Page 34 of Trick or Heat

I quirk a brow. “Fuckboys.”

His eyes sparkle with something that looks fairly earnest. “No, we’re not fuckboys,” he tells me.

“No?” I ask, a glimmer of hope shooting through me.

He shakes his head. “We don’t have the time or energy it takes to be fuckboys. Not to mention, we know what real connection feels like. How beautiful friendship is, and how it can turn into love that feels freeing rather than restricting.”

I think of Elsie, how her care for me has lifted me up even in the darkest of moments. How I’ve loved her for as long as I can remember, but her platonic love was just as needed as what I craved deep down. Some days, just being in her orbit is all I want.

“I don’t mean to be guarded,” I finally admit, catching his eye. His entire demeanor is so contradictory to how I expect a big-headed jock to be. He isn’t rude or condescending. He listens intently, waits until I am done speaking to respond. Even during Elsie’s heat, he let me take the reins when it’s obvious that he is the prime of the pack.

He’s not what I expected at all. I expected borderline narcissism, not a teddy bear patiently waiting for his next crumb of affection.

“I don’t mind the hesitation,” Brodie responds, once again showing how sincere he is.

“I appreciate that.” I thread my fingers together, feeling a tightness in my chest. “The truth is, I haven’t opened up to a lot of people besides Elsie. Athletes in the past… Well, let’s just say we’ve both been on the bad end of situations with them. The last alpha I dated was a football player and he had me really messed up for a while.”

There’s the slightest change in Brodie’s disposition, and I catch it. His shoulders tense slightly, and he places his fork down. “If you don’t mind,” he starts, swallowing roughly, “can I ask what happened?”

Despite the absurdity of it, I don’t hesitate for even a second to tell him everything.

“We were casually dating, and he was saying all these things to me that felt nice. I guess looking back you could say he was love bombing me, but I didn’t know that’s what it was until I started to fall for it.” I blow out a breath. “He helped me with my last heat. He and a few of his friends that I knew came over and were with me for the week. Afterward, he completely ghosted me. He didn’t even stay for any aftercare, they just left, and after that he pretended he didn’t know me.”

The entire situation still stings, but only because I’m so embarrassed that I let myself get so wrapped up in some random asshole. I liked the idea of someone loving me, someone caring about me. As a male omega, I feel like we get overlooked sometimes, told to “man up” on more than one occasion. I liked being seen as an omega, and treated as one.

But no amount of affection is worth the turmoil he put me through afterward.

“You didn’t deserve that,” Brodie affirms me, his jaw working. “I’m so sorry. Alphas like that… They don’t deserve to be around any omega, much less one that let them in and trusted them. I am ashamed of our designation sometimes, because some alphas just don’t want to do the work to be better.”

My mouth opens. I didn’t expect him to say any of that.

“That’s why the guys and I joined Heat Seekers, actually,” he informs me. “We know there are abusive alphas out there, ones that would take advantage of omegas in emergency situations. We wanted to at least do our small part to prevent another omega from going through something like that.”

If there was any doubt in my mind before, it dissipates with those final words. I think a small part of me held them being on Heat Seekers against them; I let my bias for jocks morph the reason why they signed up to begin with. I’m not sure exactly what I thought, but it certainly wasn’t that.

“I believe you,” I say, more for myself than anything. “I’m glad you guys did, or Elsie and I would have never met you.”

“And that would have been a travesty.”

His silly tone makes me laugh, sincere and full, even in this busy dessert shop. “I know Elsie told you that I would have loved this place, but I think she would love it too. She loves mini-cake assortments.”

“Maybe we should get some for her too?” Brodie asks, using his napkin to wipe off his hands.

“Yeah, that’s a good idea, but do you mind taking it to her?” I ask. “I have something to do in a bit.”

The lie feels like chalk on my tongue, but I can’t take it back. I’m ashamed to say that I haven’t seen Elsie since the end of her heat, but I’m not sure how it’s going to go. This entire pack, meeting our scent matches, it’s going to be a new dynamic for our friendship, and I’m not sure how to navigate it yet, especially when I’m still madly in love with her.

His gaze is discerning, but he doesn’t call me on the fib if he detects it. “Sure thing.” He starts to stand up, but I stop him. “She likes corner pieces the most,” I tell him.

He grins. “Then a corner piece she’ll get.”

SEVENTEEN

A nice sit-down dinner was not how I expected to spend my evening, but Raivat and DJ surprised me. The place isn’t so fancy that I feel uncomfortable, but there are no written prices as I scour the menu, and we all know what that means.

“I don’t know how much the mignon costs,” I mutter.

Raivat smiles. “If you want it, you should get it.”