Heaven's Ballroom

by Aiden Bates

  “I didn’t know this was where you work now,” I pointed out, fighting back a blush of my own.

  “No,” he agreed. “Or else I suppose you would’ve been in here the minute you’d realized it, throwing yourself at me all over again.”

  “Did I throw myself at you?” If Eliot was going to tease me, then he could learn to get as good as he gave. “As I remember it, you were the one who was desperate for it. ‘Please, Alton, take me to bed and ravish me like the hot piece of ass I am…’”

  He smirked. “And you, you poor thing. ‘Oh, Eliot, I yearn to with every drop of cum in my big, heavy Alpha balls, but alas…’”

  We stared each other down for a moment, then exploded in laughter. There was nothing more to do than laugh at it—it had been a stupid, emotional night for both of us, and we’d made stupid, emotional decisions because of it. Eliot probably regretted inviting me in as much as I regretted turning him down.

  “I really am sorry,” I found myself saying as the laughter faded into a warm silence. “I’m a sloppy flirt, as it turns out. I’ve been out of the game for too long, I guess.”

  “I’m sure your new husband keeps you busy.” He said it coyly, like he was prodding an old bruise experimentally, just to see whether it still hurt or not.

  A strange kind of warmth rose up in my chest. “There is no new husband.” I raised my left hand to show my ringlessness as proof—the wedding bands that Patrick and I had exchanged with each other so long ago, I still wore stacked one on top of the other on my right. “Never remarried.”

  “Good,” he said softly, easing back against the bar with a smile. “Being single suits you.”

  I nodded back to the table, where Riley and Max were still making out, completely oblivious. “Tell those two that.”

  “Maybe I will. You three going anywhere else tonight?”

  I glanced down at the Rolex on my wrist, disappointed when I saw how late it was. “God, I wish we could. The babysitter’s probably getting antsy, though…”

  The smile faded from his lips. He looked disappointed too, but in a different way. It probably sounded like the same old song: No, I can’t, I have a kid, I’ve gotta get home…

  “Single dad problems,” Eliot said with a nod. “Right. Sorry. Yeah, I won’t keep you then.”

  He tossed the rest of his drink back, but before he could move away I reached out and caught his hand in mine. His knuckles felt exactly like I remembered—hard, bony ridges, like a map of a city that I’d long since memorized even though I’d only just passed through once upon a time.

  “Not tonight, maybe,” I said, my voice low and gentle. “But maybe some other night? I’ve—” I stopped myself. Couldn’t exactly tell an Omega that I’d only met in passing, given a single ride home to a year ago, that I missed him, now could it? “It’d be nice to catch up sometime. If you wanted.”

  His smile returned, slow and bittersweet. “I might. Give me your phone.”

  I fished it out of my pocket, unlocked it and handed it over to him like it was burning my palm just to touch it. He keyed his number in, barely looking at his fingers as he typed. His gaze was on mine—green, captivating, just as intriguing as it had been on that first night we met. It should have been the last night, I knew…

  But fate had a funny way of knowing just when to dredge up the past, I guessed.

  “Call me sometime,” he said, rising and leaning into me. A delicate kiss fell on my cheek, just wet enough to make me miss the feel of his lips against my stubble as he slipped away, out the door and into the night.

  4

  Eliot

  “Do you want to come in?” I asked, all bedroom eyes and lost inhibitions. I hooked my finger around one of his belt loops, giving it a little jerk to draw his hips nearer to mine.

  He stumbled forward a half step, too good on his feet to ever falter for long. His lips dipped instinctively toward mine, pure magnetism. His breath against my mouth was humid, sober, hot and fresh.

  “You know I want to,” he professed, closing his eyes and turning his head away. I could feel the forces fighting inside him, though I didn’t know why. If he wanted me, there I was. Eager for him. Hungry. Ripe for the taking—and so happy to be taken, too.

