Page 9 of Curtis & Jae (Mate Match #1)

Nine

Curtis

Still feeling a little stiff and a lot tired from my weekend with Jae, I eased down onto my office chair with a sigh.

I knew it wouldn’t be long before the rest of the crew turned up for what was sure to be a busy day.

I’d have loved to get a little more sleep, though that would have meant hanging up from my call far sooner than I had. Me and Jae had talked for hours!

There had never been someone in my life like him. I’d never been the type of person to spend hours on a phone call. Somehow Jae just kept me talking, kept me interested and wanting to know more about him.

Was it too early to text him? It was only 7am. Yeah, that was too early. The poor guy was recovering from his heat and needed more sleep. I knew they could be draining from hanging around Marty and Grace.

As if summoned by my thoughts, the pair of them entered the office with a bunch of the other crew.

Far too many people in such a small place.

They waited off at the side while I gave everyone their tasks for the day.

Each crew had a site supervisor who would oversee the jobs I doled out, but at the end of the day, it was my name on the business, so I had to ensure everything was done to a high standard and had the right people on it.

“Alright, we’re waiting on deliveries for the Mason house. Jerry, what needs done before it arrives?” I asked, checking my sheet. Writing notes everywhere kept my brain in order.

I listened and gave advice when needed. Most of these people knew their jobs well enough that they didn’t really need me to tell them what to do.

It was just something we did each morning to check in with everyone.

It also gave them the chance to air any concerns.

Luckily, there was only the usual Monday grumbling about being tired.

One by one, people left the office until only Marty and Grace were left.

“Can’t stay long, gotta get my team out to our job. There’s been a few issues with the designs being changed or measurements being off—“

“Will that affect the budget?” I asked, ready to make a note, just in case Marty needed me to call them.

“The owner’s already put up more money to get it done. They took responsibility for the problems.” He shrugged. “It’s not ideal, but if we keep going at the pace we’re at, we’ll only be a couple days over.”

“Good.”

“Can we ask how the date went?” Grace took a seat in front of me. She sat forward, hands clasping the edge of the seat, looking fit to burst.

“You can. Might not say anything though,” I teased.

Truthfully, I wanted to brag about the amazing omega I’d met and thank Grace for being persistent about using the app to find me someone. Otherwise I’d never have met Jae. I was damn sure our paths wouldn’t have crossed if left to our own devices.

“How was it? Put me and Grace out of our misery.” Marty leaned on the back of Grace’s chair, fixing me with his steady gaze.

“Jae is… he’s someone special. I really like him. We’re going on another date later.”

“Another date so soon? That’s awesome!” Grace enthused.

Marty narrowed his eyes. “You’re leaving something out. Spill it!” There was a pause while he studied me harder. “You’ve had sex! I can sense omega pheromones all over you.”

I lifted my wrist to my nose to sniff. “No, you can’t,” I denied, though I could pick up a trace of Jae’s scent clinging to me despite the two showers I’d taken since I’d last seen him.

Grace tilted her head up to look at Marty. “He totally got some, didn’t he?”

“He did. C’mon, Curtis, tell us what you got up to. My life is so boring right now, I need to live through you.”

From experience, I knew Marty wasn’t leaving until he either had a promise to get all the gossip later on, and he’d likely bug me all day, or he had what he wanted. “The long and short of it is we had a nice dinner. Jae wasn’t feeling well. Turns out he was going into heat—“

“Fuck!” Marty breathed.

“Yeah, so he asked me to take him through it.”

“Damn, that must have been some first impression!” Grace remarked, watching me avidly. “And?”

“Well, it broke fairly quickly, but he stayed Saturday night, too.” I tried not to go into much detail. Just the basics. “We had a great time together and I think this is the start of something serious between us.”

“I’m really happy for you, Curtis. You deserve this,” Marty said with a genuine smile.

“So that app is working out for you, then? Maybe we’ll get Marty mated off next,” Grace joked.

My best friend made a noise of disgust. “Mate Match might have found someone for Curtis, but they’d have their work cut out for them with me.”

I had a pretty big problem. Something which at this stage of our relationship could end it before it really began. How was I going to explain this to Jae to make him understand? I desperately wanted to spend more time with him, yet work was getting in the way like it always did.

