Page 121 of Captive Omega

And I have to admit, even saying it feels hard. I want to go up there again, knock on her door, check if there’s something she needs.

“Good idea. Come on, then.” Garrison gives my arm a squeeze before walking out first.

I hang back, leaving a couple inches between Blaine and me as I lower my voice. “So…”

He gives me a rapid glance and keeps walking. “I don’t want to talk about it, Vaughn.”

“About what?” I blink at him innocently. “What could there possibly be to talk about?”

When Garrison steps outside, Blaine stops and turns to fully face me. It’s been years since Blaine hasn’t shut me down. We spent hours in the gym sparring, then the car crash happened. Now, his usual tactic is avoidance.

This is new.

“You noticed, didn’t you?” he asks.

Garrison must be wondering where we are. We were only a step behind him, after all. That he isn’t immediately backing up to find out what we’re doing must mean he knows we need to talk and is giving us the space to do it.

“I might have noticed something,” I concede.

And that something was how increasingly hot and bothered Blaine was getting during the tail end of Resa’s self-defense lesson. He came down still looking tense, which I attribute to the photograph of the fiancé he unearthed, rather than the other kind of tense that made him sprint out of the gym. I imagine he rushed upstairs to deal with the issue himself.

If only he knew how hot and bothered I was getting with her in my arms. The fear that Resa would realize and stop the lesson kept my mind on task.

His expression turns oblique. “Did Resa?”

I blink innocently at him. “Did Resa what?”

He leans closer, lowering his voice. “Notice.”

The fact he’s leaning toward me instead of away is also new. “Notice what?” I feign misunderstanding.

His brow furrows. “Vaughn…” he growls.

“Okay, okay, I’m joking,” I admit, peeking at the backdoor. Blaine is finally, actually, for the first time in years initiating a conversation instead of shutting it down. If he doesn’t want Garrison to know, I’ll do whatever it takes to keep this conversation going. “She didn’t notice. She thought she’d done something wrong since you couldn’t wait to get away from her.”

“You think I should speak to her, don’t you?”

“I said nothing of the sort.” I eye him for a beat. “Maybe an apology. Though, she might ask why you’re apologizing and you’d have to tell her you were nursing a massive er—” The front door swings open and I swing around and wave brightly. “Er, hey, Marie.”

I needn’t have bothered worrying about Lex’s girlfriend, Marie, overhearing anything. The only planets that orbit her world are Lex and technology.

Marie is pale, a few inches taller than Lex, with a short blonde bob, in skinny black jeans, white tee, and combat boots. She barely spares me a glance as she taps out a text message, works on coding, or whatever it is she and Lex constantly do on cell phones they never put down. The one time I saw Lex without his phone, I thought I was in a dream. Walked into a wall and everything.

“Hey,” she mumbles, heading for the kitchen as Lex trails her.

“Ah, Lex. We’re doing stuff in the backyard. Check in with Resa every now and again, will you? But give her space if she needs it. She just had some bad news,” I say.

“Sure.” Lex follows Marie into the kitchen.

“Aren’t you going to ask what we’re doing in the backyard?” I call after him.

He waves a hand distractedly. “I’ll see it soon enough.”

I stare after him. “It always amazes me that he doesn’t have a curious bone in his body.”

“That’s because you have enough for the both of you.” I jump at Garrison’s voice. Blaine must have walked out while I wasn’t paying attention. Garrison pushes the door open. “Come on. We have a lot of work to do and not much time to do it. I want this finished by tonight.”

And it’s mid-afternoon. Which doesn’t leave us much time to turn a disused pool house into a perfect nest for an omega who needs it more today than any other.

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