Read 10:14 pm.
Fury blazed inside Kyle. He gripped the phone so hard it dug into his fingers. “That asshole!”
He shot up off his bed and paced angrily around the room. Why wasn’t Stark replying to him? No, it wasn’t just that, Kyle thought bitterly. Stark was plain-outignoringhim.
Kyle left his apartment, sending off a quick text to Scout before marching back to the manor. All else had failed and now there was only one way he could get Stark’s attention.
“Scout,” Kyle said, trying not to sound as desperate as he felt, “I need your help.”
Scout blinked. “Of course. What’s wrong?”
“It’s Stark,” Kyle said, looking away when he said the alpha’s name. “He… It’s a long story.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Scout said gently, touching his friend’s shoulder. “Come inside. Tell me everything.”
They sat around the coffee table with Scout’s caretakers scurrying around to fill their plates with cookies and tea. Kyle sat, embarrassed and waited for them to be done so he could finally start speaking. Finally Scout and Kyle were alone.
“Erm, where’s Kendra?” Kyle asked.
“Killian’s got her this morning,” Scout said with a sigh that was both contented and relieved. “She wanted to visit the orchard with her daddy.”
“Oh.” Kyle fidgeted.
“Tell me about Stark,” Scout prompted with a gentle smile. “You can’t come all the way here to talk to me about him just to chicken out at the last second.”
Kyle rubbed his arm. “I know. It’s just… it’s a mess.”
“Well, let’s unravel it, then.”
“Okay.” Kyle steadied himself. “I guess everything started a few weeks before the party. You remember seeing Chase there, right?”
Scout nodded. “He came with Stark, right?”
“Yeah. I… I was the one who set them up together,” Kyle explained. “Or tried to, anyway. Stark came to me and asked if I could find him an omega who was interested in dating. So that’s how they met.”
Scout’s brows were furrowed slightly, as if trying to piece things together in his mind, but he listened intently. “Go on.”
“So then, a few nights before the party, I was on the phone with Stark and we…” Kyle trailed off with a grimace. “We had an argument.”
Scout’s eyes widened. “You two? An argument? That’s like telling me the sky is green. What happened?”
Embarrassment and shame flooded through Kyle. How could he tell his friend that he had intentionally tried to push Stark away?
“Um… He was saying he didn’t think Chase wasthe one.I kind of snapped and basically told him that he should hurry up and find a mate already,” Kyle explained as he averted his eyes.
“But why?” Scout asked, genuinely confused. “That doesn’t sound like you.”
“I don’t know why I said it,” Kyle confessed. “I was angry. I still kind of am. But the thing is, I don’t know why. I just flipped out.”
Scout gazed at his friend, slowly putting the pieces together. “What happened next?” he asked. “At the party, right?”
“Yeah,” Kyle said. “To be honest, I was thinking of ditching because I didn’t want to deal with seeing Stark right after we’d argued, but it wouldn’t be fair to you or Killian.”
Scout smiled but didn’t interrupt.
“Anyway, that’s why it was kind of tense between us at the party,” Kyle said. “I’m sorry if it made you feel weird. It happened so fast, I didn’t have time to explain.”
“Don’t worry about it.”