A delivery was running late. These marble tiles and oak beams were expensive.

With rain due later as well, we had to get them secured or lose a lot of the budget in materials.

Marty needed to get his daughter from daycare.

Jeff had a doctor’s appointment. Really, the only person who could stay behind was me.

There’d be no cinema date with Jae for me. I couldn’t promise when I’d get done, and honestly, I was running on fumes. All I wanted to do was go home, eat a quick dinner, and soak in the tub before bed.

Rather than put it off, I called him on my lunch break.

“Hey, Curtis. Everything okay?”

“Hey. I am so sorry about this…” I went on to explain the situation to Jae.

“Tomorrow’s good, though, right?” he asked casually, sounding completely unbothered about me bailing on him.

“Yeah. I really want to see you. I just feel bad about today. Like I let you down.”

“Uh, no. You didn’t. At all. You’ve given me half a day’s notice so I can make other plans, instead of leaving me hanging when you know you likely won’t make it at all.”

“Sounds like you know that from experience.”

“Let’s just say my ex was the king of the last minute cancel call.”

I felt my face pulling into a grimace. “Not what’s gonna happen here. I’ll always be honest with you, even if that means letting you down. If I have to cancel, I’d rather give you time to see your friends or family instead.”

“And this is what makes you special, Curtis. It makes me want to have that date tomorrow instead.”

“I’m glad about that.”

“You know what else this means?” I could hear the humor in his voice.

“What?”

“That I get to pick the movie.”

“Well, I was gonna let you pick. Tell you what, you can choose all the snacks too. Everything is on me.”

“You don’t have—”

“I want to,” I said, interrupting his objection. “To make up for missing out on our date after cutting short our Sunday. I should have remembered my family were coming over.”

“It wasn’t like you knew I’d be there all weekend thanks to my heat. Look, we’re finding our feet in this… whatever it is.”

“A relationship. I want to date you, Jae. When my friends ask, I want to call you my boyfriend, or partner, whichever term you prefer.”

“Honestly, I like boyfriend. If this is you asking me out, then this is me saying yes.”

“I am. Will you go out with me, Jae? Be my boyfriend?”

“Yeah. I’d love that.”

“Dude, your dick must be epic!” Marty laughed at his joke. He sat in the office with a cup of coffee in front of him. Mine was steaming in front of me and not nearly big enough. After a late night, I was dragging. Thankfully, everything was quieter, giving me time to conserve my energy for my date.

I just frowned at him while I sipped my drink. The caffeine was sorely needed.

“No, seriously. First, he has to bail out of your house because of your family—”

“Jae chose to leave. It was too soon for him to meet them, though,” I pointed out.

“Okay, that’s a fair decision.” Marty shrugged. “Then you bailed on your date yesterday and he still agreed to be your boyfriend!”

I smiled, just remembering the conversation.

Just thinking about Jae and calling him my boyfriend left me with a warm feeling inside.

“True, but Jae explained it. Look, not airing his business or nothin’.

..” Marty nodded, expression sobering. “Jae hasn’t been treated very well.

I made a promise to always call well in advance if work stuff came up.

He knows I’ve got this place, employees and everything to deal with. He gets it.”

“Jae sounds special.”

“I think he is.”

The hours passed super slowly. Getting anything done was difficult, which made it luckier that we had a slower day. There were still the same admin tasks to do, ordering, payroll, all the boring stuff.

It was a relief to get home and shower off the day.

Getting ready for my date was harder than I thought.

I wanted to look nice for Jae, just not like I spent hours picking out a shirt.

Eventually I decided on a plain button down and some nice jeans.

The way they fit made me feel slimmer and the structure of the shirt did the same.

On my way to meet my new boyfriend, I picked up a little plant. I remembered Jae said something about liking flowers, except that they died. A little bit of greenery in his office space would be welcomed, right?

I picked him up outside his building with plenty of time for us to get there and get our snacks.

“Hey!” Jae greeted me with a kiss on the cheek.

“Hi. This is for you.” I brandished the little plant at him.

His eyes welled with tears for a moment, then he willed them away. “Oh my goodness, you remembered! I have the best boyfriend!”

Just like that, all my worries about letting Jae down, him being too good for the likes of me, vanished. If I could make him that happy with a tiny bit of effort, then loving Jae would be easy.