Page 2 of Ashley & the A-Listers (Sweetverse)

2. PATIENCE

DYLAN

“What the fuck was that about?” Cameron bit out.

Dylan, frozen to the floor of the gym, watched Ashley —an alpha!— stalk away.

Fuck, her scent was a bolt to the chest, citrus and ginger and alpha. He felt fucking alive as she walked away. She was tall, taller than he remembered, and absolutely not even glancing his way as she disappeared into an office, shutting the door softly.

Dylan blinked after her, reeling.

“I—I don’t even know,” he answered, staring at the closed door as if he could still see her, years of memories overlapping in this present moment. Ashley in his passenger seat, much shorter, with half her face hidden behind chunky bangs.

Both of them scared of presenting as anything at all. School nights and road trips and crashing at her house more than his own.

Cameron punched his arm lightly to garner his attention, and the memories faded as the omega crossed his arms. “Way to go!” Cameron hissed. “You scared her off. Why?”

Biting the inside of his cheek, Dylan shrugged. “I don’t think that’s important right now. What’s important is…you left without me this morning. You know you’re not supposed to do that.”

Dylan wanted to strangle this little shit. Cam had been slipping through his fingers all fucking week, refusing to text him to let him know when Cam was leaving, making Dylan’s job impossible.

“I managed,” Cameron told him, attention already roaming like it always did when Dylan broached this subject.

Frustration welled up in him, and Dylan grumbled to himself, pushing a hand through his hair. “This is not about whether you are capable; it’s about keeping you safe. Don’t run off again, please . Don’t make my job harder than it has to be.” Dylan wasn’t one to beg, but he was here for one reason: to protect this stubborn, spoiled omega.

Cameron rolled his eyes. “Whatever the alpha says.”

Dylan arched a brow at that. It wasn’t the first time Cameron had thrown his designation in his face. There was a pattern here. “Seemed to be getting on with that alpha pretty well,” he said, pointing over his shoulder with his thumb.

Ashley. An alpha . Still boggled his mind. The last he’d seen her, she’d been… well. Eighteen, on her front step, spotlit by his headlights and waving goodbye as he pulled out of her driveway. Only she hadn’t known it would be for the last time.

“Well, she’s—” Cameron stumbled. “Charming. You’re not. Why’d you run her off? What was that about, anyway?” he asked, deflecting. “You clearly know each other.”

He didn’t ask it like a question.

Dylan sighed. “You’re not wrong.”

“And why does she so visibly hate you?” Cameron asked.

Throwing his hands up, Dylan huffed, “Can I have five minutes to process it myself before rehashing it with my client? One who doesn’t even like me, mind you.”

Cameron shut his mouth at that, lips thinned. “Maybe therapy is doing you some good after all.”

Releasing a slow breath, Dylan rolled his eyes. “I sure hope so, if I’m going to be putting up with you.”

“Maybe we should get you some anxiety meds. You’re like a great dane,” Cameron drawled.

Dylan’s eye twitched.

Cameron glared at him for a moment. “I already don’t like alphas. I dare you to give me another reason.”

“I’m here to protect you, for god’s sake,” Dylan insisted.

“Then tell me what all that,” he said, wiggling his finger in Ashley’s direction, “was about.”

“Give me one good reason,” Dylan demanded, and then shook his head. “It doesn’t concern you. Besides, isn’t your actual trainer supposed to be here soon? Focus on that!”

With his arms crossed, Cameron narrowed his gaze, lips pursed. “Well, now I’m more curious than ever. Tell you what,” he began, and placed a hand on his own chest. “I’ll make your job a little easier by…” Here, he paused, and Dylan got the impression he had to force the next words out. “ By behaving . If! If, you tell me what’s going on.”

Dylan blinked. “You’ll… ‘behave’? In what sense?”

“In whatever sense will get me the most information? I’ll share my location with you, how about that?” Cameron went over to his bag and pulled out his phone, trailing back to Dylan as he tapped at the screen.

Cameron faced the phone toward him. “See? Done.”

Dylan tried not to take offense at the fact that his contact in Cameron’s phone was apparently “Knothead.”

His own device, tucked in his pocket, vibrated with the notification.

When Dylan didn’t say anything, mostly because he was reeling from the lengths this utterly stubborn omega would go to for some gossip, Cam continued. “And… I’ll even try to stop sneaking out.”

