Page 59 of Omega's Heart

He noticed. “I get bored at dances,” I explained with shrug, trying for nonchalance.

“Me too.” One corner of his mouth curled up and he waited.

It took a moment, then I realized he was making a joke. “Funny alpha. Want some coffee? I think Cale’s finished the pot, but I can put a new one on.”

“Is Cale home?”

Shouldn’t he be asking for Julius? “Yeah,” I said slowly, wondering why he’d care.

“Let’s not disturb him. You can make coffee at my place as well as here.”

Ah. I wondered what had happened down at the dance. Though if he was starting to look at Julius that way, maybe watching all the alphas coming to pay court had been too much for him. “Sure. I’ll just tell him I’m going to be across the hall.” I could keep Kaden company until sleep came for him, sure.

Cale clicked out of the screen on his laptop as soon as he heard my knock on the doorframe. I assumed it was one of his school ones—I’d only caught a glimpse of it, but it was a young man with dark hair, talking animatedly into the camera. Cale was still fighting with the history requirement but had enough other courses that he’d probably be moving into the city in the fall to take his sciences and whatever else he hadn’t been able to make work through distance. “Yeah?” he barked.

“You can take a day off every once in a while, you know,” I reminded him.

He leaned back and let out a breath. “Maybe at the end of summer. What do you want?”

“I’m going across the hall to keep Kaden company for a bit. I think all the young alphas crowding around Julius are getting to him.” Though now that I was saying it to Cale, I wondered if one of us should go down to keep an eye on Julius.

Cale seemed to think the same thing, and he glanced between me and his phone and the computer screen a couple of times before he said, “I’m going to text Holland to watch out for him or assign someone to him. I’ve never seen anyone that naive before in my life.”

“They kept him pretty well locked up. He’s getting better.”

Cale shook his head and rubbed his eyes. “They did, and he is. You go hang out with your alpha, I’ll make sure Julius has a babysitter.” There was something in his tone, some hint or allusion. Not quite a leer, or a joke, but…

“He’s just lonely. And bored. And coming to terms with not being able to dance while everyone around him is,” I defended Kaden.

“I know. Thank you for taking the time with him. I mean, he’s not my brother, but I have to listen to Holland worry about him at least once a week already. If it wasn’t for you, I’m sure it’d be every day.” He grinned at me and picked up his phone. “Go, have fun.”

I took my chance and went.

Kaden was waiting for me at the apartment door. He smiled as I padded down the hall toward him in my socks, too lazy to put my shoes on for five feet of relatively clean tile.

Inside the apartment, I started to make coffee, but he held up a couple of bottles that I hadn’t noticed before and pointed toward the fridge. “I grabbed a couple bottles of beer on the way up, though they might be a little warm now. Thought we could stick them in the freezer for ten minutes then have a drink or two and play some cards.”

“Coffee’s fine for me.” We’d had alcohol at home and, being Colorado, we also had other inebriants, but it wasn’t appropriate for an omega. I found him distracting enough when I was sober. Drunk, who knew what might come out of my mouth? “I can pour you one if you want.”

He frowned at me, but I didn’t read it as angry. More puzzled. “No, coffee’s fine.”

I nodded and pushed the button, then started puttering around the kitchen, getting down mugs, setting out the honey and the milk. Kaden rolled around the room, grabbed something off the set of shelves by the bedroom door, then made his way back to the table. “I can’t wait to get this fixed up,” he said, slapping at the side of his stub.

“I can try to sand a hollow out in the cup of the leg if you want,” I offered. The coffeepot gurgled and filled the small room with the rich smell of Kaden’s preferred coffee. He and Bax had quickly formed their own little club and were busy ordering in different brands and blends to try. In private, I teased him about being a coffee snob, and let him think he’d trumped me when he pulled out years of army coffee.

He was a complete snob about coffee.

Kaden shook his head at my offer to try to adjust the leg. “No, the prosthetics people would shit kittens. I’ll get along. It’s only a couple more weeks.” He tipped a deck of cards out of the box and set the box aside. “What do you want to play?”

The cards made a zipping noise as he shuffled them together. I leaned on the counter and watched him manipulate the tiny cardboard rectangles and marveled at how far he’d come. Even without the last three fingers of his left hand, the cards did as they were told and jumped from hand to hand or melded different piles together so smoothly you couldn’t have known he was injured unless you actually looked at his hands. “I don’t really care. Something easy, maybe. It’s Full Moon—I don’t want to think too hard.”

He laughed and the lights glinted in his eyes, as dark as the coffee filling the pot. He really did have pretty eyes, though I wouldn’t call them that to his face. Soldiers aren’t pretty, they’re handsome, but he had eyelashes my sister would have killed for. “How about cribbage?” he asked. “Board’s on top of the fridge, I think.”

I nodded and found the board, bringing it over to the table before I went back to fill the coffee mugs.

“What color do you want to be?” he called.

“Green,” I told him as I came back with the coffee tray.