My heart thundered the way it did every time he was around, but I suppressed it. He didn’t need me to complicate things between us. And neither did I.
“I’m not that tall, you’re just short,” I said easily, ruffling his hair as he draped himself onto a stool at my side.
Close like this, I was able to catch a whisper of his faint lemon scent. It wasn’t anywhere near as potent as an omega, but it was there, and—there was something else too. A fruity sharpness that made my mouth water.
God he smelled so fucking…good.
Had he switched shampoos since the last time I’d seen him?
New cologne? Perfume?
Jesse playfully swatted me away. “I’m not short, I’m just not a freakishly tall alphahole like you.”
I put my hand to my chest like I’d been mortally wounded, dramatically leaning back in my stool. “Freakish? Alphahole??”
“You called me short first,” he defended with a playful shove to my shoulder.
Before I could barb him back the bartender came over and dropped off the second round of drinks I’d ordered. An admittedly horrifying, overly sweet cocktail for Jesse, and something that didn’t taste like whatever the grasshoppers in A Bug’s Life were eating looked like for me.
“Ooooh,” they cooed excitedly. “You know me so well!” He pulled the dark red, fizzy concoction forward, picking up the toothpick with a pair of cinnamon-marinated cherries on it, putting the first between his teeth to drag into his mouth.
My jaw fell open slightly as I watched him suck it between his lips, a droplet of juice escaping to dribble down his chin.
Jesus. Fuck.
“You always remember my favorite,” he said, using his thumb to wipe the droplet away before picking up the short glass and tossing some of it back.
I slid my Manhattan forward, sipping it slowly to let the burn of the whiskey and the sour of the bitters snap me back to the present.
“Who could forget that monstrosity?”
He gasped, pulling it closer as though to protect the glass from my judgment. “Black cherry cosmos are a gift to this world and I will hear nothing of your criticism, sir.” They took another sip of the disastrously sweet drink with an overly showboaty, satisfied hum.
I rolled my eyes, if only to cover the way that I desperately wished to be that glass.
I’d only been as attracted as I was to Jesse to someone else once before… and, unfortunately for me, gangly geeky alphas with confidence issues and bottom energy didn’t really stand a chance with an omega likethat.
“So,” he turned to me in that way he did when they wanted to talk about themselves, but felt like they needed to be polite and ask about me first. “What’s new with you? Any more businesses selling for millions?”
I laughed, same old Jesse.
No fucking tact.
I’d dropped out of college in my second year to pursue ScentCX, a database system that used DNA markers to create scent-matching profiles for alphas and omegas. It’d been tough at first, a lot of long nights building the prototype software and nearly a year of living on my friend and business partner Cameo’s couch while we pitched investors. Eventually, we signed a deal with FinCorp and made enough money to live on… forever. It’d meant moving to a new city to help them with setupand product finalization, which had been a bit of a drag on the personal life side but was awesome professionally.
Our invention.
My invention, really.
It wasreal. And, it washelpingpeople.
Where Cameo opted to become totally hands-off and return to his family business, I’d decided to stay on with the project. Taking the title of COO—fancy pencil-pushing corporate talk for a guy who sat in on way too many meetings that could’ve been an email.
“Nope, still just coasting,” I said with a shrug.
Jesse rolled his eyes. “Don’t act like you’re not busy. I haven’t seen you since you’ve moved back.”
I twirled my glass on the hard top of the bar. “Well that’s because you stream in the evening when I’m off, but I always watch. Besides, it’s only been a couple of weeks.”
