Checking his phone, the time now just five minutes before six, Sebastian made his way back into the apartment and walked to the bedroom.
Viggo and Sebastian were not there either, and Sebastian was beginning to feel a distinct discomfort, his presence in the penthouse feeling like an intrusion.
“Viggo? Bjorn?” Sebastian called, looking at the bathroom door and bracing himself for the two werewolves to come barging out.
Nothing happened.
Feeling like a snoop, Sebastian walked right up to the door and listened. Viggo and Bjorn could be showering, which would explain why they hadn’t come to greet him.
“Hello?” Sebastian called, opening the bathroom door and peeking inside. The room was quiet, the shower walls dry, and there was not even a hint of steam lingering in the air.
Perplexed, Sebastian reached into his pocket for his phone and called Viggo. He left the bedroom and took a seat in the living room, sitting back and looking out the window as he waited for the alpha to pick up.
The phone went to voicemail, and Sebastian hung up without leaving a message. He called Bjorn, but the same thing happened.
Looking down at the home screen of his phone, Sebastian saw that the clock was now two minutes past six. He was officially no longer early.
Leaning back into the fancy couch, Sebastian thought back to the morning before. Had he misheard Viggo’s invitation? He was almost sure that Viggo had invited him to the apartment and not to the house, but looking back and trying to remember Viggo’s exact words, he was less and less sure.
Opening the messages app, Sebastian created a group chat for him, Viggo and Bjorn and then spent an awkward few minutes composing and deleting a message to the two alphas.
“Fuck it,” Sebastian mumbled, hitting send rather than re-write the message for the fifth time.
Hi! I’m at the apartment. Were we supposed to meet at the house? Sorry if I misheard. S.
Sebastian looked down at the message and groaned. Why had he signed his name with just an S? He never did that.
There was nothing he could do about it now.
Waiting for a reply, Sebastian spent a full minute just staring at the screen of his phone, but the space under his blue bubble remained stubbornly empty.
The longer Sebastian sat alone in Viggo and Bjorn’s apartment, the more he felt like an intruder. The fact that he had an open invitation to move in as soon as he felt ready didn’t matter – being in someone’s home when they were absent wasweird.
He hadn’t felt it when he’d been alone at the house – when Bjorn was still feral – but then he’d been so stressed that it hadn’t even occurred to him that he should feel uncomfortable.
Opening Instagram, Sebastian distracted himself by scrolling through his feed, catching up on what his friends had been up to since school ended. Most of his friends were fellow teachers, all of them married or in long-term relationships, and all but one had traveled out of state on vacation.
Unlike Sebastian, they could afford to actually take off on breaks.
Sebastian was originally supposed to have spent his summer teaching summer school in the suburbs close to his mother’s house, but the offer had been withdrawn at the last minute. There hadn’t been enough students signing up, and so Sebastian was left with no job and not enough time to start applying to other schools.
A few weeks ago, it had been the biggest cause of stress and worry in Sebastian’s life. Then Viggo had chosen him – or bought him, depending on how you looked at it – and now Sebastian never had to worry about money again.
The financial aspect of being in Viggo’s pack was probably what Sebastian had spent the least time considering, but it would make an enormous difference in his life. No more scrambling to sublet his apartment during breaks, working summer school or tutoring students for extra cash. He could just work and not worry.
It felt bizarre.
Putting his phone down, Sebastian decided that he would wait for another fifteen minutes and then go home.
Fifteen minutes passed, and Sebastian couldn’t bring himself to leave. He opened the group chat again, and before he could think better off it sent off a single:
Hello?
There was no reply, his two messages sitting alone at the top of the screen looking pathetic, and Sebastian pushed to his feet with a dejected sigh.
There was probably a perfectly reasonable explanation for why Viggo and Bjorn were ignoring him.
His phone vibrated, and Sebastian nearly dropped it in his rush to check if the incoming message was in the group chat.
