Page 40 of The Alpha: Part One
“Well, it was supposed to be on Saturday, but he just texted to see if we could do dinner tonight instead. I’m sorry for postponing pizza night, but I need to go. You’re more than welcome to go with me; in fact, I’d love it if you went with me. But if you’d rather go to your brother’s house while I’m there, I’ll drop you off and pick you up when the thing with Minos is over. It’s up to you, whatever you decide is okay with me.”
I know who Alpha Minos is, obviously I do. Everyone does. But he doesn’t generally have dinner with regular people; I suppose Seth isn’t regular people, though. He’s a councilman. It’s perfectly natural for him to have dinner with Alpha Minos. I might have an anxiety attack over it, though.
“I want to go with you.” His eye lights up and crinkles at the corner. I hope I get to see him without the eyepatch someday. He’s handsome with it on. Hot, actually. Very hot. I’ll never ask, it’s very likely to be triggering, but I can still hope. “But I don’t know what to wear. Where are we going? I can’t wear jeans to a high-end place.”
“You can wear whatever you want anywhere we go.”
Silly boy. “Yes, that’s probably true; but if the restaurant has a dress code I’d like to follow it.”
Seth looks down at his phone. “A place called Mercury.”
I can almost feel the color draining from my face. “Mercury?”
He nods. I don’t own a single piece of clothing that is nice enough to wear to dinner at Mercury. “What? Is it a bad place? I can tell him we can meet somewhere else.”
Sure, let’s rearrange a dinner date with the head alpha of the West Coast Council because I don’t have a nice enough dress. Maybe he’ll want to go full-slum and grab tacos from a truck on Castillo.
“Really,” Seth urges, “if you don’t want to go there, I’ll tell him to pick somewhere else. It’s not a big deal.”
“What are you going to wear?”
He looks down at his black tee shirt and faded jeans.
“Oh my god, no. You cannot wear jeans and a tee shirt to Mercury.”
“It’s a fancy place, then?” he asks, with no small amount of disappointment.
“Yes, Seth. It’s a very fancy place. Do you have a suit?”
His lip wrinkles. “I’m not wearing a suit.”
Oh my god. “A sweater? Slacks?”
He looks at me like I’ve lost my mind. “This is hell’s asshole, Desir’ee. I didn’t think to bring a sweater. I have slacks and a button-down. That’s as fancy as I get. You could wear that black dress you were wearing at the meet and greet. That looked really good.”
Sweet, silly, stupid boy. “Absolutely not, that’s a cotton sundress. I’ll find something. How long do we have to get ready?”
He looks down at his phone again. “He said reservations are at eight.” That gives me less than two hours to figure myself out.
Every piece of clothing I own is piled on my bed, and I only have thirty minutes left to get ready. None of it will work. I’ve tried on every combination of every piece that is nice enough at least twice. None of it looks good enough to meet Alpha Minos, and probably his gorgeous omega, at Mercury. Maybe I will just go to Mateos.
My phone rings, I don’t recognise the number. It might be Ben or Michael calling from someone else’s phone, though. That’s happened before when they’re on site. I answer, but it isn’t one of the boys. It’s Mallory Minos.
“I hope you don’t mind, Desir’ee,” she drawls, her accent turning my name into a little song, “Seth shared your number. He said you were worried about what to wear to dinner tonight.”
I’m going to kill him, just as soon as I get off the phone. “No, I don’t mind. I just don’t want to be underdressed, that’s all.”
“Don’t worry about that. I’ve been there straight from the gym before. You just wear what makes you happy.” I think the fact that she’s Alpha Minos’s omega has escaped her reasoning. She can wear whatever she wants wherever she wants and nobody would bat an eye. I’m just a regular person, I can’t do that.
I try to sound relaxed, but I’m sure I fail miserably. “Sure. I just wanted to wear something a little nicer than a pair of shorts and a tank top, you know? I’ve never been before.”
“Oh, that’s alright. Any dress you have will work beautifully. Just throw on a pair of heels and you’re all set. Besides, you’ll have some really nice arm candy to complete the look,” she laughs.
Nope, I’m not going to be rude to Mallory Minos because she thinks Seth is nice to look at. Seth is nice to look at, after all. Really nice to look at. And it isn’t like she’s going to go after him. “Are you sure? I have some dresses, but none of them are Mercury-nice.”
“They’ll be fine, honey, any one of them. I’m going to wear a simple blue one that I ordered online. Nothing fancy. It’s too hot to be fancy.” Someone says something to her in the background and she tells me, “okay. That’s my last call. I’ll see you in a little bit.”
Alright. I won’t kill him. Idofeel better knowing Mallory’s going to wear something simple. I grab the burgundy halter dress from the middle of the pile and put it on, then the strappy white sandals. I twirl my hair up in a bun and that’s it. We still have ten minutes before we need to leave.
