“He’s straight,” I reminded them, knowing Dex wasn’t missing a minute of the byplay.
“You do know that alpha or not, straight guys don’t usually fuck their buddies through their heats, right?”
I groaned and took another swallow of my shandy, deeply regretting having ever confided in them that Dane had helped me that way. Once or twice. Or, maybe, possibly, every six months for the past three years.
“You know how he is,” I finally said. “Dane will do absolutelyanythingfor his friends and he worries about me because of my past and my anxiety. Youknowthat.”
The faint grunt from the other side told me that Dex had elbowed Taylor in the side to shut him up.
“Sorry, Mitch,” Taylor said, his voice conciliatory. “I didn’t mean to be a dick.”
“That’s okay,” I assured him with a sigh. “I know how weird it seems but you have to believe me that other than wanting to make sure I’m safe and happy, Dane doesn’t have any interest in me that way.” I stopped myself before saying,trust me, I’ve tried!
The truth was that I’d been more than a little in love with my best friend slash roommate since shortly after I’d met him. For the first few years, I’d tried everything I could think of to catch his attention, stopping just short of throwing myself naked at his feet. Then, when my first true heat cycle had hit without warning, I’d done that, too.
It hadn’t helped.
I mean, it hadn’thurt, exactly, either, but it definitely hadn’t accomplished anything except reinforcing Otto’s words the day we’d met,he isn’t going to want that either.Instead of throwing off his clothes and ravishing me, Dane had quickly wrapped me in his voluminous bathrobe and rushed me to the emergency room at Unity City Regional Hospital in a panic.
That was not an outcome I had seen coming but they were able to get my symptoms under control.
Cue several months of trying to find a heat suppressant that my body could tolerate with absolutely zero success, leading us to another brain-shatteringly awkward moment when Dane walked in on an, ahem,volunteerstepping up to the plate to help me through my next heat. Let’s just say it didn’t go well.
At all.
In fact, it went sonot wellthat it made Dane’s demon-eyed werebear interaction with the creepy guy from the trial look like an after-church meet and greet, leaving my hookup racing for the door and me desperate and without assistance. After a slightly panicky whispered phone call to an unknown person, Dane had drawn in a deep breath, led me to my bedroom, and proceeded to ruin me for all other Alphas for the rest of my life.
Repeatedly. For days.
The next heat followed much the same way, despite advance planning. I was seeing a local guy casually and he was more than willing to take full advantage of the opportunity but my well-laid plans to, well, get well laid crashed spectacularly when my bestie walked in. Cal was using his control voice to push me to something Dane knew I didn’t want to do and, long story short, Cal was able to limp out under his own power -barely- and Dane ended up offering me a…hand.
Among other body parts.
After the third heat with another disastrous plan, Dane had sat me down for a heart-to-heart. He’d offered his assistance until such a time as I found myself with someone I actually wanted to be with instead of settling for the dregs of society, his words. In between my heats, he rarely dated and when he did, it wasn’t men. So, yeah, most straight guys might not fuck their best friend through their heat, but Dane did.
“Anyway,” Dex said brightly, clearing his throat. “Did you hear that Otto is going to be getting out soon?”
“He is?” Taylor chimed in from the other side. “Do you know when?”
Dex shook his head. “Not yet. There was a blurb in the newspaper this morning that says the governor decided to commute his sentence for helping to bring down the warden, but it didn’t say how soon that would happen.”
“You’ll like Otto, Mitch,” Dex continued excitedly. “He’s just one of the best guys I’ve ever known!”
I opened my mouth to agree and then remembered that other than Clark, Jackson, and Dane, no one in Unity City knew I’d met Otto that dark day five years ago and Otto wanted to keep it that way, so I just nodded and lifted my drink to my lips.
ChapterFour
Dane
“Seriously, man,” Trey chortled, not even pretending he wasn’t laughing at me. “You are either a glutton for punishment or a masochist.”
I schooled my face into an unimpressed glare. “For helping a friend?”
“Oh, is that what the kids are calling it now?”
I flipped Trey the bird and he just laughed again.
“Look, you don’t know his history, so you don’t know what you’re talking about.”
