“Bra-zil,” he repeated, as though testing the word in his mouth.
“Yeah, isn’t that cool?” Oliver said, kicking Lucas’ shin under the table.
Alfie nodded. “I have something cool, too.”
“Oh, yeah?” Lucas said, raising an eyebrow. “Show me?”
Shifting slightly, Alfie pulled a little woolly hat from beneath his chair. It had two large knitted eyes, a beak and two pompoms on the top, giving it the appearance of an owl.
“Wow, thatiscool,” Lucas said, placing the hat on Alfie’s head. “It’s chilly outside, so you’ll need it.”
Oliver rested his chin on his hands as he watched the interaction. The tender moment was ruined when Patrick stormed back into the room.
“We should get going,” he said, pulling on his coat. “Before the traffic gets bad.” And he wasn’t wrong. Rush hour in High Enfield was a fucking nightmare.
“R-Right,” Oliver said, rising from his seat. Lucas followed suit.
They waited near the car as Sarah helped Alfie pull on his coat and shoes. Patrick lingered near the end of the drive, pretending to look at his phone.
“Keep your phone on,” Lucas said, squeezing Oliver’s shoulder.
“I will.”
Gripping the steering wheel,Oliver tried not to scowl as Patrick dropped into the front passenger seat. The musky scent of the alpha’s aftershave did a poor job of hiding the stale stench of cigarettes clinging to the fabric of his clothes. Having him so close made Oliver feel physically sick, and he had to swallow several times to stop the queasiness rising in his throat. Clenching his jaw, he said, “Shouldn’t you sit in the back with Alfie?”
Patrick’s lip curled into a smug smile as he jabbed his thumb towards the rear of the car. “Nah, the iPad will keep him quiet. Give us a chance to talk. Just you and me” And Oliverhatedthe way Patrick said that last part.
Scowling, he pulled off the driveway, desperately glancing at Lucas’ vehicle in the rear-view mirror. He could turn the car around and say he wasn’t feeling well. But where would that leave Alfie?No, he could do this. Butfuck, he felt like such a piece of shit, leaving Lucas behind with only a bad feeling to keep him company. With any luck, the alpha would be in his nest when he returned home that evening.
Oliver took a breath and stared at the road ahead. “The point isn’t to ‘keep him quiet,’ Mr Coletta. The whole reason we’re doing this is so Alfie can talk.” He tried to keep his voice smooth and even.
“Oh, come on, Ollie. Stop with all this ‘Mr Colletta’ bullshit. We’re old friends, after all.”
“We are not old?—”
“Oh, look,” Patrick said, cutting him off. “The M6 is closed. We’ll have to go the long way round.”
Oliver grit his teeth as he stared at the overhead gantry, which flashed red with several warning signs. “Shit,” he muttered.
Turning off the main road, he followed the diversion signs. The journey would be longer, but only by about ten minutes,which he could manage so long as he could tune out Patrick’s voice. Focusing solely on the road lulled him into comfortable disassociation, the kind that left you wondering how the hell you’d gotten to work that morning.
His hopes of a quiet ride were quickly dashed as Patrick started humming along to the radio. The alpha had alwayshateduncomfortable silences, and felt compelled to fill the space with the sound of his own voice. It seemed nothing had changed in the six years they’d been apart.
“So,” Patrick said, absentmindedly picking his nails. “Does the sergeant fuck you the way you like?”
Oliver spluttered and glanced in the rear-view mirror. He was relieved to see that Alfie’s eyes were still glued to the iPad.
Here we go. Here we fucking go.
“Shut up,” he whispered, trying not to snarl.
Patrick grinned, tapping the toe of his shoe against the dashboard. “Oh, come on, you can’t blame me for being a little curious. His stench is all over you.”
As they pulled up at a row of traffic lights, Oliver set his face into a neutral expression and turned to the alpha. Tempering his voice to just above a whisper, he said, “Mr Coletta, we have a highly traumatised child in the back of the car, one who is hypersensitive to absolutely everything and everyone around him. If you continue to make inappropriate comments, Iwillreport you to the local authority.”
He had to draw his line in the sand, and he had to do it immediately.
Patrick burst into fits of laughter, the sound making the hairs on the back of Oliver’s neck stand on end. The commotion made Alfie look up, and Oliver turned to smile at him whilst the lights remained red.
