“Holy shit,” Myke whistled under his breath. “That’s one determined critter.”
“Tell me about it,” I agreed dryly. “What’s on your mind?”
Myke hesitated, his brow furrowing. “I’m not really sure how to ask this but did you tell Mitch I wanted to hook up with him?”
“What? Of course not,” I snorted. “Where did you get that idea?”
“I ran into Mitch twice yesterday.” When I narrowed my eyes at him, he raised his hands in surrender. “The first time was completely accidental,” he said quickly. “I had to run by my cousin’s office and he was there. The second time, I went to the animal shelter to get some information about the fainting goats they have for adoption.”
“Okay?”
“He didn’t respond well to seeing me,” Myke said carefully. “Like, at all. In fact, he got pretty worked up. At the shelter, he just blurted out that he isn’t going to have sex with me before I could even tell him why I was there.”
I felt my left eyebrow creep up. “That’s not like him. Have you been hitting on him or something?”
“Absolutely not,” Myke insisted. “I haven’t even tried to run into him to practice striking up a conversation since you told me I freaked him out. I’ve run into him a few times on accident, but just kept it light with small talk, nothing personal.” Myke hesitated. “After the way you told me he was with you, I was thinking that maybe someone needs to talk to him? Find out if something happened to him?”
“Something like what?”
Myke shrugged. “I don’t know, man, but I’d classify the way he responded to me to be close to a trauma response, you know?”
Shit.
Sometimes it was easy to forget that local goof Myke Kravets was a child therapist who specialized in trauma, hence the reason he was on staff at the youth center.
Hadsomething happened to Shelly and I’d been too stuck in my own bullshit to realize it?
“I’ll take care of it,” I assured him. “Thanks for telling me.”
Myke clapped his hand on my shoulder. “Yeah, of course. And as long as I’m butting into your business, get some sleep. You look exhausted.”
I couldn’t hold back a small laugh. “Yeah, I’ll get right on that.”
ChapterTwenty-One
Mitchel
“Are you sure this is a good idea?” I groaned as Dex gripped the bar of the gate blocking us from the driveway and swung to see if it would hold his weight. “I really don’t want to get arrested today.”
“We’re not gonna get arrested,” Dex scoffed over his shoulder. “How many times do I have to tell you that Otto loves me? I just need to get his attention so he knows I’m here, that’s all.”
“This is a really bad idea,” the Omega on the other side of Dex agreed with me. His name was Colbin or Cortin, something like that. Dex had apparently met him a few days earlier and somehow convinced him to join in our semi-drunken hijinks after we left the bar. Since, as our driver, he was the only one who was still sober, we wouldn’t have been able to consider trespassing without him.
Even though I knew it was unfair, I thought I might hate him a little for enabling this stupid plan.
“He has the gate locked, Dex,” I said with a sigh. “That means stay out.”
I wasn’t sure how, exactly, Otto had made it home from prison without anyone in the tiny town knowing, but once Dex found out, he was chomping at the bit to see his old friend. For some reason, Otto wasn’t as keen.
Over our third round of drinks, Dex had admitted he’d already left multiple phone messages, mailed three letters, and even sent a custom-printedglad you’re out of prisoncard in the past week with no response.
Hence the reason a group of grown-ass Omegas were considering breaking and entering. I mean, it was the logical next step after stalking, right?
Fuck. I definitely wasn’t drunk enough for this.
Luckily, Taylor was able to talk Dex down from the fence and convince him that maybe there was a better way to get Otto’s attention and all we had to do was find it. So, instead of having to search for bail, I was still buzzing hard when I waved goodbye to the others and let myself into the condo. The next day I was pretty sure that was why my inhibitions were low enough to answer Dane’s questions instead of continuing to lick my wounds in private.
“Mitch? Is that you?”
