Page 26 of Overeager
“No plans! Me? What?” Eli probably sounded insane, but she’d caught him by surprise, and he couldn’t exactly tell her he’d been planning to fuck himself into brainlessness with his underused sex toys.
“You sound deranged, just so you know,” Faith told him mildly. “Anyway, you’re coming out with me and Liz.”
“I am?” Eli frowned at his phone. “No, I’m not.”
“You are. It’s the first Friday of the semester, and we are not letting you set a precedent of staying in every weekend, mourning Richard and his limp-dicked fuckery.”
“I haven’t even thought about Richard,” Eli told her truthfully. Although, he didn’t add it was because he’d been daydreaming about a different alpha’s knot.
There were some things a sister didn’t need to know.
“Good, then. But you’re taking that not-thinking party to the bar with us.”
“Faaaith,” Eli whined.
“Eliiii,” she taunted, in a frankly offensively poor imitation of his voice. Then she brought out the big guns. “Liz misses you.”
Damn. She was pulling the wife card. Why did Liz have to be such a sweetheart? Couldn’t Faith have married someone as evil and devious as herself?
“Fine,” Eli sighed, giving in to the inevitable. “But I’m not dressing cute. And you’re buying.”
“As if either of those things were in question. Your style is atrocious.”
“I’m flipping you off right now,” Eli told her as he rummaged in his dresser drawer for a fresh pair of underwear. “You just can’t see it.”
“We’re picking you up in an hour. Dress however horribly you want, but you better not be in pajamas when we get there.”
Eli looked down at his pajama bottoms and threadbare tee. “It’s Friday night,” he scoffed. “Of course I’m not in pajamas.”
He hung up on Faith’s wicked cackling.
Sisters were the worst.
The bar Faithand Liz brought Eli to was more of a dive than their usual haunts. It was a dimly lit narrow rectangle of a building, a long stretch of bar on one side and small booths lining the other, with a single pool table in the back.
Nonetheless, it was already packed, pheromones mingling in the air like a hundred different clashing perfumes. The patrons were a mix of hip, young professionals who’d clearly been at it since happy hour, bar rats who’d possibly been at it since the early morning, and music scene punks killing time before the night’s show two doors down.
Despite the crowd, Faith somehow managed to get them a table within minutes. Eli wouldn’t have been surprised if she’d stabbed someone with one of her stilettos for it, but he was willing to put aside his morals if it meant getting to stay seated for a few hours.
“How did you hear about this place?” he asked, raising his voice to be heard over the din.
“One of my clients said it was a cozy spot.” Faith glanced around at the crowd, which was lively without being too rowdy. “I have to agree.”
By the end of the first drink—gin and tonics for all of them, since Faith had declared she didn’t trust the wine selection at a place like this—Eli had mellowed into something moderately human. The alcohol might have been part of it, but Liz’s presence helped too. She was a sweet woman with gentle, soothing omega pheromones, and she had a way of putting people at ease without even trying.
Which meant she couldn’t have been more of an opposite to Faith, who specialized in riling people up. Yet somehow, they were matched perfectly. Eli had long given up trying to figure it out, grateful that his sister had found someone who loved her exactly as she was.
When they’d all finished their first drink, Eli rose from the booth, gathering their empties. “I’ll get this round.”
Faith smirked at him, arching a perfectly manicured brow. “I thought I was getting all your drinks tonight. My penance for daring to force you into having a good time.”
“Just hush and accept the gesture.”
Liz smiled sweetly up at him, her round cheeks dimpling. “Thanks, Eli.”
Eli smiled just as sweetly back at her, stuck his tongue out at Faith, and shouldered through the crowd to a less occupied end of the bar. There was a bartender under the bar, tapping a new keg. His head was hidden, but the backs of his shoulders were visible. They were good, strong shoulders, and for just a second, Eli thought …
But that was crazy. His horny yearnings were clearly starting to cloud his mind. He just needed to grab fresh drinks and get back to Faith and Liz and the realm of the sane.
