Page 45 of Broken Ice
Emilio wanted to see him…in the off-season?
“Uh, sure. Yeah,” Beau stuttered, even though he had absolutely no intention of doing any such thing. Not that he wouldn’t love to see where Emilio had been brought up, butthere was only so much Beau could put his heart through without breaking it.
They stayed out there for a long while, chatting until Pav came out to check on them, make sure they weren’t dead. It was silly that Beau felt disappointed about the interruption—he spent plenty of time with Emilio.
Still. As they headed back into the noise of the club, he couldn’t help but feel a fluttering in his gut from having been the focus of Emilio’s attention for so long.
It felt just a little too good.
CHAPTER SEVEN
The next time they went out after a win, fortunately, it was a much quieter bar.
What waslessfortunate was that ever since the whole ‘You smell good’ incident, Tinny had become very annoying about finding Beau an Alpha.
“No, let’s hear it,” Tinny said, already two beers in. In his tiny body, that was like four. And, okay, the guy was five foot ten, but that was small for hockey guys. “What’s your type?”
A lot of the team was sitting at a long, wooden table, pitchers of beer scattered throughout. Beau was pressed between Don and Emilio, the former luckily coming to his aid with a, “Tinny, come on.”
Tinny waved him away. “What? It’s not a weird question just because he’s an Omega. You knowmytype.”
“And I wish I didn’t,” Don muttered.
Tinny ignored him, looking expectantly at Beau.
Beau sighed. “I don’t know. I don’t really have a type.”
Tinny rolled his eyes. “Everybody has a type. Have you dated before?”
“Uh, I mean, I’ve had a boyfriend,” Beau hedged.
Tinny grinned. “Okay, what was he like?”
Beau tried not to squirm uncomfortably. He had come to trust this group of guys enough to share his past with them, but that didn’t mean he enjoyed doing it. “I don’t know, man. He was good-looking but kind of an asshole.”
Beau startled a little when it was Emilio who spoke. “An asshole, how?”
“Just, like…” Beau had to laugh. “I don’t know. It’s awkward to talk about.”
Beau didn’t really think much about his first and only boyfriend anymore. Alex had been the kind of mistake you make when you’re young—any more neurons in Beau’s head, and he would have seen how incompatible they were from the beginning.
Beau had been nineteen. They’d met at a bar in Atlanta, and Alex had seemed larger than life. He was eight years older than Beau and arrestingly handsome, a square face like in old Hollywood movies, hair dark and coiffed perfectly.
He’d smelt good, too. Maybe not the best Beau had ever scented—even then, that honour went to Emilio. At the time, Beau had taken that as proof of how insignificant scent compatibility could be.
Alex wasn’t a hockey fan, unimpressed by Beau’s accomplishments, and Beau had been drawn to that. Surely that meant Alex liked Beau for who he was, away from his on-ice persona. It meant that Alex liked the Omega side of him, which Beau had been ignoring as much as possible since presenting.
Alex had been critical, but Beau was used to that. His mom never minced words, and he was used to chirps being a type of love language, so it felt familiar that Alex had demands.
It was just…sure, Beau’s mom could get on his nerves. She wasn’t perfect, but Beau could feel her unconditional love for him, even if she was being a bit of a dick.
Alex’s criticism had never felt like that. It wasn’t couched in the safety of that sort of support.
Alex had been another person in his life who had made him feel conflicted about his scent. One second, Alex loved it, scenting him constantly. The next, he was accusing Beau of going out and stinking up the place, how he was doing it for attention, how Beau would take it from anyone he could get.
Even the one heat Beau spent with him had been kind of horrible. Sure, Alex had knotted him a few times, but when Beau asked to be cuddled, Alex had sighed and said, “God, you’re needy.”
And it had been a joke, kind of. Alex had held him for a few minutes and claimed it was too hot, that he was going to watch TV, telling Beau to call out the next time a wave hit.
