He fixes his intense gray gaze on me.
Yikes. Next time, try keeping your mouth shut, Win. You might live longer.
I smile as I edge away from the table. “Just thought it would be helpful to point that out.”
“I like her,” Joel blurts out.
We swivel our heads to face him.
Joel is still eyeing Murph warily. “Just so you know, I like her and not in a ‘let’s be friends’ way. I want it to be clear that I liked her before I knew she was your scent match, so any acts of violence would be completely unfair. And I was the one who suggested she move in here, so you never would have met her without me.”
Murph sits back in his seat.
Joel tenses rather than relaxes, as if he suspects this is the calm before the storm.
I clear my throat, sensing now is the perfect time to voice my own feelings. The attraction when I first saw her at the diner was immediate. Her hug at the motel cemented it.
Murph and Joel look expectantly at me.
“I also like Rose,” I say. “I’ll be immediately friend-zoned, like usual, so any acts of violence can go Joel’s way.”
Joel glares at me. “Dude.”
“Uh, sorry.” I smile apologetically at him while keeping half my attention on Murph. Alphas are possessive of their omegas, and we’re in a kitchen with many weapons as dangerous as Murph’s two large fists. “To be fair, I said ‘any’ violence. Not that I was encouraging him to kill you or anything. Just?—”
“Sit down,” Murph snaps. “Both of you.”
My eyes drop to his hands resting on the table. I can almost feel them wrapped around my throat, squeezing the life out of me. I gulp nervously and scratch the side of my neck. I’m not afraid of much, but Iama beta, and alphas—Murph in particular—aren’t exactly small. They’re large and so commanding that even betas, who are less affected by an alpha’s dominance than omegas, feel their intensity.
I’m not the only one wary of getting closer to Murph. Joel hasn’t moved either, and the guy runs into burning buildings for a living. That tells me everything I need to know.
“If it’s all the same to you,” I say with false cheer, “I’d rather stay over here.”
Murph scowls. “I’m not going to kill you.Sit. Down.”
Reluctantly, I cross over to the dining table and perch on the edge of my seat, body angled toward the door in case I need to make a run for it.
Joel is also tense as he sinks into his chair.
Murph crosses his arms, and I flinch as if someone just fired a shot. He closes his eyes, tips his head back, and lets out a loud sigh.
I glance at Joel, confused.
He catches my eye and shrugs.
“I’ve been dragging out the work on the house,” Murph admits.
I don’t dare mention any tools in case this is a roundabout way of him saying he intends to get a hammer and kill us for daring to look twice at his mate. “What does work on the house have to do with Rose?”
Murph meets my gaze for a beat, then looks at Joel, his expression unreadable. “I told you I’d get the work on this house done as fast as I could. And I meant it. But then I stopped doing that.”
Truth be told, he’s not the only one. When Joel and I bought the foreclosed house, it was falling apart, and we worked on it every weekend and most evenings, determined to renovate it in record time.
Then Murph moved in, and that pace picked up because Murph has experience and a bunch of tools from being a freelance construction worker building condos and family homes for the last ten years. But then the work slowed to a crawl, and it wasn’t because we were suddenly busy or got lazy. The house is still important, but over time, flipping it has become less of a priority.
With his head back and his eyes on the ceiling, Murph says quietly, “I like living with you.”
Joel frowns. “But you don’t like people. I know that because you specifically said you were only moving in with us because the house was a construction site and there was no chance anyone else would be moving in. You said you’d put up with us, but that’s it. You didn’t like people in general, so we shouldn’t be offended if you stayed in your room and kept to yourself.”