  “Then come inside,” I said. “Come inside and—”

  A phone rang, stirring me up out of the memory wrapped in a dream. My bed was cold, messy, and empty except for the way my body was tangled up in my sheets. I’d dreamed that same dream a dozen times or more over the past five years, and always it ended up the same way: me waking up alone, coated in a thin layer of cool sweat across the hardness of my chest, the ringing of a phone in my ears.

  Only this time, the phone in question wasn’t Dream-Alton’s, upsetting our little flirtation and ending the night. This time, it was my phone that was lighting up and trilling obnoxiously. Not in the dream, but just there on my nightstand, an unknown number on its screen.

  I almost didn’t answer it. I almost rolled over, pulled my pillow over my head to block out the light, and tried to go back to sleep. On the best mornings, I could guide my subconscious back to that moment. Create a revisionist history of how it might have played out, if only in my mind. On the best mornings, I turned Alton’s phone off, pulled him into my apartment with me and told him that his babysitter could wait just an hour or two more. That I needed him—urgently. Completely. And most importantly…immediately.

  Instead, I groaned, answered the call and smashed my phone sleepily against my cheek.

  “Yeah?”

  “Eliot.” The way he said my name, that erudite gruffness somewhere between academic and cowboy, lit my every brain cell up like the Fourth of July. “It’s Alton. Bad time?”

  I squinted as I glanced out the window, catching a blinding eyeful of sunlight. “Well, it’s morning…”

  He laughed. “I’ll take that as a yes.”

  “Never was a morning person,” I grumbled, rubbing my eyes and straightening in bed. “Hadn’t expected you to call so soon, I guess.”

  “Want me to hang up? Try again later?”

  “No—no, I know how you Wall Street Alphas are,” I assured him. “Sun’s up, so are you. How was your night?”

  “Could’ve been worse.” There was a beat, like he was still trying to figure out exactly how he wanted to word what he really wanted to say. “It was nice seeing you again.”

  “How nice?” I pulled myself up out of bed and padded out to the kitchen, stepping over last night’s clothes on the way. I’d stripped down the minute I’d entered my bedroom the night before. There was always something too comfortable about sleeping in the nude to bother with pajamas when I’d already splurged on such nice cotton sheets.

  “Nice enough that I’d like to do it again,” Alton said. “I wasn’t kidding about setting up that second date.”

  “Second date?” I laughed as I put the kettle on to boil for my morning tea. “That suggests that we’ve had a first.”

  “Good point,” he agreed. “Let’s rectify that. I was thinking—”

  “Uh…hey, Eliot,” a voice called from the doorway, just before I heard my front door swing shut.

  Shit.

  “Call you back?” I choked out into the phone, moving the tea towel to cover my cock with as I stared wide-eyed at my ex and the Omega he’d left me for.

  “Of course.”

  I clicked the end call button and placed my phone face down on the counter, my pulse galloping along like it was Kentucky Derby day.

  “Ah…sorry, Eliot.” Ben was the first to speak, and at least he had the grace to be apologetic about it. “We should’ve called first, I guess. It’s just…”

  “Why not, right?” I didn’t bother to hide the annoyance from my voice as I gestured frustrated at Ben’s hand. “You’ve got a key.”

  “I’m, uh…” Ben looked nervously to James, then cocked his head toward his bedroom door. “I’m going to go grab my stuff. Be out in a minute!”

  “Ben�
��wait, I’ll come with—” James made a move to follow him, but Ben had already slipped into his room, cutting James off with the slam of his door.

  The silence that followed was the kind that was so thick, I could sink my teeth into it. James, always so tall and sure of himself, hunched awkwardly as I stared him down. There was something delicious about that, I realized. He had some nerve, coming back to my apartment after he’d knocked up my roommate. I was annoyed that he’d cut my call with Alton short, but pleased that I could at least make him sweat about it for a little while.

  “So,” I said casually, tossing the tea towel onto the counter over my phone. If he wanted to come into my place unannounced, I figured he could live with seeing me au naturel. It wasn’t like he didn’t already know what he was missing out on—he’d sure as hell seen my naked body before. “How’ve you been?”

