"Nothing happened." The lie tastes wrong in my mouth. "Drop it, Marcus."
He holds up both hands and backs off, but the look on his face says this conversation isn't over, it's just postponed. I hit the showers and stand under the hot water long enough that the locker room empties around me, letting the steam fill my lungs as I try to figure out what the hell I'm supposed to do with an Omega who won't let me near him and a silence that's making everything worse.
I find out after dinner that Kit isn't the only one who noticed the change.
Milo is waiting for me outside the dining hall, leaning against the brick wall with his arms crossed and a look on his face that I've never seen directed at me before. It's cold in a way that doesn't match what I know about Milo, who is generally themost approachable person on campus, the kind of guy who talks to everyone and means it. Avery is beside him, his hands in the pockets of his oversized jacket, watching me with an expression that's harder to read but no less hostile.
I only know them because they’re Kit’s friends and two Omegas who found their happily ever after from previous auctions this year.
"Easton," Milo says, the usual warmth in his tone stripped away. "We need to talk."
"About what?"
"About Kit." Avery's voice is soft but there’s an undercurrent of anger there. "About whatever happened on auction night and whatever you think is happening now."
The instinct to deflect is strong, my father's voice telling me that this isn't their business, that an Alpha doesn't explain himself, and that showing concern means showing weakness. I almost listen to it. "What did he tell you?"
"He didn't tell us anything," Milo says, pushing off the wall and stepping closer. He's not as small as Kit, broader through the shoulders, and the protective energy coming off him is unmistakable. "That's the problem. Kit hasn't told us a single thing about that night and Kit tells me everything. Which means whatever happened was either really bad or really good, and based on the fact that he's barely eating and he flinches every time someone says your name, I'm leaning toward bad."
He flinches? "I didn't hurt him."
"Didn't you?" Avery tilts his head, his blue eyes steady on mine. "Because I've spent the last however long watching you make his life miserable, Easton. I've watched him come back to the dorm shaking after you shoulder-checked him in the hallway. I've watched him scrub his clothes because your scent got on them and he couldn't stand the way it made him feel. And now you've apparently stopped taunting him entirely, which Kitis interpreting as you being done with him, and I don't know what's worse. The cruelty or the silence."
"The silence isn't what he thinks it is."
"Then what is it?" Milo's jaw is set. "Because from where I'm standing it looks like an Alpha who got what he wanted on auction night and is now pretending the Omega doesn't exist. And if that's what this is, I need you to hear me when I tell you that Kit will not recover from that. Not from you. Not after whatever happened in that room."
I want to tell them they're wrong. I want to explain that the silence isn't indifference, that I stopped taunting Kit because I can't make my mouth form cruel words about someone who fell apart in my arms. But none of that is mine to share and saying it out loud feels like a betrayal of something Kit gave me in the dark that he hasn't consented to me giving anyone else.
"I'm not done with him," I say instead. "I'm trying to figure out how to reach him without making it worse."
Avery studies me for a long moment, his expression shifting from hostile to something more complicated. "I know what it looks like when an Alpha is running a playbook," he says quietly, the expression telling me that he’s speaking from experience, most likely with his Alpha. The whole campus watched that mess unfold in January when Avery ended up mated to his stepbrother. "And I know what it looks like when the playbook stops working and the Alpha doesn't know what to do next. If you actually care about Kit, and I'm not convinced you do but I'm willing to listen, then you need to understand that one night of being decent doesn't erase six months of cruelty. You don't get to skip the hard part."
"What's the hard part?"
"Earning it," Milo pushes out, a cruel laugh following the words. "Publicly. Consistently. At cost to yourself. Not in a locked room where nobody can see. Kit spent six months beinghumiliated in front of everyone on this campus. Whatever you think you feel for him, it needs to be visible, or it's just another thing that happens behind closed doors that he has to pretend didn't happen."
Fuck, they’re right. My father's entire model, the one that says Alphas don't show need, don't chase, don't bend, built this. Every hallway confrontation, every cruel word, every time I chose my image over honesty, it all runs back to the same source, and that source left me standing in a dining hall courtyard being told by my Omega's best friends that I haven't earned the right to be silent any more than I had the right to be cruel.
The problem is that my father might have built it but I leaned into it and that makes it so much worse. He never forced me to do shit. I took that plan and ran with it.
I nod. It's the only response I have that isn't an excuse.
Milo holds my gaze for another beat, then steps back. "He's watching your games," he whispers, almost reluctantly, like he's not sure he should be giving me this. "He sits in the back of the bleachers where he thinks nobody can see him. He watched your whole practice today."
Milo pats my shoulder and then they both head down the hallway, leaving me even more confused and unsettled than I was before. It’s so much different hearing all of that from other Omegas. My teammates would have laughed it off, congratulated me, or told me to go for it if they knew what happened that night.
But two Omegas just came up to me and told me to get my head out of my ass.
I huff out a breath and make my way to the cafeteria, hoping that food will bring me out of this weird space I’m in. It isn’t until an hour later that I actually pull out my phone, searching for Kit’s contact that I saved after pulling it from the student directory. I've never sent him a single message. Six months ofhaving his number and every draft I've ever typed got deleted because none of them were honest and all of them were my father's voice dressed up in my words.
I type four words, the first honest thing I've ever said to Kit in writing, and hit send before I can delete them.
I meant every word.
KIT
ThreedaysafterIwalked out of Easton's room in inside-out clothes I'm sitting in my Romantic Literature lecture staring at a PowerPoint slide about Wuthering Heights and thinking about the way his thumb felt stroking across my cheekbone.
