Page 18 of The Devil Takes

Instead, I found myself gravitating toward him. Like a cat basking in puddles of sunshine on a warm spring day. I soaked him up like sunbeams because I knew if I couldn’t be him, the least I could do was watch him be.

I’d never been more shocked than the day I walked into my dorm room and realized Tommy was going to be my roommate. Imagine my surprise when we rarely argued. At least, most of the time.

Now we were butting heads a bit.

“Look, Percy, I get that you don’t want your dad to know where you’ve been staying, but I draw the line here.”

“Where?” I stopped folding my clothes, my hands shaking a little as my shoulders drew up tight and I glared down at a pair of my holey mismatched socks. I chucked them to the side, my movements jerky. I hated when he got like this, all agitated. Made me wanna bare my teeth and run. I’d known this confrontation was coming, but the inevitable fight still made my hackles rise.

Tommy had been side-eyeing me for days now. The closer we got to my move in at the Alpha Beta Phi house, the more tense our conversations had become. Clearly, he thought I was being stupid, though I didn’t really get why.

He was about to tell me, though.

I could taste his anger in the air.

Bitter, sharp.

“You can’t keep living like this. It would be different if he was like…I don’t know, some distant uncle or whatever, and didn’t know your designation—but fuck, dude. He’s your dad. And you’re an omega. He knows you are. He’s always known. You—and he—can’t change that fact.”

He’d probably rehearsed that. It sounded rehearsed. I could feel my blood thrumming the way it always did when I was under attack, though this time I knew not to expect anything physical. That wasn’t Tommy’s way. He was a guy, but he wasn’t that kinda guy.

I didn’t know what to do with him sometimes.

He was all talk, talk, talk. Like talking ever solved anything.

Newsflash, it didn’t.

All it got you was two black eyes and a sore jaw.

“I know it’s hard for you to accept—even though you are stubborn as fuck and won’t tell me why—but I’m not blind. I don’t need you to tell me with words that the only reason you’re leaving is because you’re terrified of what your dad will do when he finds out you disobeyed him.”

Fuck, I never should’ve drunk tequila with him last month. He wouldn’t have known shit if I hadn’t gotten weak one night after visiting home and spewed my secrets—and my insides—all over our shared bathroom floor.

I never drank, for good reason.

It only ever led to trouble, especially for a lightweight like me. The fact that Tommy could drink me under a table despite being half my size was just another fuck you from the universe.

“It’s not that.” I was quick on my feet, dodging the question because that was what I’d always done. It was the way of things. Take a few punches to appease, then dodge when the going gets too rough and the attacker has finally tired themselves out.

“If it’s not that, then what is it?”

I didn’t have an answer for him. Truthfully, I didn’t even have one for myself. Deep down I knew Tommy was right, but I refused to admit it. It was one thing to spill secrets when your blood was pumping with tequila and something else entirely to do so stone cold sober while folding threadbare socks. My silence only incensed him, though.

“Do you really want to live with a bunch of alpha-holes?” No. I really didn’t. “The stench alone should dissuade you.”

I rolled my eyes.

Tommy didn’t get me. Didn’t get the way the smell was faint, but familiar. He was always going on and on about sweaty socks and man feet. When he said it like that, yeah, it was pretty gross. But it kinda smelled like home there, however weakly my nose was able to pick it up. Scent blockers made it so I couldn’t smell the distinct alpha scents anyway, so I didn’t get why he thought it was such a big deal.

“What if you want to get off scent blockers and suppressants?” He asked for like the millionth time. “If you’re in an alpha house pretending to be a beta, you literally can’t. You’re committing to two or more years of ingesting literal poison.”

“It’s not that bad.”

“It is if you never fucking take breaks, Percy. I know you say you had a heat before starting college, but that’s just not enough.”

I could hear how angry he was without having to turn around and see his red face. I wondered how mad he’d be if I admitted I’d lied about that particular piece of information.

I hadn’t had a heat since I’d turned sixteen, not that I’d tell him that. Judgey-McJudgerton that he was.

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