"I don't think any of this is a joke, Kit." He says it stripped of the smirk and the performance I've come to associate with Easton Cole in front of an audience. His eyes hold mine and I realize with a lurch that there is no audience. His teammates aren't flanking him. My friends aren't beside me. It's just us in a mostly empty building at a corner table that suddenly feels very small. "I think you spent three thousand five hundred dollars to sit in a room with me and I think you should ask yourself why."
"Because I hate you."
"That's a lot of money for hate."
"Spite is an investment."
"Spite doesn't make you blush." His gaze drops to my neck, where the pink has been creeping since he sat down next to me. "Spite doesn't change your scent when I get close. And it doesn't make your hands shake when I touch them."
The sharp clever thing that I always have locked and loaded is jammed somewhere between my brain and my mouth.
"Why did you really bid on me?" he asks, quiet enough that the ambient music from the cafe speakers almost swallows it.
"I told you. To make your night miserable."
"Is my night miserable?"
I look at him, walking through all of his features, the laugh still beneath the tight smile, and the sincerity behind his eyes that I’ve never seen up this close. "No," I admit. "Mine is, though."
His expression softens, Easton reaching across the space between us, his hand settling on my knee. Every rational part of my brain is screaming to slap his hand away, say something vicious, stand up, grab my cake, and walk out. I’ll just add tonight to the long list of reasons Easton Cole deserves my contempt.
But the less rational part of me has me staying put, Easton’s thumb slowly stroking along the inside of my knee, my entire body going still. All the chaos in my head silences, everything I've been holding clenched since the hallway this afternoon loosens all at once, a full-body exhale I didn't give permission for.
One look at Easton and he knowsexactlywhat is going through my brain. If my scent wasn’t giving me away, the small gasp that falls through my lips when he squeezes my knee does. Oh god, it does.
EASTON
Kit'shandisstillwrapped around his coffee cup when we leave the student commons, his fingers white-knuckled against the cardboard sleeve. He hasn't looked at me since I placed my hand on his knee, the Omega who has spent six months making my life hell going perfectly still as he let me touch him.
And now, he's rebuilding his walls. His shoulders square as we push through the doors and the evening air hits us. His jaw sets and his stride picks up that aggressive clip he uses in hallways, the one that dares someone to get in his way, and by the time we're halfway across the quad he's almost convinced me that the last twenty minutes didn't happen.
Almost. His scent is still sweet beneath the anger, the black cherry gone all syrupy. My Alpha is clawing at the inside of my ribs, every instinct telling me to close the distance, to grab his arm and turn him around and put my mouth on the spot where his pulse is hammering beneath his jaw.
I keep my hands in my pockets and match his pace. My father's voice sits in the back of my skull the way it always does when Kit is involved:Alphas don't chase. If they want you, they come to you.It's the same voice that kept me from saying a single honest thing in that stairwell six months ago. The same voice that turned "you smell incredible" into a crack about Omegas clogging up the hallway.
I've been running my father's playbook with Kit since day one and it has done nothing but make both of us miserable, but the alternative means admitting the playbook is wrong, and if that's wrong, I don't know what else he got wrong, and I'm not ready to pull that thread tonight.
"So what's next on the revenge agenda?" I ask. "Because I have to be honest, the coffee was pretty tame. I was expecting something worse from the guy who once called me a 'sentient protein shake with a God complex' in front of the entire dining hall."
"The night is young." He still won't look at me. "And don't quote me back to myself. It's weird."
"It was a good line. I thought about it for three days."
His stride hitches, just barely, before he recovers. "You did not think about anything I've said for three days."
"I think about most things you say, Kit." I let that sit between us and watch the back of his neck flush pink above the collar of his blazer. He walks faster. I match him without effort because his legs are half the length of mine and the fact that he's practically jogging to outpace me while I'm strolling is putting a smile on my face I’m desperately trying to hide.
"Next task," he announces, clearly irritated. "You're going to call Milo and tell him this evening is going exactly according to plan and that you're suffering immensely."
"Am I suffering immensely?"
"You will be."
"When? Because so far you've had me buy you coffee and taken me for a walk. This is the best date I've been on all year."
He whips around so fast his hair falls across his forehead and he has to shove it back with an irritated hand. "This is not a date. This is punishment. There is a difference and you are going to respect it."
"I respect it completely." I stop walking when he does, leaving about four feet between us on the path. His cheeks are flushed from the cold and the anger and probably something else he'd bite my head off for naming. "I'm just saying, if this is punishment, you might need to recalibrate. I've had worse Tuesday nights."
