Page 125 of Knot That Serious

As they came to a stop at a red light, he glanced over, and she melted back into her seat. “Fine, fine. Yes. We went on a ride and he told me about a date he and Beckett went on, and I told him about our upcoming date.”

“I’m surprised it wasn’t Beckett. Didn’t you say you’ve been spending more time with him?”

In his peripherals, Eli nodded. “He’s usually at the apartment when I get home from the bakery. He, uhm…” With her hands folded in her lap, she twiddled her thumbs. “He makes me lunch.”

“That’s really sweet,” Raj remarked.

“Yeah, it’s kind of become a… thing, the past few days.” Eli shrugged. “Jack makes my iced coffee every night, so I just have to grab it out of the fridge when I wake up.”

Raj blinked into the passing traffic. “It kind of sounds like they’re attempting to court you,” he said.

Eli sputtered. “What? Nuh-uh. That’s—no.”

“Why is it crazy?” he asked, genuinely curious. “Isn’t that what you want?”

But Eli went quiet, and there was nothing but the low murmur of the radio and the rumble of the car on the road. “Yes. But they think you’re courting me,” she said. “So I don’t know why they’d think…”

His brow furrowed. “I may be fake-courting you, but that doesn’t mean I have a… claim on you, or anything. They know this,” he said, laying a hand on her knee at an appropriately chaste height. “I’m only courting one omega, but you’re allowed to have more than one suitor. You’re an omega; you’re supposed to have a pack, you know? We’re not exclusive, unless that’s what you want.”

Raj stopped himself from talking before he babbled out more nonsense. Eli laid her small hand atop his, tracing the veins on the back.

He had to remember that this was fake.

If only it didn’t feel so real.

“I guess it didn’t occur to me,” Eli said, “that they would want to do something like that. I mean, Jack said—”

She cut off, hands stilling over the back of his, and Raj wiggled his fingers beneath hers. “What did Jack say?”

“I overheard them talking the morning after my heat ended. Jack was saying he didn’t want anything to change.”

“As in…”

“As in he just wants to be friends,” Eli said, throwing her hands up in the air. “So why the hell would he want to court me, then?”

Raj hummed, frowning in thought. “Is it possible you heard them wrong?”

“I only caught the tail-end of the conversation. I just don’t know how else I’m supposed to interpret it, you know?”

“Have you asked him about it?” Raj asked, even though he knew the answer.

“Of course not,” Eli muttered.

Raj let the silence lie for a moment. “Do you want to hear what I think?”

Eli glanced over at him, the glow from the dash lighting her unsure features softly. “Yeah.”

“I think he was lying. He might not have known it at the time, but I think he has feelings for you.”

Eli sucked in a breath and said, “You think so?”

“I do. You should’ve seen the way he looked at you this evening.”

It was eerily close to the way Raj felt when he looked at her, too.

“And they were stalking you on your date. Sounds like jealousy to me. The plan is working,” he sang, nudging her.

Eli’s lips twitched, but she didn’t give into the smile, shaking her head again. “Surely they would’ve just asked to court me.”

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