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I debated whether to tell him or not. “You can choose what we watch, I’m really not bothered.”
He grinned at me and yanked the blanket from the back of the couch, settling it over the two of us. I hadn’t realised how close he’d sat. There was only a foot of space between us, hidden under the blanket.
“Come on, Waggoner, you need to tell me what you like. Otherwise how do we know if we’re a perfect movie-match?”
His voice had got lower until the sound vibrated through my chest. His words were innocent enough but there was something in the way he said them which was all alpha and strangely intimate.
“I like—” I began, but realised my voice was squeaky, so I cleared my throat and started again. “Promise you won’t laugh?”
“Promise,” he growled.
“I like Sci-Fi movies. The really ridiculous ones. I know they’re terrible but I love them.”
He grinned like I’d just given him a prize. “The ones with bug-eyed-monsters and meteor storms and shit?”
I looked down. “Yes, those ones. We don’t have to watch anything like that, though. I can watch anything.”
“Nah, we’re watching one of those. Let me find the remote. Here, you find one you like.”
He passed me the remote and I scrolled through my list. It was basically a line-up of B-movies. My guilty secret.
“Uh, we really don’t—”
“I like Sci-Fi, Waggoner. I just never expected you would. Don’t the stupid science explanations get to you? Like, you’re one of the few people who know exactly how the movie got it wrong. Isn’t it irritating?”
“No,” I admitted. “I like that. The crazy ideas and the weird numbers. It’s… liberating.”
“How?”
“I guess what I mean is that I like to see all the wrong science because it’s creative. It’s speculating about all the amazing things science can do and, sure, they’re film-makers not scientists so they get most of it wrong, but that imagination is important. All the best scientific discoveries have been made over the years because someone dared to think outside the box and wonder if a crazy thing could be done, even when the current science said it couldn’t.”
He stared at me and I felt my face heating up. Damn it, I knew I shouldn’t have told him.
“Uh, yeah, but we really don’t—”
Then he smiled again and I pressed play on a random movie. I didn’t even know which one it was. All I knew was that having Liam looking at me as though I was fascinating was making a lot of feelings skip across my skin. I felt… seen and interesting and maybe a little bit turned on.
I drew the blanket up higher, making sure my crotch was covered.
“Here,” he said, and shifted the blanket some more. The move brought him closer to me so I could actually feel the heat of his leg against mine.
I spent most of the movie in a daze, fixated on that feeling of a big alpha sitting beside me and pretending in the privacy of my own head that we were a couple. It had been so long since I’d been in a relationship that I’d forgotten how it felt to have that casual contact, the warmth and the kisses and the feeling of security that came with it.
To be honest, I had deliberately forgotten. My last partner – a non-presenting man my age – had left me nearly five years ago. I had realised then that I was too old to go out on the dating scene again. Frank had actually told me that I was too old, to my face. When I’d pointed out that he was the same age as me, he’d said that omegas age faster whereas alphas and non-presenting men are attractive for longer. And if I’d had the faintest idea that he was the sort of man who would say something that hurtful to anyone, let alone me, I would have ended our relationship years before.
While the movie played, I let myself imagine. I deliberately kept facts out of it. Facts were for later. For now, all that mattered was that I was sitting curled up under a blanket, leaning into my alpha’s side and watching a spaceship float across the screen.
The tight knot inside my chest that was my constant companion – the one that told me I had to work harder and be better and prove myself more – began to ease. It felt so good that I didn’t try to work out how that was happening, I just let it happen.
Chapter 9: Liam
Ididn’t move a muscle for a full half an hour. I was too afraid that I’d disturb Waggoner and he’d realise what he was doing.
He was leaning into me, letting his body mould around my bicep and press along my leg. I could feel how warm his skin was, all tucked up under the blanket, and it made my heart want to melt.
Slowly, I looked down at his face. He didn’t notice. His eyelids were half closed and he seemed to be in a daze. I was sure he wasn’t even watching the movie. That was ok. Neither was I.
I wanted more than anything to put my arm around him and pull him against me properly. The way I would if we were a couple. I could just imagine lying there with my omega snuggled up to my chest…
