Page 28 of The Fated Mate Bandit

“Someone else? Like who?” I ask.

He sighs and rolls his eyes. “Like me, you asshole.”

I stop the car in the middle of the road. If it wasn’t too early in the morning for anyone to be out, I’d probably have hit someone. “What?”

“Oh, c’mon. You must have guessed I had feelings for him too. I played guitar with him every day.”

“You were friends?—”

Coin lets out a bitter laugh. “Right. Because I’m so great at making friends.”

“But you never said anything.”

“Of course I didn’t. You’re my brother, Silver. I wasn’t going to steal your guy.”

I think back to all those times I saw Coin patiently demonstrate each guitar chord or bring Lucas a leftover cinnamon roll to eat on the school bus. I thought he was just being kind.

I finally take my foot off the brake pedal and start driving again. “For how long?”

Coin shrugs. “Always.”

“What do you mean always? We’ve known Lucas since we were kids, Coin.”

He clenches his jaw. “Yeah.”

“But I didn’t start dating Lucas until our senior year of high school,” I remind him.

“Because you were oblivious. Like I said before, Lucas was never good at hiding his feelings for you. It was obvious to anyone with eyes that he was head over heels. Then I presented as an omega anyway, so… yeah. I never had a chance.”

I’ve noticed the way Coin talks about being an omega like it was a disappointment to him. I’ve never pressured him to say more about it. I figured he would when he was ready. But maybe this is a piece of that puzzle.

“Does that mean you wish you had presented as an alpha?” I ask.

He glances at me, then turns his gaze back to the road. “I don’t know. Maybe it would have made him see me differently. I’m not as pretty as you are, though. So probably not.”

I flash him a smile I’m all too aware is very pretty. He smiles, just like I hoped he would.

“Did you want to be an alpha just for him, or…” I trail off, hoping he’ll know what I mean.

Coin shrugs again. “Does it matter?”

“For fuck’s sake, Coin. Of course it does. I’m your brother. If you have some kind of gender thing going on, you can fucking tell me. Jesus.”

He smiles at that, too. In a weird way, anger is Coin’s love language. He doesn’t show emotion around people unless he really cares about them, and anger happens to be the emotion he shows the most. I’ve noticed that he responds well to my anger too, like I’m speaking his language.

He cocks an eyebrow. “Some kind of gender thing?”

“You know what I mean.”

“I’m fine with being an omega, but other people wish I wasn’t,” he says cryptically.

I sigh. “What the fuck does that mean?”

He gives me a wry, close-lipped smile. “The answer to that question involves explicit details about my sex life. Are you sure you want to know?”

“Oh, c’mon. Since when have you been a blushing violet? I’ve caught you in the back seat of a car with guys multiple times, remember?”

He doesn’t look the least bit embarrassed. “Right. And on both of those occasions, who was fucking whom?”

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