Pember waved the comment away, but he would have been lying if he said the thought of going out didn’t make him a little uneasy. “We aren’t staying late. Just dinner and a couple of cocktails.”
“Shall I pick you up?”
Pember flushed. “O-oh, no, thanks, I’ll get a taxi. Don’t want you waiting up when you’ll be knackered anyway.”
Blake gave him a hard look. “I’ll wait.”
Pember let out a breath. “Well I?—”
“Think about it and let me know,” Blake said, slowly turning and walking away.
“Thanks!” he called, watching the alpha’s long coat sway as his heavy footsteps echoed through the locker room. Blake tipped a two-finger salute before rounding the corner into the main changing room.
Perhaps it wasn’t that he fancied Blake. Perhaps, the alpha was justnice, and Pember was falling into the same patternthat he had with Oliver—of mistaking feelings of comfort and protection for desire.
But did he actually want to kiss Oliver back then? No. The answer was most definitely no. He’d been a little disappointed when Oliver and Lucas mated, but only because he thought the alpha would stop Oliver from seeing him. He hadn’t, of course. In fact, he preferred to leave them to it when they went out for pack days with the kids.
“Ah! You’re here,” a voice called, knocking him out of his thoughts. It was Johnny, swiftly followed by Taylor. “Boss wants to see you.”
Pember frowned. “Now?”
Taylor nodded, leisurely resting his forearm across the gun holstered at his hip. “Yeah, now. Don’t worry about the clothes, we’ll sort them out afterwards.”
Pember shuffled from foot to foot. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but I smell worse than you guys after a night out. I’d really rather shower first and?—”
“Me-ow,” Taylor said, mouth tipping into a flirtatious grin. “Offence well and truly taken, and, er, you’re not wrong.”
Johnny snickered and punched him in the ribs. Pember only frowned, turning back towards the door.
“Ah, ah,” Johnny said, roughly gripping his upper arm. “Boss said you’re to come now.”
Something unpleasant prickled up Pember’s spine, and his wolf slowly bared its teeth. Johnny must have sensed it, because he immediately released his arm and held up a hand. “Just come, please. The sooner we get this over with, the sooner you can shower.”
“Get what over with? What’s this about?”
Johnny sucked his teeth, the impatience clear on his face. “Youspeak to him,” he said, shoving Taylor forward.
Taylor let out a breath and rubbed the back of his neck. “Look… darl’. Could you just come with, please? The boss won’t be happy if you make her wait.”
“Her? Which boss? The Major Crime Inspector?”
Taylor waved the question away, tugging him by the arm and ushering him out of the locker room. He glanced back over his shoulder, looking for Blake, but he’d already rounded the corner into the changing rooms.
Johnny and Taylor talked boisterously at each other as they led him through the police station, their competing alpha scents making Pember’s nose prickle. He was fucking mortified by all the concerned stares he received, and the winding corridors seemed to go on forever. It didn’t take long for him to completely lose track of what part of the station he was in.
Johnny stopped abruptly outside a plain brown door. There was no sign, no indication of what department he was about to step into.
“Here,” Johnny said, knocking on the door once before shoving Pember through.
He yelped, stumbling forward into a plain white office with little more than a blue plastic chair, a beech coloured desk and two immaculately dressed betas with stern expressions.
“Mr McArthur, I assume?” the female said, her long red nails slicing through the air as she gestured to a chair in front of them.
“Y-yes,” he said, glancing at the chair but remaining standing.
“Please take a seat and we’ll explain why you’re here.”
“I-I’d prefer to stand, if that’s alright?”
