Page 10 of Beta and the Beast
Sam stares at me for a moment longer before dipping his head in a single nod. He lifts his hand goodbye to Lucas, then heads back to the backyard to be with his family.
I suck in a deep breath before opening the car door. I already know Lucas is going to have some smartass thing to say, and I need to be able to take it. I'm not even fully in the seat before he opens his mouth.
"A fucking beta?" he asks, throwing his head back in a laugh.
Romulus is taking control of our body as soon as he hears the tone Lucas is using when talking about our beta. Remi takes over Lucas's body for a fraction of a second, reminding Romulus he doesn't want to fight him, not even when they're messing with us.
"I figured you for the settling-down type. I just never imagined it being a beta." Lucas shakes his head one more time to get the last of his laugh out before backing out of the driveway.
I give his words time to hang in the air around us, letting them settle over me and trying to decipher if that's what I want. Do I want to settle down with Sarah and have her be the only one for the rest of my life?
Yes, idiot. What did you think I meant when I called her ours?
5
Sarah
"Okay, okay, so let me get this straight: there are hotties working on the shop next door, and that's a bad thing because…?" Hazel lets her voice trail off as her question turns into giggles.
"Because they're alphas who are single-handedly ruining my business," I tell her as I gesture around the empty coffee shop. "Did you think I closed early? No, this is what it's looked like here since they started renovating next door."
"Maybe no one knows you're still open because of the construction." Hazel shrugs and doesn't even attempt to hide how she ogles the alpha outside, who set up his woodcutting saw thing too close to my windows. I'd love to say it was an accident, but he's flexed every time he's come to cut something, and it isn't for my amusement.
"It's been dead in here since Tuesday," I groan and lay my head on my hands. "I'm going to go out of business at this rate."
"It'll be better once they're done with construction. Every beta with a brain in their head knows to stay away from alphas, and you have a whole handful right outside your door." Hazel gives a little two-finger wave to the alpha outside when he purposefully turns to look inside with his newest cut of wood.
"Does that mean you have no brain?" I ask, pouting a little at how easily she can flirt with the enemy right in front of me.
"I think we both know I have a brain that works just fine," Hazel laughs. "I just also like the thrill of being the object of an alpha's desire. There's something wicked about it, don't you think?"
"No, no, I don't." I huff, grabbing my cleaning supplies from behind the counter and starting my closing duties. There's still an hour left until I technically close, but this shop has been unofficially closed since my last customer showed up on Tuesday.
Hazel shrugs at my rejection of her taboo lifestyle of chasing alphas, but doesn't take it to heart. She's always been interested in them, always had a thing for them. It's why she makes good money working at a strip club most nights. It's an alpha bar that caters to certain fantasies, one of which being a beta who's just as interested in them and willing to submit as an omega is. A lot of guys get off on imagining splitting us in two on their dicks and us being willing to do it.
"Oh!" Hazel perks up and brushes her hair away from her shoulders, exposing her neck. Yeah, she knows how to get an alpha all hot and bothered, so I just roll my eyes and assume she's seeing Mr. Wood-Cutting-Saw again. At least, I think that until she's skittering across the shop floor over to me and hitting my shoulder. "One of them is here."
"Yeah, they're all over the place," I grumble, spraying down the table I'm at and wiping it down even though I've done the same thing every afternoon, and no one has sat at this table all week.
"No, he's at the door," Hazel squeals a little too loudly and a little too excited.
I whip my head around to figure out what she's talking about. None of the alphas from next door better think for even a second that they're allowed in here. They might be moving in next door, but they're not about to infiltrate my place of business. No way n—
"Ugh." I roll my eyes as I stomp to the front door and throw it wide. "What?"
I hear Hazel's little gasp of concern from behind me, but she doesn't know that this behemoth of an alpha wearing a fuzzy baby blue sweater isn't about to start growling and demanding my submission just from me being a little snippy at him. Sure, plenty of other alphas would, and I'd never dream of talking to them this way, but Henry isn't about to do anything to me. No, even worse, his lips twitch up in a smile at the bark in my voice, even though two of his contractors are looking over here with their brows tugged together.
"I wanted to see if we could go ahead and install the new filtration system," Henry says, his smile firmly planted on his lips even as I look up to scowl harder at him.
"I'm not closed for one more hour." I cross my arms over my chest, not moving an inch to let him inside. "You can come back then."
Henry's brows quirk as he glances behind me. I try not to let the fact that my shop is empty, save for Hazel, get to me. This is still my hard work and dreams, and I'm not embarrassed by them just because I've hit a rough patch.
"You don't look too busy," Henry says, and it's the tone of his voice that tells me he's not trying to be an asshole. He's probably thinking he's being kind by doing this during work hours, so I don't have to stay late. But it's not kind, and he is an asshole.
"Yeah, my store is dying because some meathead and his whole meathead posse have taken up the entire sidewalk outside and set up their stations right in front of my windows all week. I'm sure all of my customers who used to come here for an alpha-free environment are just so excited that you're crawling all over the place."
Henry's smile falls as the bridge of his nose wrinkles. His eyes are golden and bright, letting Romulus out. The beast isn't interested in me. No, he's pissed off at everyone else.
