Page 22 of Overeager (Extra Credit #1)

Eli

S omething was niggling at Eli this morning, even as he lay warm and cozy in his bed with a passed-out Noah drooling on his chest. It wasn’t hard to figure out what it was.

Richard’s visit.

It wasn’t that Eli regretted keeping it to himself last night—not exactly. He was still in no rush to introduce the ugliness that was Richard into his new relationship. It was more about what the visit had brought up for him. The old arguments. The disappointment.

It would be stupid to talk about it so soon, right? Eli and Noah had only just started dating, and while their relationship was easy, it was also … precarious, if only by the nature of their positions. And Noah was young and inexperienced and just … didn’t need to be thinking about these things.

And yet.

There was potential here, wasn’t there? Real potential. Shouldn’t Eli know where they stood before things went any further?

Noah’s arm twitched where it was resting across Eli’s waist, and his breath shifted out of the deep, steady rhythm of sleep. Eli schooled his expression, relaxing his furrowed brow as he watched Noah wake.

The alpha lifted his head, sleep-bleared eyes landing on Eli’s face immediately. He always did this when he woke up—sought Eli out like he couldn’t quite believe he was there until he’d laid eyes on him.

Noah wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and gave Eli a soft, sleepy smile. “Hey.”

Eli’s breath caught at the sight of him, and his answering greeting came out almost shy. “Good morning.”

They spent a stupidly long moment giving each other fond, dopey looks, and then Noah’s eyes widened, and he was leaping out of the bed with an energy he did not usually have first thing in the morning. “Holy shit, the plants!”

He started bounding out of the bedroom, still nude, although he did snag a pair of briefs off the floor as he went.

Eli was left dumbfounded. What the hell had just happened?

He didn’t become truly alarmed until he heard the front door close, and then Eli rose quickly, slipping on his robe without bothering to tie it as he hurried down the hall.

By the time he got to the front door, Noah was already back inside, bare-chested in his underwear, carrying a box of … Well, a box of plants.

Eli was no less confused than before. “What—?”

Noah grinned, still panting from his sprint. “I forgot to bring them in last night. They’re herbs.”

“Herbs?”

“Yeah.” Noah nodded, petting a basil leaf as he somehow managed to peer at Eli from under his lashes while looming a head higher than him. “I keep looking at the ones in your kitchen windowsill. They’re definitely past the point of no return. I thought we could try again.”

Right. The herbs in Eli’s kitchen. They’d been a half-assed approach at a hobby he’d tried in the wake of his separation—one of several failed attempts at opening his life up to new interests when all he’d felt like doing was shutting down.

He’d either underwatered them or overwatered them or not said the right magical incantation or whatever, and they’d all died within weeks.

And Noah had noticed. Noticed and bought him new ones. Eli spotted basil and thyme and parsley and what he thought might be chives.

Eli needed to kiss him. Needed to tell him how thoughtful he was. How perfect and sweet he was being when Eli had done nothing to deserve it.

“I don’t want children!” he blurted out instead.

Noah stopped petting the basil plant, raising his brows. “Um … not even plant children?”

“It was— That was a huge reason Richard and I fell apart,” Eli told him, tying his robe shut because he could no longer stand being mostly naked for this conversation, the words escaping no matter how hard he tried to keep them back.

“We’d agreed, in the beginning. But I guess he thought …

He wanted me to change my mind, but I—I—”

He was having trouble making any sort of sense, and he couldn’t stop twisting his hands in the fabric of his robe.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa.” Noah set the box down carefully on the floor and gathered Eli in his arms, running his warm hands over Eli’s shoulders, blasting calming pheromones while he soothed him with his touch. “Did I—” He gave a strangled half laugh. “Were the herbs that big of a mistake?”

“No.” Eli gave in to his instincts and buried his nose in Noah’s chest, inhaling breath after breath of his pacifying scent until he could speak again. “They were perfect. It was sweet. You’re sweet. But most alphas—”

Noah wrapped his arms around Eli’s shoulders, pressing him closer. “I don’t want kids either.”

