“Go check upstairs.” Waving my hand, Itried not to get frustrated with him.
Dakota rolled his eyes. “We’re going totalk about your head-in-the-sand approach to Griffin, but for now, I’m justgoing to make this clear. He doesn’t see you as some old friend. If he wasn’tseriously interested in you, he’d have found one of the flirts around here toat least get to know. Right now he’s chatting up the most boring alpha Doms inthe room. Why? Think about that.”
They weren’t boring.
“Mitch and Raymond seem very nice.” Theywere just a bit older than most of the omegas at the club. “Did you know therewould be Doms that age who wanted to join?” I wasn’t so ridiculous I didn’tthink older couples didn’t have a sex life, but eighty-year-old Doms who werelooking for subs was something I hadn’t expected.
“You’re delusional and I’m starting tothink you’re deliberately playing dumb.” He wagged his finger at me as hestarted walking away. “I’m going to sic Austin on you.”
With that as his parting threat, theasshole walked off.
I was surrounded by drama queens.
Chapter 8
Griffin
“You never cook on Friday.” Ari leaned overthe counter and inhaled deeply, staring at the oven. “And Italian at that. Youonly cook on Sundays and make healthy stuff for the rest of the week.”
Seth walked up beside him and nodded,mirroring the way Ari was leaning over the counter. “I thought it was for aclient or something when you started making it earlier, but we don’t haveanything tomorrow except those box lunches for the party.”
“Your faces are in the dictionary besidethe word nosy.” I tried to ignore their questions as I finished washing up thelast of the dishes, but it didn’t seem to work.
“No, they’re beside the word kinky.” Ari’sdirty response had Seth giggling. “But our dictionary fame isn’t importanthere. Why are you making that thousand cheese stuffed shells you said is somessy to make?”
I’d hoped keeping them busy running errandsand chopping vegetables would have made sure they didn’t notice what I wasdoing, but evidently not.
“Wade is coming over to hang out again andI promised him Italian.” And he was going to show up any minute, so thetroublemakers had to head out.
“Oh, that’s why he made tiramisu.” Sethpointed to the fridge. “It looks good.”
Ari grinned. “If he’s just coming to hangout, can we stay? We want to get to know your other friends. Maybe he’ll knowif we can work for the club.”
“There probably hasn’t been enough time forhim to figure that out.” While my response was accurate, it also opened upanother door to their nosy questions.
“I don’t think you have any friends you’veseen this many times in a week before. Two dinners and two trips to the club isa lot for one guy.” Ari’s grin widened. “If he’s just a friend, I mean.”
I had to remind myself that throwing thesoapy dishrag at him wouldn’t give me enough satisfaction to justify the messit would make.
“Most of the time I call you two monstersfriends and I see you more than that.” A lot of that was because we were doingpretty well and I had low enough overhead I could give them plenty of hours,but still, they couldn’t complain about how many hours a week I saw anyone.
Ari snorted. “We’re family, dude. Thatdoesn’t count. He’s not.”
I wasn’t sure whether to laugh or hug thehandful. “Yes, I see the difference, but I’ve known him for years. We’recatching up because we haven’t seen each other in a few years.”
As I put the last pan in the drainer, I sawthem exchange disbelieving looks. It was Seth who spoke up though. “You know,it’s okay if you feel more than just friendship for him. If his alpha has beengone that long then there’s—”
I wasn’t going to deny how right he was,but that didn’t mean I had to rehash everything. Interrupting Seth, I smiledand walked over to the counter. “It’s fine. He’s either not completely overMatthew or he just sees me as a buddy, and there’s nothing wrong with that. Ican be friends with subs or omegas or anyone like that without needing to havea relationship with them.”
They rolled their eyes in unison.
Ari cocked his head. “This isn’t somerandom omega you met at the club. And of course we know that because we’re hotand we’re not sleeping with you.”
“Not that it wouldn’t be fun.” Seth giggledas Ari nodded.
“But sadly, not the point. Where was I…ohyeah, he’s different. We can see that every time you talk about him. He’sspecial.” Ari gave me a concerned look that really belonged on someone a lotolder. “We’re worried about you.”
Sometimes they reminded me of out ofcontrol five-year-olds and sometimes they were wise beyond their years.
