“Good. Fine.” Adrian unbuckled. The seatbelt snapped back into its holster. “So just keep an eye on your phone, then. I’m not going to wait for you forever when I decide it’s timetogo.”
“Yeah. Fine.” Gabriel’s brows knitted together and the sorrow left his eyes. “I wish you would be nicer to me. We’re both going through the same problems. I’m not yourenemy.”
“I don’t know what you’re talkingabout.”
The lie hung between them heavily, crushing Adrian’s lungs and twisting in his stomach. Gabriel didn’t call him on it. With a small shake of his head, he faced forward again and stepped out ofthecar.
“Where are we meeting?” Adrian asked before Gabriel could shutthedoor.
“Food court, by thestairs.”
“Andwhen?”
Gabriel’s shoulders tensed, and from the way his jaw shifted, it looked like he was holding back a sigh. “After youtextme.”
“Good. So… go have fun doing whatever.” Adrian didn’t make a move to leave the car yet. He watched Gabriel. “I’ll see youlater.”
“Adrian?” Gabriel bent at the waist just enough that their eyes lockedagain.
“Yeah?”
“What Mom and Dad think of us doesn’t matter.” He paused and looked aside, as though ashamed. “Omegas serve a purpose too, you know? We’re learning that in school. I’m sure you learned it, too. It’s like… we can be successful if we want. We can do whatever we want. We don’t have to be ashamed of who we are—we shouldembraceit.”
“Can you please go?” Tears stung behind Adrian’s eyes. It wasn’t the talk he wanted to have right now. Right now he was supposed to be thinking of the best way to get into Cedric Langston’s pants, not having soulful discussions with his youngerbrother.
“Beautiful flowers attract bees to pollinate them,” Gabriel said softly. He refused to meet Adrian’s eyes, but he didn’t need to. Adrian saw how his hand trembled as it held the car door. “Beautiful omegas aren’t any different. We shouldn’t be ashamedofit.”
“Go.”
Gabriel shook his head, then stepped back from the car to close the door. The clap of metal meeting metal as the door slammed was sharper than usual, but Adrian was too caught up in his thoughts to care if there wasdamage.
He didn’t mean to lash out. Not like that. Gabriel was annoying, but he had a point. The suffering they went through, they went throughtogether.
Adrian needed toapologize.
He drew in a noisy breath through his mouth, then emptied his lungs in order to start fresh. The door lock fell beneath the pressure of his thumb, and he swung the door open. By the time he’d closed the door and surveyed the parking lot, Gabriel wasalreadygone.
“What the hell?” Adrian squinted against the setting sun. The low light was angled directly at his eyes, and it blotted out distantdetails.
Gabriel had just left the car. He couldn’t have made it far, so wherewashe?
With a touch of a button, all of the car doors locked. Adrian left the parking space, squinting against the sun to see if he could spot Gabriel in the distance. Far ahead, past rows of parked cars, Adrian spotted him making his way toward the mall’s main entrance. He must have taken off atarun.
Keys clutched in his fist, Adrian took off across the parking lot at a leisurely jog. At this pace, he was confident he’d catch up with Gabriel by the time he made it to the doors, and he’d be able to apologize for his behavior before they split ways for thenight.
But Gabriel didn’t head for the doors. He came to a stop at the drop-off point in front of the mall and buried his nose in his phoneoncemore.
Confused, Adrian slowed down in order to observe. Gabriel had mentioned meeting up with his own friends, but Adrian didn’t think he had any. Most of the time, Gabriel kept tohimself.
A black Camaro rolled to a stop in front of Gabriel, blocking him from Adrian’s view. The windows were so darkly tinted that Adrian couldn’t see the driver—but even from the distance he stood at, he heard the car doorclose.
All the hairs on the back of Adrian’s neck stood on end, and a slow, creeping dread spread downward from the nape of his neck to infect his chest and tie his stomach intoknots.
Something waswrong.
Adrian picked up the pace. The sound of his soles hitting the pavement echoed in his ears and drowned out the rush of his pulse. He movedfaster.
“Gabriel?” The cry parted from Adrian’s lips, raw and sudden. An uncanny feeling diffused through his lungs. Something wasn’t right. He couldfeelit. “Gabriel!”
