Page 11 of Mating With My Grumpy Alphas
“What are you really doing here, Cass?” I asked quietly.
His smile faded, replaced by something more genuine and much more tired. “What I have to do,” he said. “What I should have done a long time ago.”
Before I could ask what he meant by that, he stood up and tossed a twenty on the table even though he hadn’t even ordered a drink.
“Drinks are on me,” he said. “And Rhett? It was good to see you again. We should catch up sometime.”
He left the bar as abruptly as he’d arrived, leaving the three of us staring after him.
“You know him,” Wes said. It wasn’t a question.
“College roommate,” I said. “Good guy back then. Always stood up for people who couldn’t stand up for themselves. Guess that’s changed.”
“People change,” Elias said quietly. “Usually not for the better when money and family pressure are involved.”
“Maybe.” I watched through the window as Cass climbed into an expensive sedan parked at the edge of the lot. “But something about this doesn’t feel right. The Cass I knew wouldn’t destroyhabitat for profit. He’d be the first one chaining himself to trees to stop it.”
“Fifteen years is a long time,” Wes pointed out.
People are complicated,I thought, watching the sedan disappear down the road toward the edge of town where I’d heard he’d rented a house.And everyone in this bar thinks they know exactly who he is and why he’s here.
“So,” Elias said, clearly trying to redirect our attention back to the original conversation. “About Willa.”
Right. The reason we were all here. The omega who’d managed to catch the attention of three very different alphas and one mysterious businessman with unclear motives.
“We take it slow,” I said, echoing Wes’s earlier words. “We let her decide what she wants. And we don’t make her life more complicated than it already is.”
“Agreed,” Wes said.
“Agreed,” Elias echoed.
She was worth the effort. I was still thinking about coffee mug collisions and the way her scent had made me forget how to think straight days later. Whatever this turned into, she was worth figuring it out.
Even if it meant sharing. Even if it meant working with two other alphas who clearly cared about her as much as I was starting to.
Hollis, you magnificent matchmaker, I thought, finally understanding why he’d arranged this meeting.You knew exactly what you were doing.
As we finished our drinks and prepared to leave, I found myself thinking about pack dynamics and territorial compromise and the possibility that maybe, just maybe, some things were worth being flexible about.
Some people were worth changing for.
And Willa Rowan was definitely one of them.
Chapter 6
Rhett
The Ford's transmission was being particularly stubborn this morning. It should have been a straightforward job. Remove, rebuild, reinstall. Simple mechanical problem with a mechanical solution. Unlike whatever the hell was happening in my head every time I caught a whiff of jasmine and rain or remembered the way that omega had looked at me like I was both dangerous and exactly what she'd been waiting for.
I'd been doing this work for fifteen years. Fifteen years of early mornings, practical problems, and solutions that made sense. Engines didn't lie, didn't play games, didn't smell like hidden strength or make me want to prove I could take care of things that weren't necessarily broken.
So why was I standing in my garage days later, coffee gone cold, thinking about brown eyes that had looked at me like I might be worth the risk?
The radio was playing some classic rock station that usually helped me focus, but today even Aerosmith couldn't drown outthoughts of that coffee mug incident at Pine & Pages. The way she'd stood there, clearly fighting every instinct to run, but refusing to back down when I'd challenged her about where she came from.
Most people either tried to impress me with their life story or went out of their way to avoid me entirely. She'd done neither. Just looked me straight in the eye and asked if it mattered where she was from, like my approval was optional rather than something she needed to earn.
I liked that more than I should have.
