“No,” I said a bit too quickly. “It's fine.” Before Rafael could interrogate me for details, I asked, “So what did you order? It sounded like the entire menu.”
Instantly, he forgot about his questions and grinned. “Almost. There's a lot I want to try out, especially since this is the first time you're here with me.”
“The first and last time,” I corrected.
He raised an eyebrow and said, “Uh huh, sure.”
At least one of us is having a good time, I thought,because it's definitely not me.
Then I caught a motion from the corner of my eye. To both my dread and surprise, it was Jake trying to get my attention. He didn't look pleased. In fact, he looked just about as annoyed as I felt.
But I didn't want to just get up and walk over to his table. For one thing, that would inspire way more questions in Rafael than I wanted to answer. And second of all, I didn't want the employees to think I was some gross alpha harassing an omega at his own table.
Since Rafael was thankfully distracted by the novelty of simply being at the café, I caught Jake's eye and made a gesture towards the back where the photo booth was. He narrowed his eyes and followed my gaze, seeming to understand my intention. He gave me a stiff nod then rose from his table.
I didn't want to go right away and direct attention to myself, so I paused and waited for Jake to leave. Then before Rafael could strike up another conversation, I slipped out of my seat.
“I need to run to the bathroom,” I told him. “I'll be right back. If the food comes before I get here, don't wait for me.”
Rafael laughed as if he had no intention of doing so anyway. “All right, but don't take too long. And you better not try to escape without telling me.”
I rolled my eyes. “I'm not going to do that. I'll be back in a minute.”
He had nothing else to say, so I walked stiffly back to the photo booth where Jake was waiting for me with his arms crossed.
“So, what are you doing here?” he demanded. “Did you think you would get lucky and pick up some more omegas? Were you not sated the other night?”
“Whoa,” I said, putting up my hands. “Aren't you a bit quick to jump to conclusions?”
He narrowed his eyes. “Maybe. But can you blame me, judging by how we met?”
“This is a café, not a bar,” I said. “And it's like, ten in the morning. What am I, some kind of animal?”
The edge of his lips twitched in amusement, just barely enough to notice. “You never know with alphas. I can never tell what you're up to.”
“I’m notupto anything. Just getting a coffee, which is what I'm assuming you're here for as well.” I raised eyebrow at him and added, “Since I'm guessing you're not here to pick up omegas, either. Not that I care about your personal preferences either way.”
Jake exhaled and some of the hostility drained out of his face. “I'm not here for the…” he paused. “Experience.I'm just here to make sure my friend didn't sign up for some kind of weird job.”
“Your friend? I asked.
Jake watched me hesitantly, as if he wasn't sure he wanted to go into details, but eventually he explained. “It's my friend's first day on the job. I didn't know what kind of thing to expect when I came here, but thankfully it's not as bad as I imagined. Otherwise I would have grabbed him and hightailed it out of this place a long time ago.”
That made more sense. Even though I didn't know Jake very well, I knew enough about him that his presence at this café under regular circumstances didn't make sense. Knowing he was here for his friend's sake was a lot more believable.
“I see,” I said. “Which one is your friend?”
He raised a brow, guarded again. “Wouldn't you like to know?”
I let out an exasperated groan. “I'm only asking to be polite. Do you always twist people's meanings that way?”
He looked a bit offended at my question. He opened his mouth to reply, but before he could do that we were interrupted by an employee who pranced over to us with a big smile.
“Sorry for the wait!” he said. His nametag read Kaden. “Were you two interested in taking a photo for the booth?”
At the same time, both of us cried, “No!”
Kaden looked a bit taken aback at our sudden outburst. “Okay,” he said, sounding confused but still wearing his best customer service smile. “Then if you gentlemen don't mind, I need this area for training our newest employee.”