“You can’t just say that,” Eli groused. “Not if you don’t mean it.”

And now his eyes were stinging. Oh god, was he crying?

Noah looked down at him in alarm. “Okay. Um. Fuck. How about— Let’s get you coffee. You need coffee, don’t you? I can’t just be springing surprise gifts on you when you’re undercaffeinated. That was my bad, for sure.”

Eli wiped his eyes and let himself be led into the kitchen and supplied with a perfect cup of coffee. Noah babied him all the while with soft touches and softer pheromones, like it really was Noah’s fault and not just Eli having a meltdown for no reason.

He was being way too nice. Eli was definitely going to start crying again if Noah kept being so nice to him.

Once Eli was tucked securely under a blanket on the couch, mug in hand, Noah settled next to him with a water. He slid a bent knee under himself and rested his arm on the back of the couch, placing his head on his fist. “Okay,” he said softly. “So. No rugrats.”

Right. They were having this conversation. Because Eli had started it out of nowhere, like an idiot.

He took a deep breath. Let it out. Took a sip of coffee. Noah waited him out patiently.

“I’ve always known,” Eli finally said. “I just … never felt the pull. I like my time to be mine , you know?” Noah nodded his understanding, and Eli continued, “And I— My parents were great. Good. Fine. But I don’t think they really wanted kids.

They just had us because they thought they should?

And I know what that feels like. How it pushes you toward any scrap of affection, no matter if the source is …

flawed.” He stared down at his mug. “I don’t want to be that kind of parent. ”

“You don’t have to justify it, you know,” Noah told him, his gaze steady and his tone even. “It’s enough that you don’t want to.”

Eli let out a bitter laugh. “Well, my ex felt otherwise. He started pushing for it, and I just—I knew how that would go. It would have been me leaving my career behind to care for them, not him. Me giving up everything I’d worked for. But somehow I was still the selfish one for not wanting it.”

Noah’s tone was slightly less even as he said, “He sounds like a fucking asshole.”

Eli shrugged. Faith held the same sentiment when it came to Richard, but it had been hard for Eli to see it. “He changed his mind. He wanted me to do the same. People do change their minds.”

As if sensing the pointed nature of that statement, Noah met Eli’s gaze square on and told him, “I’ve known since I was a teenager that I don’t want kids.

” He waited until Eli gave him a stilted nod of acknowledgment before continuing, “I’ve done it all already.

Changed the diapers. Cleaned the spit up.

Said no to hangouts and pickup games of soccer because I had to pick my little siblings up from daycare.

I want any relationship I have to be something that’s just …

mine.” He bit at his lower lip, gaze glancing off Eli to land on the wall behind him.

“Something intimate and … quiet, I guess? And I don’t care if that’s selfish.

” His hand landed on Eli’s knee as he met his eyes again.

“I want to be selfish, as a couple. To have time for friends and hobbies and travel. I want to be able to decide we’re doing takeout all week, or we’re going away for a month in the summer, and not worry about anyone else but ourselves. ”

“Oh,” Eli said dumbly.

It was an inadequate response, but he hadn’t realized—even with the little hints he’d gotten—how much Noah had taken on for his parents when it came to his siblings, or how much it had affected him.

“Yeah. Oh,” Noah told him with a soft smile, some of his intensity lightening.

“Besides, I know at least some of my siblings are gonna have kids, and I wanna be a good uncle for them. Take the littles off their hands when they need a break.” He grabbed Eli’s hand.

“I know there will be children in my life, they just don’t have to be my own, ya know? ”

“Well, when you put it that way, it sounds …”

“Perfect?” Noah supplied, giving him a cheeky grin.

Eli narrowed his eyes at him. “Suspiciously so.” When Noah kept on grinning, Eli let out a sigh.

“That’s what I always wanted, I think, with—with my ex.

To figure out a life we really wanted. To do what we really wanted.

