“What is?” Kyle leaned in slightly, encouraging his lover’s introspection with a tender stroke along his arm.
“I guess that I just spent so long thinkin’ that the only way to be the top dog was to keep folks from gettin’ close, or use muscle to get what I wanted, but you eventually find out that’s just a dead end. Like you wake up in your thirties and the whole damned world’s gone and changed. I mean, just think about all of the most respected Alphas in the community. They’re all old folks with their proud, grey hair. And shoot, in a fight they’re probably not what they used to be, but nobody much cares about barkin’ orders or throwin’ down. They’re measured in how they look out for their dens, and guide their packs. It’s like, at some point it flips, and you go from being valued for how much you can carry or how fast you run, to how well you look out for your kin and plan for the future. As I see it, the real smarts are in trying to figure out when that flip happens so you can get ahead of it, you know?”
Kyle was genuinely shocked at the Alpha’s sociological observation. “Y-yeah, I’d actually say that’s a pretty good analysis on the situation.”
Jake pulled back slightly, but Kyle wished that he hadn’t. “Yeah? Aw shoot, there I go trying to sound like I’m some kind of professor or somethin’.” He frowned a little and took a hard pull of his beer.
“I don’t think that you should feel ashamed; you raised some excellent points that I really hadn’t considered before,” Kyle explained in a caring tone. He felt bad, as when it came to the somewhat tribal politics of Alphas and Omegas, he tended to see things in stark black and white lines.
Their banter continued but Jake didn’t return to the topic of the socio-cultural politics of an Alpha’s changing community roles. It was honestly something that Kyle held great interest in. While he was disappointed that it didn’t resurface, he was more than a little excited to discover that it was something that they could talk about later on, when his Alpha was ready.
“Darn, I ain’t boring you here, am I? Is something on your mind, bud?” Jake’s question shot through Kyle’s senses like a perfectly drawn arrow. It was only then that he realized that he was deep in his own thoughts, swimming about what the future with this perfect Alpha might look like.
“Sorry. You just said some things that really got me thinking. I guess it’s weird, just about how things work so different for you and me.” Now was as good a time as any to be vulnerable, the Omega thought. Plus, there was always the chance that it might convince the handsome Jake to reveal more of the depth that he so clearly hid from most people.
“How so?” The Alpha was curious to try to understand the world from an Omega’s perspective.
“Well, it’s hard to put into words. But, it’s like, here I am getting so upset for so long that I’m being forced to walk the straight and narrow path set out in my blood. You know, do what’s best for the pack, live for the den rather than yourself, find a good Alpha and take care of him, raise his pups, yadda yadda.”
Jake’s eyebrow rose as his fingertip began to press the beads of condensation into the glass. “I… don’t follow that last part.”
“Oh, it’s a Toronto thing I guess. ‘Yadda yadda’ means ‘and so on’, or at least I think it does. Loads of my Jewish friends’ parents say it. But anyhow, it’s the same old story about being a good Omega. It’s all I’ve ever heard growing up, but I guess that I never realized that as an Alpha, you were getting another kind of story dumped on you.”
The pause in Kyle’s words was cut off by the untimely arrival of a small blue plate of sizzling fried pickles. He thanked the waitress kindly as she set them down between the two men. The savoury, salty oiliness filled the air and danced wonderfully with the briny vinegar of the pickles, but Jake didn’t seem to be paying much attention to the dish.
“So how do we know if we’re doing what we want, or if we’re just doing what we’re told to want, you follow?” The Alpha seemed puzzled and somewhat forlorn at his revelation.
“I honestly don’t know.” It was all that Kyle could really summon the courage to say. It was a question that he’d truthfully pondered time and time again. He never recalled the philosophical debates that he and his Alpha pals got into as being this complex. Most of the time they involved getting drunk on warm beer pilfered from their parents, starlit discussions focused on who they wanted to bed, and what they were going to be doing with their lives by the “unimaginably old” age of thirty. Perhaps a difficult life on the prairies, and the loss of one good, dear friend to the fire-line had given Jake wisdom beyond his years.
