"That's … rude." He frowned.
"Then I would defend your honor and sweep you off to my hotel room ..." From the look on his face, I'd gone too far with my version of fantasy events. "Or we could dance and ignore him the rest of the night."
He barked a laugh. "I liked your version, don't get me wrong …"
"Are you a virgin?" I asked.
"No." His blush crept down to his neck. "I've had sex. Just … not with an alpha. Once you knot, you can never go back."
I'd heard that infuriating saying so many times. It made my skin crawl. "Knots aren't everything." I rarely knotted during sex, and when I did, it was an inconvenience more than anything. My partner and I were stuck together until it went down, and heaven help us if we had bad breath or body odor.
I'd also heard plenty of omegas spouting their purity culture fear of alphas biting and marking them before they were ready. I knew of only one accidental bite that left a true mark. It had stuck because the pair were fated mates.
"If future us want to share a hotel room after Bruce's wedding, that would be really cool." Gabe's soft admission completely derailed my line of thought. "I'm not ready for that tonight, is all."
I grinned and nodded. "Agreed. No sex tonight. And besides, I doubt my insult guy is available on such short notice."
His shoulders dropped a couple of inches as he shook his head and rolled his eyes at me. Still, he laughed. "You are ridiculous."
"I prefer funny," I quipped.
"Fine. You're funny, but still ridiculous." He pushed play on the remote, I scooted back onto the papasan, and we watched another hour of meerkat shenanigans.
This episode had the violence they'd been teasing all season. It was hard to watch, especially since the defending mob's babymeerkat didn't survive. I wasn't ashamed to admit I had tears in my eyes when somber music played along with the rolling credits. I dug a box of tissues from the storage shelf beneath my seat and wiped my eyes.
"Aww." Gabe clasped his hands and studied me with his own tear-filled gaze as I handed the box to him. "I was biting my lip the whole time, trying not to cry in front of an alpha."
"You never have to hide your feelings around me," I said. "Besides, alphas cry, too."
He nodded. "Yeah, but so many of them pretend they don't." He dabbed at his eyes and smiled. "I'm glad you're not like that."
My mom didn't raise me like an alpha, and I'd always worried my upbringing would ruin my chances with any future mate. Now, I was grateful for her unorthodox methods. I would never be a traditional alpha type, but I could be an alpha worthy of my gorgeous omega mate.
5
GABE
My omega dadwould be the first to label my alpha mate a crybaby pushover. First, he was mostly vegetarian, which Dad would hate. Then, he said he wouldn't fight for me, which was one of my dad's criticisms against my alpha dad. The idea of play-acting a shouting match sounded like fun to me, but my dad wouldn't understand.
To top it all off, Mika cried at the end of a nature show! So why was I even more attracted to him now? He was everything I'd been told to avoid in an alpha mate, but I didn't care. Maybe I was still in my rebel era. It had been nine years since I'd disagreed with my dad's idea of a "stable, well-paying job," and now I rejected everything I should want from an alpha mate.
I wanted Mika, plain and simple. Besides, I'd already irritated the hell out of my dad with my Bachelor of Arts degree and my job as a court artist. What was one more disappointment after that?
My dad would be at Becca's wedding. She'd spent a lot of time with us throughout her dad's long grieving period. The poor man still wasn't over losing the love of his life. As I watched episode after episode of the adorable meerkat matriarch and her mate, I could understand why. While they were animals, it was obviousthey loved each other. After combing through each other's fur, they would search for bugs and other snacks to give their mate.
That all changed once the matriarch was pregnant. Then, her family let her have whatever she wanted because she was eating for at least two. When she gave birth to a litter of three pups, I paused the show to ask Mika, "How many babies can meerkat shifters have at once?"
"Not that many," he reassured me. "Sometimes twins. We're more human than meerkat when it comes to babies. Our gestation period is still nine months."
"Thank goodness." Meerkat babies were born eleven weeks after conception. If I'd be loaded down with two or three on top of that, I would die of embarrassment the moment I started showing.
My face burned when it dawned on me after a few more minutes of the show—here I was, already thinking about having babies with this alpha, and we'd just met! Weirder still, I felt so comfortable in his apartment. If I hadn't known before, this was my sign: he was my mate.
I leaned over against the arm of his loveseat and kicked my shoes off to pull my feet up. I curled on my side with my head closest to Mika. He shifted to lie on his side on the papasan chair, too, with his head closest to me, and we watched meerkats being meerkats.
By the end of the first season, I was already a little in love. Somewhere mid-second season, the streaming service asked if we were still watching. I glanced over at Mika, who was sound asleep on his papasan chair. I didn't want to wake him, so I let my eyes drift closed, my earlier fear of being alone with him long forgotten.
As I drifted toward sleep, I envisioned our life together. I bet Mika wasn't the type to pretend to be a gentleman until it no longer suited him. We'd split the bar bill. Then, he'd opened mycar door for me, and while he had offered to buy me dinner, he hadn't batted an eye when I slapped cash on the coffee table for my meal.
