Even being lectured for a week straight about not disappearing for two days couldn't stifle the general cloud of relief and goodwill that Sebastian seemed to be wandering about in. He tried for a while to tone down his general mood during the periods he was being directly scolded, but it didn't seem to matter either way. He'd thought, somehow, that his mom would be able to tell that he'd had his heat, that he was now a full-fledged Omega, and that he'd done it with his best friend to boot, but that didn't happen at all.

Whatever his reasons for staying out for a couple of days, she never asked, instead concentrating all of her annoyance at how inconsiderate he'd been not to call and update her hourly on his movements, and how he shouldn't do these things this close to finally graduating from college. His protests that he hadn't skipped one single class – ignoring the fact that he had a couple of pages of hilariously useless notes from when he'd started going into heat – fell on deaf ears, and so he subsided into sullen silence and just waited things out.

He had a lot to think about anyway. It was possible that his good mood wasn't so much the lingering effects of hormones and physical relief as it was about finally knowing what his heat was like and finding out that it wasn't as dramatic as everyone had kind of implied it was. The moment it had hit him had been dramatic, of course, but he could have gotten through it on his own if he'd had to and he hadn't totally changed into a different person afterwards, someone who was head-over-heels in love with the Alpha who'd fucked the heat out of him. Logan was his buddy – his best buddy. But he didn't need to be with him every second of the day any more than he had beforehand.

It was kind of a shame that Logan probably wouldn't be around once Sebastian moved out of town, so he wouldn't be available for any future heats that needed to be taken care of, but that wasn't Sebastian's problem. He'd known pretty much since he'd begun to make plans to get out of this small town that a lot of his friends, Logan among them, were more content than he was to stick around in the place they'd grown up in. It was still worth going to see the world.

If his mother was oblivious to anything except her own annoyance at Sebastian's behavior, his friends, however, were more discerning. Only a couple of rounds into their darts game, Cassie started teasing him about how chipper he was despite his dismal score, and that was all that the whole group needed to pounce on him with their gentle ribbing.

Even Logan got in on it, which on one hand was deeply unfair, but on the other made Sebastian feel way better about having dragged Logan into all of his messy biology. They hadn't seen each other in a couple of days, and the middle of a bar, surrounded by Sebastian's friends, wasn't exactly the best place to ask him if things were weird between them. So it was really lucky that things weren't weird, and Logan could tease him just like normal, even though he definitely knew exactly what was going on.

"Can't I just be cheerful?" Sebastian protested as the game at the other dart board finished and Darian and Amy came over to spectate and jeer at him and Cassie.

"Not with a score like that," Amy called, raising her pint to him and laughing.

Sebastian snorted. "Whatever. Who cares about darts when we're one set of exams down and only five months ahead before we're finished school!"

Darian laughed. "So you're not worried about those five months ahead? Because they look like a lot of work to me."

"I guess some of us are just better than others," Sebastian retorted, completely missing his shot – again – because he was laughing at his own joke. It felt good to joke about how much work was ahead: it helped him forget just how much seemed to be riding on his success. He shook his head. Now wasn't the time. Now was for fun.

"Wait, what's happening in five months?" Logan said, pretending to be oblivious, but he was shouted down as everyone immediately turned on him and pointed out that he was practically ancient, being a full two years older than the rest of them and therefore out of school for the same length of time. Which was exactly what he deserved, though Sebastian really needed to hold off on throwing his darts until he was completely sure that he'd gotten over the giggles.

Unsurprisingly, Cassie won the game, and Sebastian bowed out of the next one to let her play Logan. He liked darts fine, but sometimes it was easier to just sit on the sidelines and heckle along with everyone else who was sitting this one out. Besides, it soothed his ego to be reminded that Cassie could beat just about anyone, not only him.

Were Logan's jeans always that tight? He didn't remember them being that tight before, but maybe he just hadn't been looking, or maybe the motion required to toss a dart emphasized it while sitting down didn't? Or was it just that now Sebastian knew that that wasn't a fold in the front, it really was the faint outline of Logan's dick, mostly only visible when he leaned back against the bar to watch Cassie make her bullseyes, but still very distracting?

This heat thing might be more complicated than Sebastian had thought. But he'd spent years worrying that it was going to be a total life-ruiner, world-shaker, everything's-about-to-go-crazy moment. A little bit of complication was something he could handle just fine. He had better things to do with his time than to worry about something that might not recur for months.

Like trying to beat someone at darts, even if it had to be Darian's total lack of skill.