  James glanced at me, taking my full 6’1” frame in before flushing fuchsia and averting his eyes. Didn’t mean that I missed the way his pants tented at the sight of me—good. If he couldn’t help the fact that his cock couldn’t remember which holes it was and wasn’t allowed to be in, then he could suffer the awkward boner that followed. He deserved it, as far as I was concerned.

  “Good?” he choked, watching the rug like it was a particularly compelling piece of art. “Uh. Yeah. Good, I guess.”

  “Oh, I’m so glad to hear that.” I grabbed the kettle off the burner and turned to pour it over the tea bag in my mug. Gave him a good view of my ass while I was at it—no point in pretending that it hadn’t been his favorite feature of mine. “You two must be so excited…new relationship, baby on the way, happily ever after just in sight.”

  “Well…” He tugged at his collar, like it had suddenly shrunk up around the thickness of his neck. “Well, I mean, I won’t pretend like it hasn’t been a little stressful…”

  “Of course,” I agreed, dolloping sugar into my tea and stirring it with a little silver spoon. A splash of milk from the fridge, and I settled myself against the back counter, holding the mug to my lips and blowing gently on its rising steam. “You must be drowning in wedding plans by now. I remember you always said that there was nothing more terrifying than planning a New York wedding.”

  His face was white-pale as his eyes met mine again. I used to like the muddy blue of his irises, but now I couldn’t help but bask in the knowledge that they were completely unremarkable as he tried to keep them from wandering south. “Yeah, uh. Yeah, my family has been…well, not exactly happy about how fast they’re going to have to pull everything together, I guess.”

  I smiled, sipping at my tea and enjoying the warmth of it on my tongue. “Naturally. Booking venues, hiring caterers… Even with all your father’s connections, the Brooklyn Winery must be a real bitch to try and snap up on such short notice.”

  James sighed, nodding painfully. His entire family of wealthy socialites had been married there—the idea of him getting hitched anywhere else must have been almost more unthinkable to them than the idea of his newborn heir being born a bastard.

  “We’ll probably have to settle for a courthouse,” he admitted. “And Mom’s already panicking over the suit fittings—Ben’s already showing a little, so…”

  “No shame in putting an elastic waist in the back of the pants,” I reminded him. “The jacket will cover it up anyway, I’m sure.”

  James laughed like he’d just been forced to swallow glass. “Elastic waist in Armani? Our tailor would probably throw me out by my neck if I asked him—and when I mentioned it to Mom, she looked at me like she never wanted to speak to me again.”

  “What can you do?” I deadpanned. He’d gone from my boyfriend—the man I thought I might spend the rest of my life with—to someone else’s future husband overnight. We could joke around as much as we liked, but there was no way this situation could play out as anything short of uncomfortable. Awkward. Terse. “Suppose that’s what happens when everything’s moving so fast.”

  “Yeah…yeah. Pretty much.” He took a step toward me, either forgetting that I had every reason to break his stupid upper-class nose or just not caring enough to maintain enough distance for self-preservation. “Eliot, I…”

  “Don’t,” I warned him, but he took another step forward anyway. Poor James—he’d never been very talented at doing what was good for him.

  “I’m sorry, okay? It was one stupid night—one mistake! Are you really going to act like one idiotic accident is enough to ruin things between us forever?”

  I raised an eyebrow at him as he continued his approach, stopping him with a single finger against his chest before he could try and make another stupid mistake by trying to get any closer than that.

  “Yeah,” I told him, “I am. Look, Ben is a nice guy. He’s probably going to fuck your Uncle Isaac at the wedding reception, sure, but that’s your problem. Not mine. You made your bed, now lie in it.”

  “And if I’d rather lie in your bed instead?” His voice was husky and low.

  I smirked as Ben came out of his room, arms laden with a box full of his things.

  “Okay. That should be everything. Ready to go?” Ben asked.

  “I think you’ve done enough lying in this apartment for one lifetime,” I said, soft enough that Ben couldn’t hear. “Take care, James.”

