I listened as he spoke, wondering what it would be like to love my job as much as he loved his. Instead of looking for a better use of my business degree after college, I settled into my job at the local coffee shop, happily accepting the management promotion instead of finding something more, well, grown-up while I waited for Otto to come back to me. That thoughtreminded me that I was going to need to reach out to the area manager and let him know about my situation.
I listened to Taylor with half an ear on the way to my apartment, then left him on the couch while I fumbled through the coat slash storage closet for the box of picture frames I knew I had in there somewhere. Finally pulling it free with a grunt, I hefted it and set it on the floor in front of the couch.
“Help me pick out frames?” I grabbed my craft scissors and carefully separated the accordion of images into five separate pictures.
“Sure,” Taylor agreed easily, lifting the frames free one by one and separating them into sizes. “Boo, do I want to know why you have this many used picture frames?”
“I bought them at an estate auction a few years ago. There was one in the box that I had to have but I had to buy all of them to get it.” I shrugged. “I figured I’d use them for something eventually.”
Taylor nodded agreeably and continued sorting through the box, handing me the occasional frame until I had a set of not-quite-matching frames that would make an adorable grouping.
“These are going to be perfect.” I scooped the frames up and headed to the kitchen. “Let me just get the dust off and polish the glass, okay?”
Taylor murmured in agreement and I heard the television come to life in the other room, sighing to myself when it seemed like I had gotten away with my encounter the night before.
It wasn’t until after we had all of the pictures neatly framed and moved them from spot to spot, finally settling on the place of honor on the sofa table as their new home that Taylor quirked a brow at me.
“Now are you ready to tell me why this place reeks of sex?”
“Um,” I gulped, promptly choking on the air I swallowed.
Taylor pounded on my back, easing up as soon as he was sure I could breathe again. “You okay?”
I nodded weakly, focusing on drawing in air until his eyebrow creeped up again. “I, um, I had sex with Otto last night,” I admitted, hating the way my cheeks flushed with shame.
Taylor’s scowl eased into a grin. “Really? That’s great! I knew Otto would come around! Is he happy about the baby?” When I couldn’t meet his eyes, Taylor’s smile slowly faded. “You slept with him but didn’t tell him about the baby? Dex, tell me what happened.”
Slowly, painfully, I walked my best friend through the events after he left the night before. I told him about the flash heat, about Otto showing up out of nowhere, then in a voice so small that I wasn’t sure he could even hear it, I explained how he left without a word after throwing a stale snack bar on the bedside table as some sort of discount payment for services rendered.
“Oh, baby.” Taylor scooted closer and opened his arms, folding me into them and rocking from side to side. “We’re gonna get you through this. You don’t need that prick of an Alpha, anyway.”
~*~
Otto
Another heart yearning for yours.
Long after Clark, Jackson, and the others returned with Mitch safely in hand and I was listening to the silence in my house, those words continued to play on a loop in my head.
Had I crushed on Dexter since hitting puberty? Well, yes but he was -always had been- adorkably hot, so it wasn’t as though I was the only one drooling over him. There had to be more to the fated mates mumbo-jumbo than that, didn’t there?
And Dex had never given me any reason to think that he felt the same way.
Hasn’t he?
The damn bear snorted in my mind, choosing that moment to replay a memory from years before – specifically from my last night as a carefree, non-criminal young Alpha with my entire life before me.
“Ohmygod! He’sright there!” Dex was tipsy, his cheeks flushed as he pointed over the bar at me while the gaggle of friends helping him celebrate his birthday tried to quiet him down. “I willnotshush! Ottoisright there!”
My boss, Darren, the owner of the bar I was working at had cocked a dubious brow when I shrugged it off, assuring him that Dex and I were just friends. Had I been misreading the signals all this time?”
I continued to pace through the house. When I got to the kitchen, my gaze went to the funky cut-glass bowl sitting on the counter. The fruit flowers were long gone, but a bundle of wooden skewers still poked out of the floral foam. Plucking the card from the holder, I scanned the neatly typewritten words.
Otto,
I’m so glad you’re home! I’ve been trying to get ahold of you but you’re not answering. Call me, please?
Love,
