Page 46 of Omega’s Forward

Alphas sulk and break things. Halfway through the morning, I hear him empty the dishwasher, crashing and banging away. If it were my house, I’d feel the need to check the plates for chips. But it’s not. He can smash up his own house as much as he likes, the big baby.

None of it is new to me. I grew up with an alpha in the house. When my father lost, nobody had to tell you.

No one ever suggested he was hormonal. He was ‘passionate’. He ‘cared’. It is remarkable what caring excuses, when you are six foot three and your moods arrive with a growl attached.

So I am not, at first, particularly bothered. Alphas sulk. It is practically a secondary sex characteristic.

What I am is inconveniently tuned to him. Everything always runs too high after a heat.

I can still smell him. I want to shove him into a wall and demand to know what his problem is. I also want to put my face against the back of his neck and breathe. Both are terrible ideas.

The clean sheets were a wasted effort. The pillows underneath still smell of him. So does the hallway. So, unhelpfully, do I. That’s what five days of his body on mine will do, and no amount of showering helps.

I don’t care. We were never a genuine match anyway. Not really.

I put on my earphones and some really loud music and do my best to drown out my thoughts.

I spend the rest of the day in my room, only coming out when I get hungry enough and then I go back.

The check-in catches us just past midnight. I wake confused at the bleeping from my phone.

Oh fuck. Somehow I am desperate to see him and dreading it at the same time. But if we miss it, this entire trainwreck will be for nothing.

I scramble out of bed, pulling on a pair of pajama bottoms. I don’t want him in my bedroom. Not this time.

Not after whatever he’s pulling now.

I half expect to collide with him in the hallway but I don’t. Instead, I keep walking.

He heard the check-in notification. He must have, right?

I reach the end of the hallway at the door that leads to his bedroom. There’s no sound from inside.

Great. The great lunk has slept through it.

I bang on the door. “We need to check in!”

He opens it immediately.

So. Not asleep.

The big alpha is wearing nothing but a pair of boxers and looking far too good in them. I look away.

“Hang on. I’ll get my phone. Stay here.”

So, I guess I’m not invited in.

He comes back in an instant and stands shoulder to shoulder with me in the hallway while the app decides whether we’re both real.

He’s close enough that I can feel the heat coming off his arm. He smells like a fall day and it’s all I can do not to lean into his chest and just sniff him like a crazy person.

If he feels the same about me, he hides it well. He watches the screen the entire time.

Green tick. Confetti. He’s back inside his bedroom, the door shut before the confetti finishes falling.

I go back up the hallway and close the guest room door behind me. Then I stand at the window and watch the dark yard, and let my hands shake.

When they stop, I sit on the edge of the bed and open the laptop. Working is better than thinking.