Page 40 of Sold to the wrong Alpha
One word. Then silence.
“Zev’s been here since the beginning.” Brody set the glass down on the counter. The gesture was casual, but the meaning wasn’t: since the beginning implied a shared history that Ren didn’t know and that no one seemed willing to tell him.
Jax plopped down on the stool next to Ren with a plate piled high.
“Since before there was a decent kitchen,” he mumbled. “Back then, we were living off microwaves and cans.”
“You’re exaggerating,” Zev muttered without taking his eyes off the pasta.
“Remember the macaroni from the first week?” Jax pointed with his fork. “Stuck to the pot. The three of us ate with spoons straight from the pot. We looked like college students without scholarships.”
Zev’s mouth curved a millimeter. Imperceptible to anyone except Ren, who was watching him, and Brody, who was watching him too.
“Eat, Zev.”
That voice again. Ren twirled the spaghetti with more force than necessary. The fork scraped against the ceramic.
Rocco finally sat down and ate in a comfortable silence that seemed rehearsed. Five people around a kitchen island not designed for group dinners, elbows too close, plates too close together. Ren observed the dynamic from his corner. Jax was talking. Rocco ate. Zev read between bites. And Brody watched over them, but only one of them.
Every time Zev put down his fork for over thirty seconds, Brody’s jaw tensed. When Zev reached for the tablet, Brody reached out and pushed it out of his reach without a word. Zev didn’t protest. He accepted the correction naturally.
They were the gestures of someone who had been taking care of another for years. Years. Not days. The familiarity between them was thick, compact, forged by something that went beyond casual cohabitation.
Ren looked at the two of them. Brody. Zev. The protective alpha and the boy who let himself be protected. The spaghetti he’d eaten turned sour in his stomach.
He didn’t want to name what he felt. He didn’t want to give it shape or weight or color. But there it was, lodged in his heart like a splinter of ice: the question of why Brody was showing a boy who looked like a teenager the same tenderness he’d shown him when he whispered you’re mine.
The night presented itself as a challenge. Even when he didn’t want to remember the sweetness in Brody’s eyes when looking at Zev, that was the only thing that appeared in his closing eyes when Ren tried to sleep. He cursed himself for being so stupid.
Chapter 10
The toast crunched between Ren’s teeth with a sharp crack that echoed through the kitchen. He chewed slowly. Swallowed. Grabbed another piece. Bit into it with the same unnecessary force.
Jax watched him from across the island, his fork suspended halfway between the plate of scrambled eggs and his mouth. He tilted his head.
“Who pissed in your cereal?”
Ren didn’t look up. He tore off another piece of toast.
“No one.”
“Yeah, right.” Jax shoved the fork into his mouth and chewed without taking his eyes off him. “You’ve been tearing up the bread for ten minutes like it insulted you. What’s going on?”
“Nothing.”
“Ren.”
The omega set the toast down on the plate. His fingers were trembling, not from fear but from something hotter, more acidic. Something that had eaten away at his sleep and left a bitter aftertaste in his mouth that even coffee couldn’t wash away.
“Brody and Zev,” he blurted out without preamble. “Are they together?”
Jax blinked. Once. Twice. The fork clinked against the plate when he dropped it. And then laughter exploded in his chest like thunder, huge, brutal, the guffaw that made the glasses on the counter rattle.
“Brody and…?” He clutched his side. His shoulders rose and fell like pistons. “Brody and Zev?”
Ren clenched his jaw. Heat climbed up his neck.
“I don’t see what’s so funny.”