  “Yeah.” James hung his head, slinking back over to Ben and taking up the load of Ben’s remaining possessions as Ben put his key down on the coffee table. “Yeah, take care, Eliot.”

  “Thanks for everything, Eliot,” Ben said with a grin, apparently still completely unfazed by the fact that he’d walked in on me in the nude with my ex-boyfriend in tow. “And hey, man—looking good! Text me the name of your trainer, will you? Gotta get this body wedding-ready before the big day!” He turned to James, rising up on his tiptoes to kiss James’ cheek. “Your mom is inviting your Uncle Isaac, right? That guy is loaded…”

  I waited until they were out the door to release the laugh that had been building in my chest ever since they walked in. It felt good to laugh like that—felt good to know that even though I didn’t wish James and Ben any ill will, they’d end up tearing each other apart anyway. It was the nice thing about people who did shitty things like that—no matter how good it might have looked like they had it, they’d always end up getting their just desserts one way or another. Usually, by doing the same shitty things that they always did.

  I laughed for so long and so hard, my tea went cold and I nearly missed the sound of my phone vibrating beneath the kitchen towel. When I answered it, my heart did a back-flip—a text. From Alton’s number, no less.

  I have a proposition for you, it read. Interested?

  My heart flipped itself back over, butterflies fluttering around in my stomach as I typed my answer.

  Always, I wrote back.

  Ben and James would end up getting what they deserved, I had no doubt—and even though I knew I wouldn’t end up finding my happy ending in Alton, there was no reason that we couldn’t have a little fun in the process.

  5

  Alton

  Mornings at Hayward Financial generally fell somewhere on the chaos scale between a military coup and a prison riot. Walking into the large, open main room of the office was like going into battle: one did not dare to enter the front lines without necktie loosened (lest someone grab hold of it and yank so hard that you were strangled with it) and coffee in hand (black, always. Sugar-coating things wasn’t Malcolm Hayward’s style).

  On that morning especially, I was dreading entering the building. I’d gotten Lizzie to school successfully, which was feat enough in its own right, considering how much she hated her kindergarten teacher, and I’d had a successful phone conversation with Eliot on the walk to work—even if it had ended a little abruptly, for reasons still unknown. All things considered, my day was begging for a fuck-up, and sure enough, as soon as I stepped across the threshold of our offices, I walked right into one.

  “Morning, Mr. Palmer!” Anne, our
new secretary, yelped at me as she balanced a phone between her shoulder and her ear, an additional phone in each hand.

  “Morning, Anne,” I said, taking a hard step back as one of our new brokers, Brian, stormed out the door I’d just come through in a huff, holding a box of his belongings in his arms. Just beyond Anne’s desk, papers were being shredded, dumped and in one case, set fire to in a flurry of destructive motion. I could even hear Hayward yelling down the hall, despite the fact that his office door was, as always, firmly closed. “Mind filling me in on what’s happened?”

  “I’m so sorry, Mr. Palmer,” she apologized, sweat beading her pale brow as she juggled a fourth ringing phone at her desk. “I would love to, but I just—Hayward Financial, please hold!”

  I picked my way across the rest of the fray, headed for Hayward’s door. I’d never really liked Hayward, even back when we went to Harvard together. He was brilliant, but easily the most conniving man I’d ever met. Taking the CFO position opposite him when he’d decided to build the place had been a gamble; returning after my stint at Sterling Enterprises, even more so. But to his credit, he knew a thing or two about running a profitable business—even if it was oftentimes both literally and figuratively on fire.

  I confiscated the lighter of the young Alpha burning expense reports and pointed him to the nearest fire extinguisher as I passed. All things considered, Hayward was usually one snap decision away from captaining a sinking ship. But as CEO, at least I knew he’d have a good likelihood of knowing what was going on.

  “And another thing—” Hayward bellowed to his secretary as I slipped through his office door. His eyes fell on me instantly, and the scowl he’d been sporting immediately shifted into a bastard’s grin. “Morning, Palmer! How the hell are ya?”