Leaving me full of a day’s worth of really good, incredibly warm memories of these men.
My alphas.
Memories that just might fully erase the bad ones.
CHAPTER 25
GRACE
When the last, syrupy notes of the Reverie finale fade and my skates crunch to a stop at center ice, the only thing I’m thinking about is a bottle of ibuprofen. Instead, forty minutes and a half-assed shower later, I’m standing on the curb outside my apartment building staring at the three alphas who have decided to make Bars & Games my our after-show date.
Bars & Games. In a city with a thousand options, they picked the one place where the floors stick to your shoes and every third machine is either rigged to eat your tokens. But apparently this is what passes for a date night when you’re the Reverie Pack: nothing serious or too precious. Simply casual
Connor catches me looking at the sign, lips pressed together like he’s trying not to smile. “You said you like air hockey. And Zev’s been banned from more than a few bowling alleys, so. Bars & Games it is.”
I don’t respond right away. Zev, for his part, stands a little off to the side. He’s pretending not to watch me, which means he’s watching me twice as hard.
Fowler flicks his keychain against the thigh of his jeans and makes a little bow. “Your chariot.” He waves at the ride-share with a weird flourish. “Shall we?”
I slide into the back between Connor and Zev and let my body relax against the heated seat. The omega part of me wants to curl up like a cat in a sunbeam.
The drive is short. I breathe in the cocktail of alpha scents—peppermint, chocolate, and campfire smoke. Their collective warmth is like a second heartbeat, drawing me in with comfort without much effort on their part. Their alpha presence soothes my inner omega simply by existing nearby.
It was like this before, too. But I ignored it. Fought it.
No longer.
Bars & Games is actually not as grimy as I expected given the twin nature of bars and arcades. The ambient glow from the machines inside the dimly-lit space is pretty soothing after full days under blaring lights. Pounding EDM music pours out of speakers in every corner.
The four of us move straight for the bar before gaming. Zev pays for my G&T and the guys’ beers. The bartender than hands over a huge bag of tokens that come as some sort of package deal with the drinks.
Zev holds out the bag to the group. “Who wants first pick?”
Fowler snatches the bag. “Ladies first.” He dumps a pile of tokens into my hand. His fingers brush my palm and linger. I grin and pocket the tokens.
Three drinks and two rematches of a fighting game later, I am somehow winning. I have also decimated Zev at air hockey. Isuspectthey are letting me win at least a few of these rounds, but not all of them. They didn’t know I used to spend entire summers in Cape Cod at a beach arcade.
They do now.
Each round, the alphas instinctually move closer. At first, I think Connor perches close simply because of how crowded the space is. But when Zev hovers behind me, sometimes with a palm lightly resting at the back of my neck, I realize it’s far more than that. Fowler circles us casually, never standing still. He occasionally breaks off to trash-talk a random bystander before snapping right back to our group.
It feels so normal. Like we were never apart, but in fact have been together for years. But then Zev’s hand lingers and my body snaps to attention. My heartbeat thunders in my ears at the simple contact. And then there’s me, caught in the undertow, pretending I haven’t noticed my own scent thickening in the air like rose syrup.
The omega in me purrs and my scent spikes. Being this close to my alphas is everything I’ve been missing.
At the pinball row, Zev leans into me, his body heat like a blanket. “You know you can tilt it, right? The whole upper deck is loose.”
I roll my eyes. “So, cheat?”
He shrugs, grinning. “Call it what you want.”
He reaches over my shoulder to show me. His chest presses flush to my back, pinning me to the machine so very gently. My breath catches at the contact of his hips against my back. My heart flutters and a hot blush creeps up my cheeks.
I swallow hard. “I’m not taking pointers from a guy who got banned from bowling alleys.”
Zev just grins. “That was a misunderstanding.”
“Yeah?” I ask refusing to turn around because I know if I do, I’ll be an inch from his mouth. Which in itself isn’t a problem, but the very public nature of this place and what I’d suddenlyliketo do with Zevis. “What’d you do, tackle the staff?”