“Shoot man, listen to me goin’ on like this. I swear that I wasn’t secretly readin’ up on how to sound like a smart guy or nothing while you were gone,” the Alpha said. It was obvious that he was slightly uncomfortable with Kyle’s relative silence.
“Oh no, I really want to hear your thoughts! I’m only silent because I’m really thinking over what you’ve said. You know, I’ve had those exact same feelings, too,” he explained as he took a pull from his glass.
“Really? You ain’t just pullin’ my leg?” Jake asked cautiously.
“Not at all. There’s a lot more going on up there than you give yourself credit for, Jake. These are fairly difficult questions that can take a lifetime to consider. You rarely get an answer, or at least one that’s satisfactory by the time that everything is said and done. Nature verses nurture, I guess, is one debate that’ll probably still be going on after you, me, and Tyler are having a laugh and making trouble in the good place.”
The words slipped out before Kyle was able to stop them. He hadn’t actually said Tyler’s name around Jake in over a year. Last time he did, he left town shortly after that. Kyle didn’t mean to stir up any painful thoughts of their friend, but realized that it was unfair of him to expect to have sole custody of their departed friend’s memory. He squeezed the Alpha’s hand extra tight and smiled.
“Yeah, I suppose that you’re right. Oh man, the trouble we’ll get up to.” A wistful half-smile seemed to creep across Jake’s face. He seemed somewhat comforted by the Omega’s words.
Kyle placed a sweet little kiss upon his Alpha’s hand. It was an act designed both to assure Jake as well as let the Omega catch some of his scent. Jake seemed on edge, but was beginning to relax. And he still smelled so damned good. Kyle was beginning to wonder if the smoky, alluring heat that he kept noticing was simply yet another benefit that the hunky Alpha could boast of.
The pair of them nursed their drinks and dined on pickles until the main entrée showed up. As soon as the waitress walked into his line of sight carrying the smoky, oily majesty that was the barbeque pulled-pork taco poutine platter, Kyle inhaled deeply. She seemed a little happier than the last time that they’d seen her – maybe it was relief when she was finally able to drop the tray on their table with a thud. Dispensing their silverware in rolled-up napkins, she happily wished them luck before returning to her duties.
“And now the real work begins.” Jake chuckled. He took a massive wedge-shaped nacho piled high with spiced pulled pork, red and green pepper, fried onions, chopped fries, and cheese curds, and drove it into his mouth. Another soon followed, dolloped with sour cream. He gasped softly a few times and tried to suck air to cool the heat, before finally taking a swig of beer to put out the fire.
“At that rate, you’re going to need at least another pitcher,” the Omega joked. Kyle would’ve been more impressed had he not still been stunned by the size of their repast.
“Nah, I’ll just wait for it to cool. I’m your ride, remember?” Jake winked at him as he pieced out another sheaf of cheese-slathered nachos onto the small plate in front of him.
The two of them took more than twenty minutes to get through their fair share of the meal. Kyle was impressed when, upon her return, Jake asked the waitress for a puppy bag.
“We keep going at this rate we’re liable to get heartburn for weeks,” Jake assured the Omega, but Kyle suspected that his lover want
ed to be in good form for their planned midnight stroll.
Before they left, Kyle went to check himself out in the bathroom. Peeing at the urinal, he couldn’t help but feel uncomfortable as he was eyed by a young Alpha. Clean-shaven and angry-looking, he wore a flannel top rolled up to his elbows to showcase his heavily-tattooed forearms. His greasy ponytail was tight against his head.
“Enjoying the evening?” the man asked.
“Yeah, not bad,” Kyle replied as he finished up and headed over to the sink. He kept his eyes on the water.
“You lookin’ to party, Omega?” The brash young Alpha’s body language almost dared Kyle to leave without looking at him. He was still washing his hands and had the powerful waft of a young rutting pup barely out of his teens.
“Not really,” Kyle tersely replied. He quickly washed his hands and left, drying his wet palms on his jeans. The sooner he got back to Jake, the better.
Stepping out into the booming country pop that flooded the bar, Kyle was happy to be back at Jake’s side. A few minutes more and they’d settled with their waitress. The pair of them began to make their way to the saloon doors when Kyle thought that he heard something. He shrugged it off and held Jake’s hand tightly.
