Page 27 of Happily Ever After… Again and Again

“Oh, no,” he whispers at the sight of the hot pink Honda Civic, visible in all its bumper-sticker-covered glory even through the front gate camera.

“Do not sayoh, nolike that.” Luca scrambles to his knees beside him on the couch.

“It’s Tommy.”

“Oh, no.”

“That’s what I said,” Nix groans. “Shit, you have to come out with me.”

Of course, it’s Tommy Choi who is here delivering Nix’s contraband. Again. The ultimate Nix-fan, adoring and persistent.

“Oh, Nix, you are more beautiful than the moon. Oh, Nix, your freckles are like stars in the sky. Oh, Nix—”

Luca throws himself dramatically over the back of the sectional, hand to forehead like a Regency maiden with vapors.

“Shut it. Or you’ll go out there on your own.”

“Noooooooo. And listen to him whine and ask questions about where you are? No, thank you. It will takehalf the time if you smile and wave and tell him to go.”

The gate buzzes again, and Luca hopes the second time didn’t ping a warning on Gideon’s phone, wherever he is.

It’s easy enough to use the front door keypad to open the gate, and he and Nix walk out to meet the exuberant, infatuated Uber Eats delivery guy.

He’s cute-ish in the college-broke, incense-smelling, too-intense-eye-contact kind of way. It’s hard not to compare every man to his perfect mates where everyone else would come up short. Even without the creepy smile and standing too close.

Luca calls him a Nixsimp, and it hadn’t taken long for their mates to catch on.

They’d finally had to stop ordering from Uber Eats when the alphas were home because when Tommy had delivered Giorgio’s one night a month ago, Rowan had chased him down the drive and out of the gate. On foot. Into the street. For a block. All after he’d told Nix his eyes were like a starlight foggy afternoon over a stormy ocean off the coast of Nantucket.

Whatever that meant.

Since then, they let Leo order it and go out to get the food for them. It never paid to let Tommy get too close to the door, just in case he tried to come in and locate Nix for himself. Nix doesn’t want the demise of one more delivery person on his conscience.

“Why do we keep getting this guy? Aren’t there hundreds of other drivers on the schedule?” Luca whispers. It’s not like the human could hear them from inside his pink Honda Civic, but just in case.

“Oh Em Gee! Hi, Nixie. You look great!” He’s out of the car before the food, spinning around mid-step like he forgot why he came.

Nix just blinks.

Nix does not, in fact, look great. He’s wearing a stained T-shirt that Luca had spilled chocolate sauce on when they’d made sundaes for lunch, an old pair of Gideon’s bunny slippers, and a pair of Finn’s boxers as shorts.

“Hello, Tommy,” Luca says pointedly. Not because he cares about being forgotten but because of his familiarity with Nix. The virtual stranger had not been granted the casual address, and while Nix didn’t mind, Luca sureas hell did.

He was not above a bit of jealousy, either, beta or not.

“Oh, yeah, hey, Mr. Wilde.”

“Hi,” Nix says, holding out his hands for the food.

Tommy has bowed ninety degrees, presenting it as if Nix were the Goddess Themself.

“Thank you for bringing this. Have a good night. Bye.”

“Wait!” he yells as Nix turns to go, dragging Luca by the elbow in case his mate takes a page out of Rowan’s book.

“Uh…” Tommy utters, stalling. “I was wondering if you wanted to come to this cleansing thing tonight atFruit of the—”

Luca’s scent goes burnt, his face floods bright red, and he pulls hard on the iron grip Nix has on his arm.