by Aiden Bates
2
Eliot
They say you only get one soul mate. One shot at the big time—one man, to have and to hold, from this day forward, ‘til death do you part. I believed it, too—really, I did. Even when my fathers lost everything else—their business, their livelihoods, and the respect of our little neighborhood back in Atlanta—they’d still had each other. Stuck by each other through thick and thin to this day. They’d be celebrating their thirtieth wedding anniversary come fall and everything. They were everything I wanted to be for myself someday, when I finally met the right man, got married, settled down.
Only, up until that night, I thought I had met the right man. Just before my shift that evening, James had taken me out to dinner, wined me, looked deeply into my eyes and ran his thumb across my knuckles—the whole shebang. Maybe it was the vino, or the candlelight, or the soft crescendo of a classically trained violinist in the ambiance of a five-star restaurant, but I’d actually believed that he was going to propose to me.
Imagine my surprise when the first thing out of his mouth was, “Eliot, Ben is pregnant and I’m leaving you,” instead.
I couldn’t exactly blame him. Or, well, I could—for cheating on me with my own fucking roommate, for one, and for taking me to the nicest Italian place in town to break it off with me, for another. But for leaving…no, I couldn’t blame James for that. Sure, Ben was a cheating scoundrel of an Omega who’d probably end up banging James’ uncle a month after giving birth, but since James was apparently a cheating scoundrel of an Alpha himself, I figured they probably belonged together. You only ever got one soul mate—and if Ben was pregnant with James’ baby, then I hoped they’d be happy making life miserable for each other.
I wasn’t any more bitter about it than I was about my fathers having to drain my college fund to pay off their bad debts—which meant that I was really bitter about it, in fact, but as long as I worked a long enough shift at the Ballroom that night, I could forget about it for a little while.
“You were good out there.” Anders tossed me a towel as I jogged into the locker room backstage to wash the sweat and stage makeup off my face. “Robert Plant himself couldn’t have done better.”
“I don’t know.” I laughed, blinking into the mirror and being dazzled by the sheer amount of glitter on my cheeks. “I feel like Led Zeppelin isn’t exactly the music of our core demographic.”
“Yeah, well, neither is Sinatra,” he pointed out, taking off his top hat and loosening his bow tie. Out on stage, Anders played things classy—right up until he ripped his tuxedo shirt off. The Times had named him the sexiest dancer in the entire city three times over at this point—and God, could that boy sing. “Pretty sure the only music those fat cats listen to is the sweet serenade of money rolling into their bank accounts, frankly.”
“Which begs the question of why they come to the Ballroom in the first place.” When the Ballroom had first changed over from mostly-nude lap dances to tap-dancing Omegas singing “Strangers in the Night”, I hadn’t believed its chances at finding success myself—but every night, the shows were sold out anyway, so who was I to second-guess results?
“I’ve got theories.” Anders stroked his chin thoughtfully. “I mean, if you want sloppy nude Omegas grinding on your dick, you go to the Backdoor. If you want high-class Omegas who also happen to sing, dance and take their shirts off…”
“You send Anders Carlton flowers to his dressing room and hope to God that he comes out to the bar after his shift to thank you for them.” I nodded to the explosion of floral arrangements on Anders’ dressing table with a chuckle. It looked like someone—or, more likely, several someones—had bought out that entire shop on Fifth Avenue in an attempt to melt Ander’s heart—or at least, his G-string.
“Please.” Anders rolled his eyes, turning to the flowers and pushing them one after another into the trash. “Attention from Alphas isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, I’ll have you recall.”
“Are we talking about my boyfriend knocking up my roommate, or are we talking about your stalker situation?”
Anders cracked a sympathetic smile. “Both, probably. Although, to be fair…the stalker hasn’t shown his face in almost a year now. Maybe he’s forgotten about me?”
“Oh, Anders,” I cooed, pinching his cheek. “Who could ever forget about you?”
“That’s exactly what I’m worried about,” Anders said grimly. “Still—looks like neither of us will be dating for a while now anyway. You’ve gotta nurse your broken heart, I’ve gotta avoid men entirely for fear that one of them might be him.”
