Page 50 of Unforgettable Omega

“Who is Anneliese?”

24

Shay & Drew

Of all the things that Shay could have said, the words that just came out of his mouth didn’t even make the list.

Shay waited for Drew to reply, but the alpha was looking at him like he was speaking a foreign language.

“What, how… where... wait… what?” Drew stuttered.

Shay shifted in bed. He didn’t say a word. When he was researching one of his books he had read something about the power of silence. Apparently, it made people feel the need to fill it, or something. Was it research, or maybe it was a TV-show… Whatever. He decided to let Drew be the one to fill the silence this time.

“How do you know that name?” Drew asked.

“Why didn’t you tell me about her?” Shay asked quietly, but he couldn’t hide the pain in his voice.

Shay wrapped his arms around his body, trying to chase away the chill he suddenly felt.

“I don’t understand. Why would I?” Drew asked, his face creased in confusion.

Why would Shay be bringing Anneliese up? He didn’t even know how Shay would know about Anneliese, or why she was even relevant, but before he could ask again, Drew noted how Shay had sunk into himself. His shoulders were stooped and he looked utterly defeated.

Drew sat on the bed, and reached out to Shay, touching him on his leg. Shay flinched and recoiled from him, and Drew’s heart damn near fell out of his chest.

Shay couldn’t believe that Drew was being super dismissive about Anneliese. Like it didn’t even matter.

How… how could he act like he didn’t know what Shay was talking about?

Shay wouldn’t look at him and it was making Drew’s heart hurt.

“Shay, Shay baby, please look at me. I’m sorry.”

“Do you even know what you’re sorry for?” Shay sighed. He wasn’t even angry. Shay was gut-punched. He felt like someone was squeezing his heart in his chest, then had ripped it out and stomped on it.

“I want to talk about this, Shay, but I don’t even know what we are talking about.” Drew tried touching Shay again, but the omega moved away from him.

“Shay, how do you know Anneliese? Why would you ask me about her?” Drew asked in his softest voice.

He wanted to wrap Shay up in his arms, but the omega’s whole body language screamed, “keep away.”

“She was your girlfriend, wasn’t she?”

“She was, but a long time ago,” Drew replied. Hell if not for the fact that Anneliese still worked for him, she rarely crossed his mind these days.

“Like, when we met,” Shay whispered, though this time it wasn’t a question it was a statement. Shay wanted Drew to know that he knew this for a fact.

“We had just broken it off, almost a month before we met,” Drew said slowly. The picture in Drew’s head was impossible, wasn’t it? “How do you know that Shay? What’s going on?”

Shay sighed, he guessed time was up. There was no more stalling, or avoiding, or postponing.

“I planned on staying that weekend. I was so enamored by you. You were the first alpha to get my attention you know. At first, I thought maybe it was because you were so worldly, and experienced, but that night was the first time. Everything else… everyone else just disappeared to the background. For me, it was just the two of us left in the world. Maybe that was why I just threw caution to the wind. That’s not me.” Shay sighed, and leaned back against his pillows, thinking back to that long ago night he so rarely re-visited.

Shay didn’t need to look at Drew to know the alpha's eyes were on him. He could feel them.

“I tried, you know. I tried after Andy got a little older, to date, to find someone else. To get over you. But, nothing I did worked. It was like I was out with these nice guys, and even after all that time I would be comparing them to you. But in my mind, I was like how? How could I compare these alphas to an alpha I knew for one night. That is crazy right? Especially, because this alpha had lied to me. He had a girlfriend or a fiancée, or soon to be fiancée. Whatever. And he made me feel like we had a future, that night in his arms. I thought,wow, so this is what it feels like to meet your person… and then when he was asleep his phone rang, and there’s a woman saying she misses him, and can’t wait for him to come home.” Shay took a deep breath, “Do you know how used I felt? Like dirt. No, lower than dirt…”

Drew stared at Shay wide-eyed. The alpha hated hearing that Shay had even dated anyone else. But he set that aside for now.