Earl’s bony fingers were cool and dry on his sweaty forehead. The sun was warm, despite the cool weather. Life in Wellport was considered pleasant by those who lived in the northern, and less temperate areas of the country. A day like today, mild and cool enough to warrant a sweater in the shade, was as bad as winter ever got. No snow, no ice. Ned remembered those cold days from when he and his father, Lidell, had lived farther from his Uncle Heath. But the move nearer to the ocean had been for the best. If he sat and squinted from his father’s high patio, he could make out the waves crashing against the cliffs in the distance.
“Angry about what?” Earl asked, smoothing Ned’s hair from his forehead and smiling at him. Thin as a whip, and gray on top, Earl had probably been handsome once, but time had taken its toll. He seemed sadder now, too, since Uncle Heath had moved to the outskirts of the city taking Simon, Earl’s husband, with him. Simon had been unwilling to abandon his charges (Heath and Adrien’s son Michael, plus another babe on the way,) so he and Earl saw each other on weekends now. It was clearly a hardship. Ned had thought about sending Earl away to live with Simon so he could be happier. Ned wasn’t a baby anymore and could do without a personal servant. But then he would find himself in a situation like this one, and, no, he still needed Earl by his side.
“Out with it,” Earl said with that nudge of command that always did the trick for Ned.
He let his hatred out, without regard to Earl’s finer feelings. “Fuck Braden Tenmeter! And fuck Finch Maddox! And fuck their fathers, too!”
Earl’s brows twitched, but he didn’t reprimand Ned for his language. “Indeed?”
“Yes,fuckthem. If I didn’t have to play nice with those assholes for the sake of Father’s business contracts—”
Earl tutted. “Something young men like you shouldn’t have any knowledge of anyway, if I do say so myself.”
“Yes, well, if I didn’t have to kiss their ugly asses for Father’s sake, I wouldn’t hang out with them at all.” The clouds shifted over the sun, and Ned shivered on the lounger.
“I should think not.” Earl took his jacket off and spread it over Ned’s shoulders and chest. The lingering warmth from Earl’s body made Ned feel safe. He pulled it closer around and took a sniff of it, too. Cigars and lemon drops. Oh, Earl. He loved him so much. What would he do if hediddecide to go help with the new baby at Heath’s when it came? “Go on, Ned. Tell me everything.”
“Finch and Braden, they’re…they’re such…dicks,” Ned finished, wishing there were stronger words in his repertoire, but unsure if stronger words even existed. If they did, he’d apply them to Braden and Finch for sure. “I hate them.”
“And you’ve hated them for a very long time. They’ve gotten you into all kinds of trouble. Like that orgy last year.”
Ned blushed. He hated that anyone knew about that, much less Earl. He’d been such a stupid, hornyidiot. Fucking a string of omegas at a sex party thrown by Braden’s older alpha brother, acting like he was some kind of king, and feeling like one too.
He’d fucked omegas before, but that party had been next level, with gorgeous omegas handpicked from one of the local colleges. He’d been pumped full of Bright’s powder and flying high. He’d never felt so powerful, and neither had the other alphas with him.
He and Braden had strutted around school for days afterward feeling like royalty. Only to find out later that in the basement that night, at the same house, during the same party, there had been some deeply disturbing things going on without the omega in question’s consent. One of the alphas they were supposed to have graduated with was in prison now. Braden’s older brother had gotten off with a slap on the wrist, but there was money behind that decision, Ned knew.
In the end, he’d been lucky Uncle Heath had stepped in and gotten all of that cleared from his record. He’d come so close to having colleges closed to him forever, as well as any decent marriage. And all for a few hours of feeling high on powder and acting as if he could fuck any sweet hole in the world. How stupid was that?
“Heath would like you to be done with those two, Simon tells me.”
“Yes, I know. But that comes with a high price.” He gave Earl a significant look. They were both aware of his father’s situation. No one could live in the house and not be. They’d be high and dry within a month of being cut off by the Maddoxes and Tenmeters.
“It does. So what have they done now?” Earl asked, crossing one leg over the other and twining his fingers in his lap.
Ned squirmed beneath Earl’s jacket, unwilling to meet his old servant’s eye.
Earl hummed, and then said, “Oh, I see. It’s something you’ve done as well, then, and you’re ashamed of it.”
Ned gave a sharp nod. “Yes. And it’s awful. I hate it. I hatemyselffor it.” He flopped back on the lounger, with all the miserable angst of an idiot alpha who had reluctantly participated in the roughing up and near-rape of his hopeless, desperate crush.
“Hmm, well, shame is uncomfortable to endure.”
Ned twisted up his face, wishing he had the balls to ask Earl what he knew of shame, just so he wouldn’t feel so alone in his badness. But he suspected that no matter what Earl shared with him, it wouldn’t take the sting of what he’d done away. And it probably shouldn’t.
Earl touched Ned’s hair, moving a lock off his forehead. “Is there a way to make up for what you’ve done?”
Ned squirmed again, a strange, pulsing rush going through him as he imagined going back to the apartment building, finding Ezer there at the table again, and apologizing to him. Perhaps with flowers. And a declaration of intent. A promise to make his life better. To marry him.
Ugh. He was an idiot.
“No. Not really,” he huffed. “And I don’t know how to make it stop, because it’s Braden and Finch, too, and if I don’t go along with them…” He spread his hands. “I hate that I have to make nice with them all the time.”
“What’s the worst that would happen if you stopped hanging out with these boys?”
Ned huffed. “You know.”
Earl nodded. “I know what youthinkwould happen and what your fatherfearswould happen, but are you that important to them? Maybe they’d be content to let you go with just a little bullying. A loss of social status for you, yes, but with Heath’s money you’re still protected. Your father less so, but—”