Stepping past the bouncers, they pushed their way through the front doors to McRorie’s. The lights of the parking lot cast everything in a sickly orange hue that scattered shadows in all directions. A small crowd of folks were smoking just outside the patio, while their friends drank and dined from behind the barn-board fence. It soon became obvious that someone was calling to them. More specifically, Kyle.
“Hey Omega, where you going? I wasn’t done talkin’ to you.”
Barely ten steps off of the patio in front of the bar, Kyle and Jake slowed and turned to see a small group of five young Alphas approaching them. The one in the lead was the gruff young man who had spoken to Kyle in the washroom.
“A friend of yours?” Jake quizzically looked at Kyle and joked.
“No, he’s just some random guy. Let’s get going?”
“Hold up, I said I’m not done talking to you, Omega,” the man called out. His words tumbled a little in his mouth, painted with whisky as they were.
“I’ve got nothing to say to you. Leave me alone.” Kyle started to turn as the youth’s friends began to bellow with howls and laughter. Some made rude sounds while others simply pushed at their friend out front.
“Why don’t you leave him alone?” Jake said calmly, as he sized the youth up.
The youth shook with a barely contained rage. “I wasn’t fucking speaking with you, gramps.” His friends egged him on with a riot of laughter.
Jake observed the young Alpha curiously. There was clearly less than a decade between the two of them. “You know, it’s all kinds of rude not to listen to people. Why don’t you do as he asked and leave him alone?” He took a step forward, firmly placing his massive body between Kyle and the pack of unruly youths. A chubbier Alpha in the other group backed up a little, while another one’s face changed immediately. Their Dutch courage had seemingly left them and they were trying to pull their friend away from a tactically stupid fight.
“Y-yeah, well what are you going to do about it?” One of his friends tried to pull at his arm, but he swatted it away. They were clearly not expecting the resistance that Jake was putting forward.
“What am I going to do about it? Nothing. It’s what you’re going to do that makes all the difference in the world. The smart option is to listen to your friends and leave.”
“And if I don’t?” The youth’s fists were balled and his forearms flexed. They were strong, but shook with inexperience and nerves.
“Then there’s going to be trouble.” Jake stared down the youth, his arms calmly at his side.
The pup was fast. His fist flew like lighting, but barely connected. Jake was able to pull back in time so that the fist merely nicked his lip and slid past his jaw. Jake wiped a trickle of blood from his lip.
“That was your choice pup. It was a bad one. I’m going to speak as slowly as I can so that you can fully understand me – why don’t you run along before you wind up in a whole mess of hurt, son?”
Jake stood proud and tall, unafraid of the youth. His assailant was visibly cowed by the taller Alpha’s bravery and took a shuffling half-step back.
“Holy shit dude, just fuckin’ leave it. Come on, let’s go, let’s go!” A lanky Alpha youth slapped the kid’s shoulder. A sizable crowd had begun to assemble and it was clear that they had all sided with Jake and his impressive display. From the vantage point of the invisible in-group politics that underwrote their lives as Alphas, Betas, and Omegas, Jake had just won by a landslide, while this cowardly drunk pup had tanked lower than mud.
Obviously scared of what he’d done, and hurt that his strength was so ineffective, the youth’s face twisted with regret and confusion. His friends tried to scatter back into the bar, but ran into the three large Alphas guarding the door. He wiped a damp eye with his palm. The youth opened his mouth but could do little more than just sputter dryly a few times. Swearing under his breath at both Jake and himself, he turned tail and ran.
The patio erupted with a series of cheers for Jake, and protest and boos at the cowering pack of pups who tried to get back into the bar. A few balled-up napkins flew at them. Jake had clearly established himself as the dominant male by showing force and obvious power, yet deciding not to beat the delinquent lad to a pulp.
Jake gave a half-bow to his fans on the patio, and then turned back to Kyle and rolled his eyes. “I’m sorry that you had to see that, bud.” He chuckled and put a finger to his lip to survey the damage. He winced at the trickle of red that daubed from the side of his lip.