But even without kids … his work was like his child, always demanding our presence for one thing or another. ”

There’d been dinner parties and overnight functions with insufferable snobs. Late nights and weekend after weekend lost to Richard’s overtime. And then the working “vacations,” the two of them holed up in some rental with a prospective client and their family so Richard could network.

Eli cleared his throat. “And then when I was finally settled in my own career, he changed his mind and said he wanted kids after all. Decided that the two of us weren’t enough and were never going to be.

” Eli’s muscles tensed with old, familiar anger.

“I think he’d always expected me to change my mind.

To give in to my omega instincts or something. ”

“Is that why he never bit you?” Noah asked, his eyes on Eli’s neck.

Right. Eli’s lack of a mating bite. His distinctly bare neck. It had been a sore point for so long, and then after the divorce, it had only been a relief—one less way his life had to be torn apart by what had happened between them.

“I think so,” Eli said with a shrug. “I was young when we got married, and he’d said things about waiting until we were more … established. Making it a sort of vow renewal or some bullshit. But yeah, I think he just wanted to wait until I was willing to be knocked up.”

Noah’s smile had taken on a brittle edge. “Can I call him an asshole again?”

“No.” Eli set his empty cup on the side table, trying to give Noah a stern look and failing. He just looked so sweetly indignant on Eli’s behalf. “There’s no need.”

Noah pushed his lower lip out in a mock pout.

“Well, damn. Then will you at least accept my gift?” He gestured back to the box of plants that had been abandoned in Eli’s hallway.

“I did some internet sleuthing, and I think you must have underwatered. We’ve got a dry climate here, and people underestimate—”

Eli pressed forward, placing his hands on Noah’s wrists, halting the too sweet words about his too sweet gesture. Something else was leaving his mouth without permission, in one hurried rush, “Willyouspendmyheatwithme?”

Eli had a fairly regular cycle, with three heats a year, and he’d managed to sync them up with school holidays. Which meant he had about six weeks still before he needed to bring this up. But he couldn’t help it—he wanted Noah there, and he wanted Noah to know it.

Noah blinked at him. Once. Twice. “Yes?”

“It’s over spring break,” Eli told him. “You might have plans.”

Maybe Eli should have felt guilty for even asking him.

He could handle it well enough with suppressants and toys, and maybe Noah had visions of jetting off to Florida and getting rowdy on some crowded, drug-filled beach.

That was what college kids did these days, right?

Or was that just lies reality TV had told him?

“Plans?” Noah turned his wrists quickly, so now it was his hands grasping Eli’s, keeping him from withdrawing. “No plans. No, sir. All plans canceled.” He shook Eli’s arms gently, barely containing his grin. “Of fucking course I want to spend your heat with you.”

Eli sagged in relief. “Yeah?”

And it was hard to second-guess it, when Noah’s pheromones were so warm and pleased, his scent emitting pure satisfaction just at being asked.

“Fuck, yeah.” Noah groaned. “Oh my god, it’s going to be so hot.” His voice dropped into something low and intimate. “You’re going to get soaked, baby. I’m going to knot you so many times.”

Eli flushed, shifting in his blanket burrito. “Noah …”

“I’ve never helped anyone through a heat before. How do you get?” Noah asked him, shameless as always. “Are you needy? Bossy? Feral?”

“Um … the first one.” It was actually kind of embarrassing, how needy Eli got. It was part of the reason he hadn’t been brave enough to ask Noah yet. There was a vulnerability to it—to letting someone else see him that way.

“Needy?” In the next second, Noah’s brain seemed to catch up with his mouth, and he swallowed hard, his pupils blowing wide. “Fuck …”

Eli squealed as he was suddenly scooped off the couch, blanket and all.

“All right,” Noah said decisively, lifting Eli against his chest. “Back to the bedroom with you. I need to have you immediately. These fucking plants can wait.”

Eli giggled all the way back to the bedroom. Any lingering anxiety he’d had left over from Richard’s visit was gone, washed away in the gentle stream of Noah’s patience and care.