“You’ll let me know before you plan to go anywhere?” Dylan asked suspiciously. It seemed too good to be true.

“Yep, as long as you tell me what happened.”

“Alright,” Dylan agreed, not wanting to miss this opportunity. “We were best friends growing up.” Cameron’s eyes practically glowed . “Then I presented as an alpha, and she didn’t, and it got weird.”

Cameron’s expression melted into disappointment. “But she is an alpha. What are you leaving out? I want the whole story.”

Dylan groaned, dragging his hands down his face. “It was a decade ago—I don’t see why it has any merit right now.”

“Because I’m going to be training here for the next two months, that’s why. I do not need to be around all that negative energy,” Cameron said. “It’ll ruin the process.”

“The process, huh?” Dylan mused as a different kind of bell chimed, and he turned toward the door to find Ashley back at the desk, eying the door before she did something behind the desk to open it.

He appreciated the security, and relaxed, shifting his attention back to the omega.

Cameron’s eyes drifted up and down his body. “You wouldn’t understand,” he said.

“Oh, look, your trainer’s here,” Dylan drawled, taking the chance to escape the conversation while he could.

Cameron glared before turning his back on Dylan to greet the trainer, officially dismissing him.

Dylan tilted his head back, begging for patience.

He was going to need it.

When Cameron predictably slipped through Dylan’s fingers the next morning, he pulled up his tracking app, and found the newly shared pin at a coffee shop right next to the gym.

Relief filled him. Then annoyance.

He knew he should track Cameron down to escort him from the coffee shop to the gym. It was what Dylan was supposed to do. The last thing he wanted on his first job after… after the previous one, was to fuck everything up.

But this was a different situation. An easier charge, lower stakes. Wes Pike trusted him, and Dylan wouldn’t let him down.

However, giving Cameron ten minutes to himself wouldn’t be the end of the world.

And selfishly, he realized this gave himself the perfect opportunity to clear some things up with Ashley without a nosey audience.

Maybe if he set things right, it wouldn’t be weird, and wouldn’t pique Cameron’s annoying curiosity.

It was as good a reason as any, so Dylan set off.

Would she even look at him? She hadn’t been inclined to the day before. What was he even going to say?

Sorry I completely changed the nature of our relationship in one stupid moment and then bailed? Sorry I left without a single word and then was too scared to contact you?

He’d been over this hypothetical situation—facing Ashley—in therapy a hundred times. But then the reflective windows came into view, and he forgot all of it.

He still couldn’t believe that of all the gyms, this happened to be the one she managed. It had to be fate, right? Hell of a coincidence.

He couldn’t see through the film on the glass, but he imagined she rolled her eyes when she saw him.

Was it hot? Was he sweating?

Steeling himself, he waved his guest card at the glass door.

A beep sounded, then the lock unlatched and he pulled the door open, feeling like he was facing a firing squad as his gaze fell to the front desk, to…

Not Ashley behind the desk.

Fuck.

“Hey there,” Nic, the owner of the gym, greeted.

“Morning,” Dylan responded, trying not to let his disappointment show on his face.

“I get that look from everyone when Ashley is off,” Nic teased.

Dylan’s cheeks flushed, but before he could apologize, Nic waved a hand.

“Don’t fret. I know she’s a kinder sight than me.”

Dylan chuckled, the awkwardness eating at him despite Nic’s casual demeanor. It made sense that Ashley wouldn’t be at the gym every single day, but he just figured…

Well, he didn’t know what he thought, but the disappointment was a stone in his chest, and he wasn’t one for small talk.

“I’ll just… be over here, waiting for Cameron.”

“Sure thing!” Nic said in that jovial voice.

He trailed across the gym to the area beside the hallway leading to the room they’d used the day before, and waited. To kill time, he pulled out his phone and found a text from Cameron.

Wow, improvement?—

Getting coffee. Be there eventually.

Ugh!

How was he going to spend the next six months protecting the little shit if he didn’t bother communicating? Only a few weeks on the job, and Dylan hadn’t seen any progress, except in the impressive way Cameron constantly slipped away or strung together new insults.

If anything happened to this omega…

He let his eyes shut as memories threatened to manifest, shaking his head to dismiss them.

This was a different kind of client, and if Wes trusted him to keep this omega safe, then Dylan could trust himself.

You trusted yourself last time, too.

Dylan bit the inside of his cheek and forced his thoughts in a different direction.

