Chapter Six
Tennyson
When Jarmin walked up to me at the ice-cream shop, my first thought was to tell him to buzz off. Sure, he was cute enough, but I already had my eyes set on someone else. But when he made some small talk focused entirely on Greer, I realized he was my way in.
And then I found myself doing something I never did—I invited him on a date. Not just any date, either. I invited him to dinner—at my house. My apartment, really, but the same thing.
I could’ve invited him to meet me at the local club. Heck, I could’ve invited him to meet me on omega night and set us up for what this should be—a one-night fling with no strings attached. But as I stood there and he looked up at me from beneath his lashes, out came a dinner invite.
He was more, or I wanted him to be, and that was all kind of fucked-up. My lifestyle didn’t mesh with long-term anything—not even house plants. And yet I found myself wanting to explore that with Greer.
Any lingering doubt I had that my mind and body were both headed in that direction vanished when my lips brushed against his cheek.
And that was how I found myself staring at my phone, letting my finger hover over the send button like a loser head. It wasn’t as if I had anything profound in the message. Nope. Are we still on for Friday? But hitting send gave the very real possibility that he could say we weren’t, and I wasn’t ready to hear that.
I downed the rest of my coffee and pressed send before I could chicken out for the fifteenth time. I watched as it said delivered and then came the worst part—the waiting.
In my head, I had a ridiculous idea that if he was on board he would immediately respond, saying it was all he could think about, and he was counting the seconds. Which conversely meant that every millisecond that went by without his response indicated that the likelihood he was going to turn me down grew exponentially.
I filled my mug, chastising myself for my inability to act like the strong confident alpha I’d always been. There was just something about Greer that had me off-kilter. And darn it, I liked it even if it had me standing at the counter, guzzling coffee, and staring at my phone screen.
Five minutes later, my phone indicated a message, not that I needed the sound since I was watching the screen while it came through. Yeah, I’d become that guy.
I am looking forward to it. Can I bring Shrimp?
For a half a second, I thought he was offering to bring dinner and was all kinds of confused, and then I remembered his little wiener dog of cuteness.
I’d love to have him come.
Less than a minute later because yeah, I counted, he responded.
Will Gizmo mind? Some dogs are not too happy to share their space.
Having had enough of the texting banter, I hit the phone button. He picked up on the first ring, his voice twice as sexy as I remembered it being, and I’d been remembering everything I could about him pretty much around the clock. It was worse than when I had my first crush as a teen. Although in all honesty, I didn’t remember my crush on my math teacher being this intense, although at the time I’d have disagreed with you, citing my forever undying love for Mr. Maverick would stand the test of time.
‘Hello?” Greer asked as if he thought maybe I misdialed.
“I thought talking might be better than texting. But if you’re busy...”
“Not busy. I just finished up the afternoon rush and left work for a bit to take Shrimp for a walk and get some fresh air. I’m not used to business being so intense. I mean it is a good thing—a great thing. I just need to find balance—am I making sense?”
He made total sense. I had no balance when I focused solely on getting tenure, and it nearly crushed my spirit.
“You really are.” I smiled to myself, imagining walking with him and Gizmo like we had that first day. “And I meant to tell you before I got distracted by hearing your voice, Gizmo belongs to my neighbor Pops, I just walk him sometimes as a favor.”
“You got distracted by my voice?”
“Ha, yeah. Don’t tell me you don’t know how sexy you sound.”
“No one has ever said that to me before.” Damn, he sounded serious. I put compliment Greer on little things on my list for our date because if he wasn’t aware of how sexy he sounded, I guessed he didn’t get compliments often enough. Not that I had a real list. Although maybe I should because this omega had me off my game from the get-go.
“Well, you do. So, Friday is a go?” I snapped my mouth shut before I sounded any fucking needier.
“Absolutely. I think I have things covered at work, so unless we get completely slammed, I should be out by dinnertime. What should I bring?”
I had a feeling condoms wasn’t the right answer, as much as my mind wandered to the vision of us needing them. The moment his voice hit my eardrums, my cock stood at attention, begging to be let out.
“Just you—and Shrimp. Do you have any allergies or foods you hate?” The last thing I wanted to do was to make something for him he couldn’t or wouldn’t eat, or worse have him whipping out the EpiPen as I called 9-1-1.
“No allergies except pollen, and I eat most anything except spaghetti in a can.”
That was one I hadn’t heard before.
“Guessing there is a story there.” I chuckled.
“Oh yeah. I’ll tell you about it some time.”
“It’s good to hear you have no huge dislikes. I was going to make my world-famous grits.” I lifted my tone as I said grits, hoping he’d catch the joke.
“To go with Shrimp?” Good omega.
“You got me.”
“Shrimp, no!” he called far louder than normal. “I need to go. Shrimp found a mud puddle. I was distracted and didn’t see we were so close.”
“I’ll take distracted as a compliment. Talk to you soon.”
As the phone disconnected, my smile stayed glued to my face. Greer was easy to talk to. I couldn’t wait until Friday. Not that I was patiently waiting before the phone call. There was just something about Greer.