“Only thing worse than falling for the man who’s fated to knock up your roommate is falling for the man who wants to wear your skin like an Armani suit,” I agreed.
“Pff. As if I would be anything less than Versace.” Having successfully cleared his space of the tokens of his unwanted suitors, Anders clapped his hands together and sighed. “You want to go grab a drink after the show’s over? Could head to the Shower, commiserate over our bachelorhood.”
I considered it, then shook my head. “Nah—I want to get home and work out that new routine, I think. The last thing I want to think about is my newfound singleness right now.”
“If you don’t think the Alphas here are going for Led Zeppelin, they’re certainly not going to go for Bruce Springsteen,” Anders warned me.
I laughed—he was probably right. “How else am I going to remind everyone what a working class hunk I am, though?”
“If you’re working class, I’m Dolly fucking Parton.” Anders paused, his eyes lighting up. “Actually…god, no, don’t let me go out there in a big blond wig, they’d literally boo me off the stage.”
“But you’d make one hell of a Jolene,” I said with a chuckle, grabbing my jacket and shrugging it on. “Or, I don’t know. Joel, maybe.”
“Please don’t take my man,” he quipped.
“Sounds like that’s more of Ben’s thing,” I shot back at him with a wink as I headed out to the edge of the stage to watch the rest of the acts.
I should have been mourning the loss of James more, I knew. It was demoralizing, and it was shitty, and it was the kind of thing that should have forever shaken my confidence in Alphas, the way James had been so easily able to cheat on me with someone I cared about, knock the poor bastard up, and leave me for him over a plate of garlic bread and some red wine. Maybe on some level, it had—but I’d be fucked if I wanted to lose myself in a woe-is-me cycle just then.
You only got one soul mate. That was what I kept telling myself. If James wasn’t mine, then it meant that someone out there was. I’d hold onto that hope for as long as I could—because the other option was buying a dozen pints of Haagen-Dazs and eating them while watching Gone with the Wind until I lost my six-pack. Which, like hell I would. The only way I was losing my abs was when I met the man who was right for me—and even then, it’d be because he’d gotten me too pregnant to think straight, not because I was the kind of Omega who got hitched then let himself go.
It was too warm in the club for a jacket that night, but I pulled mine around my shoulders a little tighter anyway, enjoying the feeling of its liner over my bare skin. I wore it like this, bare shoulders beneath black silk, any time I needed a little reminder that the world wasn’t completely full of dickheads and clowns. It’d been given to me on a night when I’d very much needed it, by an Alpha I still thought about from time to time. The way he’d saved me from an awkward walk home from the seedy alleyway behind the Backdoor, back when I’d been a dancer there and taking the stage at the Ballroom hadn’t been anything more than a distant dream.
Alton Palmer. I’d kissed him that night on my doorstep. I’d nearly done more, too. But then his babysitter had called in a panic and we’d both realized what a mistake that would have been. It was the biggest shame about my soul mate theory. Alton Palmer had already met his and lost him—and we’d both agreed then and there that it meant he could never be mine.
I
t was strange to still be thinking about an Alpha I knew I’d never be with—probably never even see again—an entire year after the fact, but no stranger than anything else I’d been through over the last decade. If anything, it was a comfort. If men like Alton Palmer could still be in love with their Omegas even after death, then surely there were more Alphas out there like him. An Alpha that would be for me this time.
The show ended with a bang: streamers, confetti, applause and a bottle of champagne popped ceremonially backstage. I hung around for a glass and some chit-chat, all of which seemed to ever-so-casually avoid the elephant in the room for the week. With my ex running around getting other Omegas pregnant and Anders on a self-imposed boyfriend drought, no one wanted to mention the subject of love, sex or lovers—which was fine by me. I didn’t need to know about the incredible weekend Kevin’s fiancé was planning for them on a romantic little island off the coast of Maine or how big Alex’s new Alpha’s dick was, any more than they needed to know that whatever hurt I was feeling in the wake of James’ infidelity was being handled just fine.