At least Cameron’s location was shared, so he could keep an eye on him. But this cooperation was coming at a cost. What was Dylan going to tell him? The truth?

Rolling his eyes, Dylan ran through some stretches of his own while he waited. He felt the beta glance at him a few times and Dylan averted his gaze each time.

It sucked that Ashley was off today. It was no secret he was looking forward to seeing her, though she didn’t seem to feel the same way.

Not that I blame her.

He was going to have to figure out a way to talk to her. It used to be so easy when they were younger, like second nature. They’d tease each other and accidentally hit a little too close to home. Then they’d wrestle about it or dare the other to do something stupid to make up for it.

But it was different now. They’d be in the same gym for a while—surely he could find a way to bridge the gap between them? He could start with an apology. Preferably without an audience.

“How’s it going?” Nic asked, and Dylan startled from his seat on the floor, one hand grasped around the toe of his shoe. When the fuck had he left the desk?

Dylan was so far in his head, even his awareness was shit. Idiot .

“Uh… everything’s fine. Why?”

“You’re going to pull a muscle stretching like that,” Nic said. “Want some help?”

“Well, ah—” Before Dylan could even form a denial, Nic sat across from him in the same position and motioned for Dylan to mimic him. “Okay then,” he mumbled, without much of a choice.

If there was twinkle in Nic’s eye, Dylan was too taken aback to catch it.

“Think of your back like a zipper, yeah?” Nic began, and Dylan reluctantly followed along. “One vertebrae at a time.”

It did feel nice, and Dylan grunted out an approval as he let Nic lead him into a different stretch.

“So, you’re a bodyguard?” Nic asked.

They were doing a twist, so Nic couldn’t see the way Dylan bit his cheek. He hated small talk, and it bothered him when people couldn’t take a hint. “Yeah, that’s me.”

“Sounds stressful.”

“It… can be,” Dylan hedged.

“New to the city?”

Dylan was suspicious, but this was the owner of the gym they’d be frequenting for the next few months. Ashley’s boss.

“Actually, I grew up here. It’s just been a while since I’ve been home,” he offered. See? He could play nice.

He twisted to the other side, his back popping in a few places.

“What made you come back?”

Dylan sensed nothing odd in the beta’s scent, mostly covered by the chemical lemon smell of the cleaning spray that filled the gym. “I took this, uh, job, and it led me back here.”

“You all packed up?”

Dylan was so appalled at the blatant question that he could only answer, “No?” Why did that matter?

“Doesn’t that make it hard to look after an omega? If you’re both unmated.”

Well, Cam may be unmated, but he wasn’t single. Nic didn’t know that, though, along with the rest of the world. Dylan didn’t owe Nic an answer to even one of these questions, let alone all of them. But then again, if he wanted to get in Ashley’s good graces, pissing off her boss was probably not a great start.

“Uh, no. We take compatibility tests before we’re paired with a client so there’s no issues.”

As they came back to center, Nic got to his feet and Dylan opted to follow him, but Nic, well?—

This fucker pressed hard against Dylan’s shoulder, and pushed him onto his back. Nic was harmless —there wasn’t a hint of aggression in his motions—but Dylan was surprised.

“Hey, what the fuck—” he snapped, a bit of a bark in his tone.

It wasn’t a sexual move, pinning him to the floor. Quite the opposite. Dylan wanted to laugh, but was so flabbergasted by the audacity that he kept his mouth shut. Nic had those good-intentioned vibes, like a cousin who was a little weird.

Nic gripped his shoe and lifted, applying pressure on his leg until Dylan’s hamstrings were singing.

“Let’s cut the bullshit,” Nic said, grinning down at him. With the overhead fluorescents casting his expression in shadow, the beta looked a little… scary.

“Ashley told me a little about you,” Nic continued, and Dylan swallowed back his growl. He didn’t sense any malice from Nic, though he was sticking his nose where it certainly didn’t belong. “You here to cause problems?”

“Not for her. I’m here to do my job,” Dylan said, studying Nic.

If he wasn’t mistaken, the beta looked… disappointed. “Well. A workout can be challenging, ” he said, arching a brow at Dylan. “And usually, a little warm-up can go a long way.”

The beta was not talking about a routine.

Was he talking about Ashley, or was Dylan just so hung up on seeing her again that he was looking for hints where there were none?

“Warming up is… important,” Dylan guessed.

