He frowns, confused, and I let the silence stretch until he figures it out on his own. When it finally clicks, confusion melts into caution. “You’d build around me?”
“I build around my people. If you’re staying, you’re my people.”
Right then, Oliver storms through the office door with two glasses of water and a plate of leftover bruschetta from the kitchen. “The regulars finally left and I am starving and someone needs to eat because I watched you skip dinner, Wilson, don’t think I didn’t notice—” He halts, reading the room with that infuriating accuracy. His eyes flick from my face to Wilson’s and back. “Am I interrupting a moment?”
“No,” Wilson says.
“Yes,” I say.
Oliver grins and sets the plate between us. “Perfect. Eat your bruschetta and have your moment. I’m going to go count the tips.” He drops a quick kiss on my jaw as he passes and squeezes Wilson’s shoulder on the way out.
Wilson freezes under the touch. His eyes close for a fraction of a second, his breath catching in a way Oliver never sees because Oliver’s already out the door. But I see how Wilson’s body leans into that contact before his brain can override the impulse, his shoulder lifting toward the ghost of Oliver’s hand after it’s gone.
He opens his eyes and catches me staring. The walls go back up so fast I nearly hear them click into place.
“Eat,” I say, pushing the plate closer to him.
He doesn’t fight me on that as we work through the rest of the receipts in a silence that feels more comfortable than it has any right to, given I’ve known him less than a week. From the front, Oliver’s voice drifts over the speakers, singing along to something bass-heavy and melody-poor. Wilson’s lips twitch at the sound, and I file that away, too.
6
Oliver
It’s been four days of keeping my hands to myself, and I swear it’s going to kill me faster than any Alpha strolling that boardwalk. Lorenzo’s voice replays in my head on a nonstop loop: We let him lead. He sets the pace.
Reasonable words from a reasonable man who treats self-control like a sacred duty. Lorenzo can wait. Lorenzo can sit across from Wilson every night, watch him working the floor with that sharp jaw, those dark eyes, and those hands that still linger on my hips from four nights ago and Lorenzo can tuck it all away behind that calm façade as if it costs him nothing.
I am not Lorenzo.
Every shift feels like a test. There’s Wilson behind the bar, sleeves rolled to his elbows, forearm muscles flexing whenever he lifts a crate of glasses. There’s Wilson crouched down, fixing a wobbly table leg, the muscles along his back flexing. There’sWilson’s mouth when he’s focusing, his lower lip caught between his teeth, and that low hum he makes when some figure on the inventory sheet doesn’t add up, a vibration that travels through the air between us and lands somewhere just below my navel.
We haven’t really touched since that night. There’s been a shoulder squeeze or two but nothing else. Wilson keeps a precise inch-by-inch boundary between his body and mine, and every time I edge into it, he shifts away so smoothly that anyone not paying attention would swear it was an accident.
Lorenzo channels his own ache into work. He cranks through numbers and makes phone calls, avoiding the lack of response from the Beta we’re both enamored by. Hell, Lorenzo even handlesmedifferently since we shared Wilson.
Last night, after close, I crawled onto his lap in the office and nuzzled his throat until he gripped my jaw and told me to stay still. I couldn’t, though.
I squirmed and pushed, even bit the tendon in his neck until his patience snapped. Then he bent me over the desk, my pants pooled around my thighs, and fucked me so hard I stopped thinking about Wilson for almost twenty minutes. His hand locked at the back of my neck, pressing my cheek into the wood, his hips driving forward so hard I saw stars.
I came with my teeth sunk into my own forearm to stifle a scream, and Lorenzo followed with a groan that rattled straight down my spine.
Afterward, he kissed the bruise on my arm and murmured, “Patience.”
I told him to go fuck himself.
But I can’t wait any longer. It’s been nearly a week, the Saturday crowd emptying out, stragglers closing tabs, and tugging on coats. Lorenzo left an hour ago to sort a delivery snag with one of our suppliers, so I’m on closing duty alone. The music’s been turned down low, the house lights just brightenough to guide any lingering customers toward the exit without feeling pushy.
But Wilson’s still here.
He’s parked at the back table, once again working through the end of the night numbers, one hand wrapped around a glass of water. He’s stayed past his shift again, third time this week. He doesn’t say why, and I don’t ask, because asking would mean admitting that Wilson Ashford has nowhere better to be at 1 a.m. on a Saturday than the office of a minimum-wage nightclub.
When the last customer slips out, I lock the front door, flip the sign, and start wiping down the bar. Even with busy work, though, my attention keeps shifting to the mysterious Beta until I can’t help myself.
“You know there’s a bed upstairs so you don’t have to go back to your apartment tonight,” I say without turning.
He stiffens but doesn’t look up, his usual way of responding to nearly everyone.
“The couch in the office will wreck your back.” I rinse the rag, wring it out, and drape it over the faucet. “Lorenzo and I have a guest room with an actual mattress and sheets that’ve been washed this decade.”