Once the crowd had finally slipped out the front doors and back to their penthouses for the night, I followed them out. There was a trio still sitting at a table in the VIP section—one of whom was still sporting the scarf I’d tossed out during my act, I was happy to see—but I didn’t pay them any mind. Foster’s VIPs often hung out for a little while after hours, either hoping to be introduced to a dancer or two, or hoping to have a drink with Foster himself.
I walked around the table without so much as a glance, raising a hand to wave the bartenders goodbye. It would be weird, I knew, going home to an empty apartment for the night. Ben would probably be over at James’ place, now that he had James’ baby inside him, and I’d probably spend the night icing my feet and posting ads online for a new roommate. Not exactly an ideal evening, but there were worse ways to spend the night.
“See ya, Carlos,” I yelled over to one of the waiters as I braced myself for the subway ride home.
“See ya, Eliot. Have a good night.” He gave me a nod as he helped the bartender wipe down the clean glasses before they were put away for the night.
“Eliot? Eliot!” a voice called out after me, like an echo of Carlos’ farewell.
I turned, blinking in surprise. One of the Alphas from the VIP table, the one with my scarf around his neck, was jogging toward me, a look of strange recognition in his eyes.
I only blinked harder as it hit me why he knew my name at all.
“Alton Palmer,” I breathed, taking a step back and feeling my heart skip a beat.
“Eliot Ashton,” he said back, grinning. “How are you?”
“Surprised that you even remember me,” I admitted, shaking my head a little. Christ, he was a sight. Tall as ever, lean muscle and chiseled jaw. He looked like something off a GQ cover—just as handsome as he’d been the last time I saw him.
It looked like our goodbye hadn’t meant forever after all.
3
Alton
It was like looking at an old photograph from a half-forgotten scrapbook, and suddenly watching it bloom to life before my very eyes.
Eliot Ashton. Of course I remembered him. I remembered the way he’d looked when I first laid eyes on him. Vulnerable. Intense. Very much in need of a man like me, and very much unhappy about him. I’d found him outside of the Backdoor, that seedy strip club across town one night. I’d been driving aimlessly around the city for hours, then walking the streets. Stressing over work while a babysitter held down the fort back home.
Mourning the loss of my husband. Trying to get over him and realizing that I never really would.
And there Eliot had been, shirtless in an alleyway, pounding on the Backdoor’s back door in a pair of black slacks with a rosary wrapped around his fist. Locked out without his wallet, his keys, or even a jacket to cover himself up for the long walk home.
I’d offered him mine. Shrugged it off my shoulders like it was nothing. Wrapped it around him, just so he could feel like maybe he was a little bit less alone. It had come so naturally to me, by the time I got him in my car to take him home, he’d felt like an old friend. For the first time since I lost Patrick, I’d found myself feeling things that I hadn’t even believed possible. Things that I never thought I’d ever feel again. His physicality, the warmth of his presence in the seat beside me. The way he smelled—leather and amber, just the same as the scarf he’d tossed so carelessly around my neck while he performed up on stage.
“You’re still wearing the same cologne,” I said, plucking one end of the scarf and holding it up for him in demonstration. “You want this back?”
He smirked. “Keep it. Consider it payment for the jacket—if that’s what you’re after, I hate to break it to you, but I’ve had it for long enough now that I think it’s legally my property.”
“Looks better on you than it ever did on me.” I looked him up and down, taking in exactly how good he looked in it. It was so obviously tailored to fit my frame—longer than his, broader shoulders but leaner muscles, but he’d had it for so long, now it looked so obviously like it belonged to him.
He filled it out differently than I ever would have. His shoulders were slightly narrower than mine, but he’d built more muscle on them than I could have found the time to. Fit, bulging and strong. Eliot was a wet dream wrapped in an erotic fantasy—and somehow, after all these years, he’d still managed to keep hold of my jacket when any Alpha on Manhattan would have paid him to take theirs instead.