Nic nodded like a maniac. Dylan decided he liked the beta. “Exactly. It takes time for a muscle to adjust to a routine. Especially if that routine has been interrupted by a familiar face.”

“Right…” Now Dylan was losing the plot a bit, and obviously Nic could tell.

He huffed, stepping away, and Dylan lowered his leg to the ground.

“Just be patient,” Nic finally said, and motioned for Dylan to lift the other.

He scowled, but Nic just eyed him, and Dylan cooperated with a sigh.

Patience. Dylan was sparse on that when it came to Cameron, but for Ashley? He could manage.

He would try to catch her again the next training day. Dylan supposed he could just ask Nic when she’d be working again, but that felt… wrong, somehow. He wasn’t trying to be a creep—he was just trying to make this whole thing as painless as possible, since they were going to be using this gym for Cameron’s training for the next several weeks.

The last thing Dylan wanted was for Cameron to accuse him of killing the vibe.

Brat.

As if summoned, the omega came through the doors with a beep, and Dylan breathed a sigh of relief as Nic stepped away.

Cameron looked the opposite of relieved, though, barely greeting Nic before coming to stand over Dylan. “What are you lounging around for? We have a problem,” he said. Dylan noted the stress lines around his eyes and the sour note to his usually dull scent.

Instinctively, Dylan clocked the exits and windows, and found no physical threat, but the omega was clearly shaken up about something, clutching his coffee with white knuckles.

“What is it?” Dylan asked, ignoring the dig and getting to his feet.

“My trainer’s in the fucking hospital,” he hissed, lips flattening to a thin, unhappy line.

“What?”

“Yeah, the one we met here yesterday? He—he broke his foot!” Cameron raked a hand through his hair, and not for the first time this morning. It was already messier than Dylan had ever seen from this usually pristine omega.

“What does this mean for you?” Dylan asked calmly, trying to focus Cam’s nervous energy into a logical solution.

“There’s no way he’s going to be able to help me learn the basics of kickboxing,” Cameron said, throwing an arm out as if it was obvious. “So it means I’m fucked out of one of three fighting techniques they want from me for this film. Fuck!” Stress oozed from Cameron, bittering the sweet notes of his scent, and Dylan’s first urge was to soothe.

Instead, he decided to tackle the problem head-on. “What do you want to do?”

“I don’t know!” Cameron snapped. His arms were crossed, closed off, anxious. “I really liked that guy. He was a beta, so I felt safe with him. Production said they’d get back to me about a replacement, but it took us so long to find this guy, and?—“

“They’ll probably send you an alpha,” Dylan surmised.

Cameron’s brow furrowed at just the thought, and unbidden, Dylan went into problem-solver mode. Maybe this he could fix.

“We could find someone before they do? Do you know anyone that doesn’t make you want to pull your hair out?”

They tossed a few ideas around, but came to no conclusion several minutes later. Cameron was growing frustrated and his scent was practically a bruise, even dulled.

“Sorry to interrupt,” Nic called out, and Dylan realized the beta hadn’t even gone very far, wiping down an already clean machine as he listened in. Dylan refrained from rolling his eyes. “Couldn’t help but overhear,” he said, and Dylan’s lips twitched.

Dylan motioned him over, and Cameron huffed.

“What’s up?”

“I have a trainer who has an opening for new clients right now, if you’re open to suggestions.”

“Who is it?” Cameron asked.

“Her name’s Ashley,” Nic supplied.

Dylan watched Cameron’s whole posture change. He stood up straighter, arms dropping to his side, expression softening.

“She agreed to that?” Dylan asked, surprised.

Nic glanced down at his cell phone, tapping the screen to read the preview of a text. “Sure did, just now.”

“You act fast,” Dylan observed.

Nic shrugged, trying to hide a smile. “Just here to help.”

“She’s an alpha,” Cameron murmured, chewing on his lip.

Dylan arched a brow, surprise filling him. “She’s an alpha.”

“I know that,” Cameron answered. “I’m still in.”

Nic’s grin slipped free. “Perfect. Do you want to adhere to the schedule we already have you down for?”

“Does that work for her?” Cameron asked.

“If it doesn’t, I’m sure she’ll let you know,” Nic offered, still smiling, like the cat who got the canary.

Cameron’s lips curled up into a matching smile, and Dylan sighed.

It looked like he was going to get his chance to apologize after all.