine, and Spencer could understand wanting to see him as much as possible.
He and Ash had a certain family resemblance, though Ash’s curls were a darker blond, his frame narrower and his cheekbones sharper. And where Noah was easy sunshine, Ash was more like … streamlined fire. Harsher. More intense. Liable to singe.
He was also unpresented, his designation a hot little mystery to the world. Spencer was betting on alpha though. Boy had atemper.
Spencer leaned over the bar with a sad shake of his head. “Not tonight, my dudes. He switched shifts to take Eli on a fancy date. The opera or ballet or maybe a science lecture. I forget.”
“Staking out your next conquest?”
Spencer shifted his gaze to Ryder, Ash’s ever-present shadow. Speaking of gorgeous alphas. Although, Ryder looked nothing like Noah, or Spencer for that matter. He was the rough and tumble type, with his dark hair buzzed close to the scalp and tattoos everywhere and muscles on top of muscles.
He also maybe hated Spencer. It was hard to tell for sure, though—Ryder acted like he hated everyone. Everyone except for Ash, who he treated with a quiet, possessive care that made Spencer’s dick kind of hard.
It was why Ryder was clearly good people, no matter how much he snarled at Spencer. Loyalty like that was always worth more than surface politeness. And Spencer didn’t mind a little snarling, anyway. He tended to bring it out in people, so it would be hypocritical to get all up in arms about it.
He’d kind of forgotten that Ryder had asked him a question, but the burly alpha was glaring down the bar at the beta, who was very unsubtly staring at the three of them.
“Her?” Spencer asked. “Nah. She’s halfway to blitzed.”
Ash’s scowl now matched Ryder’s in intensity. “You’re going to lose your license serving her.”
Spencer waved a hand. “Psh. She’s drinking water. And I texted her friends with her phone like ten minutes ago. They’re already on their way to take her home.”
“You’re allowed to do that?” Ryder crossed his tatted arms. It made him look like a bouncer. Maybe the bar should hire him.
Spencer shrugged. “Probably not.” But what was he gonna do—leave her to stumble home on her own? “You two staying?”
Ash and Ryder exchanged a glance. They did that silent, talking-without-talking thing a lot. It was sick as hell to watch.
After a moment, Ash nodded. “Yeah. I’ll take a beer. Something light.”
“ID?”
Spencer was joking, of course—Ash and Ryder were both under the legal drinking age, not that he gave a shit. But Ryder slid two fakes toward him, and Spencer picked them up out of curiosity. They were good quality, could have fooled him for sure.
“All right. A beer for … Sebastian.” Spencer gave Ash a nod. Then he turned, waggling his eyebrows at Ryder. “And for you, Stanley?”
Ryder took a seat at the bar. “Piña colada,” he said dryly.
He was joking, right? Spencer had always assumed he’d be a whiskey straight kind of guy. But Ryder’s expression gave nothing away.
Spencer looked to Ash, who shrugged, taking his own seat. “You heard the man.”
Well, then. Spencer flashed them a grin. “Coming right up.”
He went to fetch their drinks, a new pep in his step. The night had been slow as hell so far, and while Spencer hadn’t minded being a shoulder to cry on for his one and only beta customer this last hour, she’d be leaving soon, and then he would have to send his barback home and it would just be him spinning bottle caps on his lonesome.
But Ash and Ryder were always decent company. They’d started coming over to the house Spencer shared with his two roomies more at the end of last year, looking for Noah when he’d been secretly dating his professor, and they’d taken to staying over sometimes to play video games with Spencer.
Spencer might have thought their continued visits were the two of them taking pity on him—everyone knew Spencer hated to be alone—but Ash and Ryder weren’t the pitying types. In the social circus that was life in college, they generally kept to themselves, a devoted duo. Spencer didn’t know if they were dating or friends with bennies or none of the above. Ash’s late presentation made it doubly hard to tell—he didn’t have any pheromones of his own, and he was always covered in Ryder’s dark, woodsy scent.