“Looking good in clothes,” he said with a short little laugh. “Kind of my job.”
“Thought your job was looking good out of them,” I countered, surprised at my own flirtation. I’d felt the same surprise that night I first met him. It came out of me so naturally in his presence, it was almost like he was pulling it from me. Grabbing hold of something I didn’t even think I had inside me anymore and tugging on it until it unraveled, bit by bit.
“Oh, it is,” he agreed. “But less so than it used to be. As you can see…well, I’m not exactly a Backdoor boy anymore.”
“Always thought you were too good for that place.”
His smile broadened. “Yeah. You thought right. Buy me a drink?”
He cocked his head toward the door, and for a moment, I was tempted to agree with him. It was almost painful how easy it would have been. Lizzie had a sitter for the evening. Even had playmates to keep her entertained. It had been too long since I’d been out on the town for anything other than business, and by most standards, it had been far too long since I’d been out on the town with an Omega. Riley and Max certainly would have agreed.
But Riley and Max—it would’ve been rude just to run off with Eliot and ditch them for the rest of the night.
“I’m here with friends,” I explained apologetically, pointing to the table that I’d shared with Max and Riley—who were currently taking advantage of my absence by making out passionately over their unfinished drinks.
Eliot raised his eyebrows as his gaze followed mine. “They look pretty busy, Alton. But if you insist…”
“I could introduce you,” I offered, just as it dawned on me that Riley and Eliot would probably have a lot to talk about. “Riley used to work here, you know.”
“No shit? You know Riley Landon? He’s a legend here. Pictures of him on the wall in the dressing room and everything.”
“Riley Griffin now.” I averted my eyes as Riley moved himself onto Max’s lap. “He’d be happy to meet you, I’m sure.”
Eliot chuckled. “I think he looks pretty happy with his present engagement. We could drink here instead though. If you wanted, I mean.”
I blinked, surprised by the way his cheeks flushed with a tinge of pink. He didn’t strike me as the kind of Omega who ever had to worry about asking an Alpha out then being turned down—and here I was, a reluctant idiot, telling him no anyway despite the fact that I absolutely wanted to say yes.
“A drink here sounds good,
” I agreed, placing my arm gently on the small of his back and guiding him to the bar. “Sure the bartender won’t mind that we’re still drinking here after hours?”
“Please. If you’re a friend of Riley’s, you’re pretty much family.” The flush disappeared from his cheeks just like that. Apparently, my momentary hesitation had come far from ruining his self-esteem.
Two pours of bourbon later, and Eliot and I were sitting on adjacent barstools, turned to face each other. Close enough that we were nearly touching. I shifted slightly, spreading my legs a little so I could inch just a tiny bit closer, and he placed his knee between mine.
“Didn’t think I’d ever see you again,” Eliot admitted, staring me down with a piercing green-eyed gaze. “Maybe if I had, I would’ve tried to give you your jacket back years ago.”
“You wouldn’t have.” I didn’t feel bad about calling him out on it. “That jacket looks too good on you to give it up.”
“Yeah. Might’ve tried to give something else up instead,” he admitted, chuckling against the rim of his glass.
I raised an eyebrow, watching him sip at the golden-brown bourbon. “Mr. Ashton. Are you implying that you would’ve slept with me in exchange for a used jacket?”
“Oh, under different circumstances, I would’ve slept with you for nothing at all,” he revealed, green eyes glimmering. “The jacket would’ve just been a good excuse.”
“That offer still on the table?” I nearly coughed as I sipped at my own bourbon—being that forward had never been my style. Not with Patrick. Not with anyone. Christ, the first time an Omega I had the hots for so much as looked at me since Patrick’s death and here I was, playing Casanova anyway.
Maybe Don Sterling and I had more in common than I’d originally thought.
But despite my forwardness, Eliot only laughed and shook his head.
“You’ve got some nerve, Mr. Palmer,” he teased. “A year ago you left me on my doorstep just absolutely aching for you, and now you come into my workplace trying to figure out whether or not I’ll still let you fuck me?”
