Page 19 of Run Wild Omega

A knock at the door makes Pip jump.

“It’s open,” I call out.

Dylan walks in, bringing a gust of cold air and the scent of woodsmoke with him. He looks relaxed, a wide grin on his face, his hair damp from the snow.

“Beer?” he asks, heading straight for the fridge without waiting for an answer.

“Help yourself.”

He cracks one open and drops onto the armchair opposite me, stretching his long legs out. “Long day?”

“Yeah. You?”

“Fire alarm at the high school. Some kid burned popcorn in the faculty lounge. Set off the sprinklers.” He laughs. “Chaos. But it got me off early.”

We drink in silence for a minute. I can tell he has something on his mind. Dylan never just comes over to stare at the TV. He’s the social glue of our pack; if he’s quiet, he’s planning something.

“I ran into Tess,” he says.

My hand tightens around the beer bottle. “Okay.”

“At the Bluejay. She was grabbing a drink.”

I keep my face blank. I know she goes there. I know Wes flirts with her. “And?”

“I invited her to the station dinner.”

The room seems to shrink. The air leaves my lungs. I set the beer down on the coffee table. “You did what?”

“I invited her to the dinner next week.” He doesn’t look sorry. He looks challenging. “She needs to get out more, Wyatt. And I want her there.”

“You know better,” I growl. “You know that’s not a good idea.”

“Why? Because you’re scared to be in the same room with her for an hour without your uniform to hide behind?”

“This isn’t about me being scared, Dylan. It’s about respecting boundaries. She doesn’t want to be around me. You dragging her into our space is meddling. Stop it.”

Dylan leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees. His expression sobers. “I don’t like it, man. You two living in the same town, acting like ghosts. It’s been two years. You nod at each other in the hallway like acquaintances. It’s unnatural.”

“We talk,” I snap. “We talk about the weather, and the mountain, and work. We are perfectly civil.”

“Civil.” Dylan rolls his eyes. “Yeah, sure. That’s not talking, Wyatt. That’s surviving.”

I stand up, unable to sit still. “I let her go. That was the deal. I let her have her life without me dragging her down. So why can’t you let me have mine?”

“Is this about you wanting her for yourself?” The question is biting, cutting through the tension.

I spin on him. “What?”

“Tess.” Dylan shrugs. “Is that why you’re so bent out of shape? You jealous?”

I glare at him. “She’s pretty fucking hot, Dylan. Any man with eyes would want a chance with her. But that’s not what this is, and you know it.”

“So what is it then?”

I run a hand through my damp hair. “There have been rumors, okay? About her. About some professor at the Academy. She came back here, and she built a life without us. She moved on. Why can’t I? Why do you keep trying to dig it up?”

Dylan looks at me, really looks at me. His brown eyes are searching, stripping away my defenses until I feel exposed.