Page 2 of Temporary Omega

Linc was in a brooding mood; it was yet another celebration for his friends and there he was playing the happy bachelor role. A role he wasn’t sure how he’d even gotten. Linc wasn’t sure when he became that friend— you know the one everyone sees as the happy, content playboy that never wants to settle down.

Liar, a voice whispered. He knew how and he knew when.

Asher. It all started or rather ended with him.

Unlike his friend Nickolas, Linc had grown up with parents that were stupidly in love with each other, and unlike Grayson's parents, his were also crazy about him. They had more than enough love to spare for him and then some.

His papa and his dad had been together for almost forty years before his papa lost his dad to a heart attack that had taken both of them by surprise. His dad, his alpha father, had been fit, healthy, and about to retire to finally keep his promise and travel with papa, when they’d lost him. His papa was doing better almost two years later, but Linc could see the hole in his papa’s life losing his dad had left behind.

But that wasn’t Linc’s reason for finding himself as the group’s playboy. Linc took a sip of his champagne and looked around the room taking in the festivities. The happy couple on the dance floor who only had eyes for each other. His friend Grayson had a look in his eyes that Linc had never seen before, not as long as he’d known the man. And that was a very long time.

He was currently at Grayson and Riley’s reception, and as he had watched one of his oldest friends tie the knot with the omega who was certainly made for him, Linc had pretended to laugh along to the jokes about how they would probably never have one of these for him.

The truth was, out of all the guys, Linc had thought he would be the first at the altar. He’d always wanted what his parents had. And had started searching for it once he was old enough to know what it meant.

Linc had a monogamous serious relationship through high school. And another one that lasted his first two years of college. He was the relationship guy. His friends had made fun of him back then for missing out on his prime oat sowing years. But Linc didn’t want to sow oats, he was looking for the one.

And he thought he had found it. It was his first year out of college, working at the family business. He was at a bistro, a walking distance from their headquarters, on his lunch, when Linc had spotted the most stunning strawberry-blond-haired, brown-eyed omega.

Asher was working as a waiter at the bistro, and Linc was entranced from the moment he laid eyes on him. There was a delicateness to him that had simply drawn Lincoln in. From the moment their eyes met, Linc was hooked.

And he had done everything to pursue and claim the omega.

Looking back now, Lincoln could see what a fool he’d been. His heart on his sleeve and his account at the ready.

If Linc hadn’t gotten home early from a business trip to surprise Asher, he would have never found out.

When you walk in on the person you thought you were going to spend the rest of your life with, in bed with another man. When that happens, let’s just say a part of your heart dies and whatever is left gets locked in a vault, behind a ten-foot wall, guarded by dogs, on an island in the middle of the ocean that can’t be found without detailed directions.

Asher had made Linc see how much of a sucker he’d been. He’d made Linc doubt himself, doubt his judgment and his manhood.

Since then Linc had become the king of casual.

His friends had believed him when he said he was making up for the lost time he’d spent on relationships since the first grade. And after he had almost bitten their heads off at an innocent question, none of them ever mentioned Asher again.

But now his friends, the same guys that had seen marriage as nothing more than another contract––a duty to be performed, were happily married.

Sure, he wasn’t the only single one left. But in their immediate circle, it was him, Drew, and Colt.

Drew didn’t really count because he was pining over the one that got away. And somehow stayed away, no matter how much Drew searched. And Colt, well, he’d always played his hand close to the chest. Linc wasn’t even sure if he played for their team.

Unlike the other guys who he’d grown up with, they’d met Colt in college, or university as the Brits called it. Nic and Linc had decided to go to England for their master’s degree and while over there, they’d met the other alpha.

Colt had later found out that his alpha dad had been an American, a businessman that had strung his papa along. Colt had never known who the man was, his papa refusing to tell him. So when he’d gotten a letter upon the man’s death it had come as a surprise. Especially as he’d left his entire fortune to Colt.

Linc stood and watched, separated from the festivities going on around him, an observer. He watched the children squealing and laughing, Riley proudly showing off his and Grayson’s three-month-old son. While Jai kept a watchful eye on his and Nickolas’ now walking twins. Linc couldn’t help but replay the conversation he’d had with his papa.

“Are you coming over this weekend, Son?” Linc’s papa asked.

“Not this week, maybe next weekend. It’s Gray’s wedding this weekend, remember?”

“I remember. I do wish you had told me sooner, I would have made excuses for the luncheon and attended with you. You know I have a soft spot for Grayson,” his papa complained.

“I know, Papa, and you’ve said several times,” Linc sighed at the mild rebuke in his papa’s tone.

“Well, I love weddings. And since it doesn’t look like I’ll be attending yours anytime soon,” his papa threw in non-too subtly.

Linc groaned, “Papa, really?”