“Is it okay if I take my lunch now?” Peter asked, Betty looking between him and Carver with naked curiosity. When Carver looked over at them, she quickly looked away.
“Sure,” she said, biting her lip. “Is that your other alpha?”
Peter nodded. “Yes, that’s Carver. He came a little earlier than I expected.”
“Is there a reason he looks like he’s going to murder someone?” Zack asked, keeping his voice low, but not so low that a werewolf paying attention wouldn’t hear him.
“He just has one of those faces,” Peter said, remembering when he’d first met Carver. It was strange to look back at how utterly and impossibly intimidated he’d been. “He’s actually really nice.”
“If you say so,” Zack said, wrinkling his nose. “I have to say, I prefer your other one. He smiled.”
Peter glanced back at Carver, almost bursting out laughing when Carver made a grimace that could, if you looked at it from the right angle, be interpreted as a smile.
“Is he baring his teeth at us?” Betty asked, taking a little step back even though Carver was all the way over on the other side of the coffee shop floor.
“He’s a werewolf,” Peter said, snorting. “He can hear everything we’re saying and he’s fucking with you.”
Zack’s eyes widened, his face going a deep red as he realized that the alpha in question had heard his earlier words.
“Sorry, Mr. Carver,” Zack mumbled, turning away and busying himself with cleaning the back counter. He glanced back, but Carver was being kind and not paying him any attention.
Peter collected two slices of quiche and two glasses of water, carrying them over to his alpha on a tray and sitting down.
“That was funny,” he said, glancing over at Zack. The omega was still pretending to clean the counter, the back of his neck as bright red as his face.
Carver smiled, a real one, taking one of the plates and sliding it over to his side of the table.
“Are we okay?” Carver asked, looking Peter right in the eye. The hopeful way he asked the question broke through whatever reservations Peter might have had—not that there were many—reminding him that he actually liked Carver.
“We’re good,” Peter said, reaching out with his foot under the table and knocking it against Carver’s leg. “My sister was right. My life could have been fucked, but then I got lucky with you and Tex. We’re going to be fine.”
“You really think so?” Carver asked, leaning forward and picking up his fork. Sitting there in his expensive suit, all big and muscular, looking at Peter like he was the most precious thing in the world, Peter felt lucky.
“I do,” he said.
51
Carver
After lunch, Carver didn’t go back to work, too shaken by what he’d learned to do more than go home and sit on the couch and think.
There was a direct link between his professional conduct and Peter ending up in the delinquency matching program. No matter how he turned it over in his mind—no matter how he tried to process it—Carver couldn’t fathom it.
How many other clients that he’d referred to Abbott and Peterson had ended up committing crimes—had framed people—and he just hadn’t cared enough to notice?
No, that wasn’t right. Carver cared. There had never been any evidence that Abbott and Peterson helped their clients commit fraud or money laundering. Tax evasion, sure—but always operating according to the laws of the jurisdiction where they were located.
Or at least that was what Carver had thought.
Standing up, Carver went to the bedroom and stripped off his suit. He took a shower, standing under the hot spray for far too long, drying himself off and getting dressed in casual jeans and a soft button-up flannel shirt.
He heard Tex’s car coming up the driveway, and he wondered what Tex would make of his involvement with Peter’s family.
When Tex walked through the door, Carver was back on the couch, feet on the coffee table and a can of soda in his hand.
“What are you doing home?” Tex asked, dropping his gym bag on the floor. He was dressed in compression shorts and a low cut tank top, his hair damp with sweat.
“I found out Peter’s sister was a client of mine,” Carver said, the words strange to say aloud.