“Y-you didn’t completely pound his face in…?” Kyle spoke in a half whisper. His hands were still shaking from the adrenaline.
“Naw, he wasn’t worth it. I mean, I flatten some young punk who’s barely old enough to get into the bar yet stupid enough to pick fights with his betters, and I just end up looking like the asshole. Plus, whoopin’ some dumb, scared kid with more muscle than brains? I’m better than that.” The Alpha was self-assured in a way that made the Omega jealous of his cool calmness.
Kyle felt utterly useless, paralyzed as he was from fear. Sure, he’d been in emergency situations before, but never involving someone that he cared about so deeply. Plus, there was the undeniable surge of arousal in seeing how powerful and intimidating Jake could be. The Alpha was still speaking with him but Kyle couldn’t really hear any of the words over the pounding pulse of his own adrenaline-spiked blood, thundering through his ears. The more he tried to focus on what Jake was saying, and the more he focused upon the Alpha’s hard, taut muscles, his confident demeanour and his manly, powerful musk, the more aroused he was by him.
“Hey, we all good in there?” Jake waved a hand back and forth in front of the glassy-eyed Omega. Kyle was too invested in imagining what those powerful hands would do against his body, holding him tightly, and bending his aching body into the most pleasing of shapes.
“Uh, yeah… completely?” Kyle lied as he struggled to find the words and force his brain back to non-sexy thoughts. He’d completely miscalculated just how damned arousing it would be to see his mate defend him in combat. Or, at least near-combat – there was enough of a fight involved that it hit all of the hot spots in the pleasure centres of the Omega’s very being. He needed to say something, anything, to get his mind out of the gutter
“Th-thanks for the… help. That asshole totally tucked tail and ran.” The words lurched out of Kyle’s mouth uneasily. Truthfully it impressed Kyle that the Alpha was able to pull back from what should’ve been a brutal, one-sided, teeth-loosening bout of bare-knuckle boxing. Maybe Alphas and Omegas weren’t hedged-in by iron-clad genetics after all, he thought to himself. Or at least there was a lot more leeway to their lives than he had originally thought possible.
Aroused and curious, he began to feel powerful q
uestions bubble up inside of him.
“So, wow, I mean,” he gushed before straightening out his words. “I guess that beer hit me a lot faster than I expected…”
“S’okay, bud. Seeing a fight like that up close really rattles most folks. Gets the blood racin’ something fierce. I don’t take offense at all.” The Alpha dusted his hands off in matter-of-fact way, matching the Omega’s widening grin.
“Hmm, is that so? And here I was, about to compliment you.” The Omega leaned in and smiled. “Let me check out that lip?” He squinted and pretended to be running some mental calculations on his fingers about diagnostics, but really, he just wanted to be close enough to Jake to feel the warm, powerful heat emanating from his rippling muscles.
“What’s this about compliments?” Jake smiled rakishly as he looked down at his lover. Although he hid it well, something about having his very own Omega to patch him up appealed to him greatly. He traced his hands along Kyle’s forearms while he tried to examine where the youth clipped him on the lip.
“Well, let’s just say that I found it very sexy that you were able to step up like that. Very. Sexy.” Kyle blushed as he tried to hide the cheeky little smile. He felt himself basking in the warm, familiar glow of hazy arousal.
The Alpha grinned. “Oh, is that so? Maybe I ought to save your ass a lot more often then, eh?”
Kyle thought about telling his boyfriend something else he could do to his ass, but bit his tongue. “Yeah… maybe. But I mean, you sure that you’re okay?”
“Trust me, I’ve had worse falling out of bed.” Jake stretched, casually showing off his wide chest.
Again Kyle’s mind immediately swept to the gutter. Unbelievably aroused and still technically on a date, he tried his best to act casually.
“I trust you. However, as a medical professional, you’re at some risk of a concussion. So you’ll require a few hours of close observation. And, um, that swelling would probably go down with some heat.” Kyle couldn’t even look Jake in the eye as he spoke. A cheeky grin revealed all that the Alpha needed to know about where the night was heading.
His Prairie Omega Box Set Page 13
