by Aiden Bates
Ben rubbed the back of his neck. "Yeah, well. I mean it's possible that he's just a very forward omega. He doesn't strike me as the type to not get what he wants, you know? And part of me feels like it shouldn't creep me out that much. I'm not exactly a traditional alpha. An omega shouldn't have to wait for the alpha to make the first move, you know? That's just ridiculous. But there's something about the way he acts, you know? It's creepy. And you know, he's a big employer for my firm."
"There's that. You probably feel uncomfortable telling him to go screw himself." Ty grinned.
"I've been on the job three days. I don't think I can get away with that quite yet." Ben forced a grin. "Give it a week, anyway. Do you need help with anything?"
"Nah, not really. Grab yourself a beer. Sounds like you could use it." Ty busied himself with cooking dinner.
Ben grabbed beers for both of them and sat at the breakfast bar to watch Ty. His omega didn't seem to be panicked about Hartmann. He didn't seem thrilled, but he didn't seem panicked. Maybe it wasn't that big a deal. Maybe he was comfortable enough with their relationship as it stood that he wasn't worried about another omega trying to steal his man.
Was he even Ty's man? He'd been thinking of Ty that way. He'd been thinking of Ty as his omega since they kissed, but Ben was a possessive bastard and he knew it. If Ty wasn't jealous about Hartmann, though, maybe Ty wasn't thinking the same way.
Then again, Ty might be looking at it from a different angle. Ty himself had pointed out that Ben wasn't all that enthusiastic about Hartmann. Maybe Ty looked at it that way — Hartmann wasn't a threat because Ty knew that Ben didn't want Hartmann.
"You're thinking too hard," Ty told him, setting down a plate full of pasta with chicken and peas. "Eat up." He grinned and sat down beside Ben.
"I was just thinking about the whole thing with you and Hartmann." Ben met Ty's eyes.
Ty looked away for a second and blushed. "Look, he and I only met once, and that was for maybe a few seconds. I'm really nothing to him."
"But you don't care that he's been sleazing at me for two days?"
Ty bit his lip. "If you're calling it sleazing, it's unwelcome. I'm not sure where you and I stand, or where we'll go, but that's got nothing to do with Hartmann." His little pink tongue darted out to moisten his lips, drawing attention to the glint of metal lodged inside it. Ben shifted position on his bar stool as Ty continued to speak. "I'm concerned about Hartmann, but because he's making you uncomfortable. If you decide you're not interested in me, that's because of me. Not Hartmann."
"Oh." Ben stroked Ty's beard for a moment. "I only dig runners with tattoos and piercings, so I'm afraid Hartmann's out of the running anyway." He grinned.
Ty huffed out a laugh. "Seriously?"
"Okay. I hadn't made an opinion one way or another about tattoos until I saw them on you, when you were running." He turned back to his dinner. Ty was a pretty good cook. It wasn't fancy or anything, but it was good and filling, and that was what Ben wanted right now. "But now I think they're the hottest thing since fire."
They ate their dinner and transferred to the futon. Neither one of them was really in the mood for anything serious, but they could hold each other and watch some TV. After about half an hour, Ben did kiss Ty, because those lips just couldn't be left alone, but it wasn't the frenzied kissing of Monday night. This was more of a lazy, mellow making out with no pressure, no stress, just pleasure and a little bit of laughter.
Ty's shirt did wind up on the floor, but that was okay. That just made it easier for Ben to run his hands down Ty's sculpted torso. He held Ty's head against him and kissed while exploring all of that lightly tanned flesh, from his collarbone to the cut of his hipbones, and he knew that he could explore more if he wanted. Ty didn't say anything, he couldn't with Ben's tongue in his mouth for crying out loud, but his scent wrapped around them both and he kept his hands in such a way that Ben had access to anything he wanted.
Ben's heart swelled at the thought. Ty really would let him do anything. Ty trusted him that much. Alphas and omegas were creatures of instinct, at least much more so than betas, and on an instinctive level Ty was so open to Ben that it almost hurt.
He wouldn't abuse that trust.
Because Ben didn't want to abuse that trust, he kept his hands above the waistband that night. When it came time to part, he did so reluctantly, but he still went back to his own apartment. "I guess Thursday's probably another tough night for you?" he said.
"Yeah." Ty shifted, clearly not as on board as Ben with the idea of separating. He didn't complain, though. "Uh, Friday could be okay. Or Saturday, if you're game."
"I will be. Maybe we can go out on Friday, back to that taco place. I liked their margaritas." Ben didn't want to leave Ty without a specific plan of getting together.
Ty nodded. "That would be good." His cheeks turned pink, adorably, and Ben almost floated out of the room.
Work on Thursday brought two motor graders and an excavator in for their annual maintenance, which Ben was able to do without much hassle. They also had a dozer go over the side of an embankment, thank God or whoever that the operator was able to walk away with just a broken arm, but that was going to take more than just a few hours with the usual suspects to handle. OSHA was going to be involved with figuring out why it tipped, but his job was going to be hard enough in getting the thing up and running again.
Fortunately Bob was willing to let him go to town on it, once the OSHA guys released it. The issue had been with the Jersey barrier and the road underneath it, which had been undercut by a swimming pool rupture some time earlier in the spring that Ben's firm wasn't aware of when they got the plans from the highway department. The engine itself was fine, that thing probably would still work if you dropped a building onto it, but fixing the blades and the antenna would be a challenge. That was fine; that was exactly what Ben had signed on for. He dug right in and got to work.
At two o'clock, one of the receptionists, Sandy, popped her head into the garage. "Hey, Ben, you've got a visitor."
Ben eased himself out from under the lift, heart sinking. "Let me guess."
Her eyes widened. "Ben, it's Mr. Hartmann! He's one of the richest developers in southern California! Isn't that exciting?"
Ben sighed. He'd expect Sandy to get that Hartmann came off as about seventeen different kinds of creepy, but maybe she just didn't. Maybe she'd never had that kind of experience before. He certainly didn't want that for her. He might be overreacting, anyway.
He walked over to the sink and washed his hands, watching as most of the grime dripped onto the white porcelain and swirled down the drain. "Look, it's just complicated." He tried to give her a winning smile and used a paper towel to dry his hands. "It's okay, though. It is. Lead the way, I still get confused if you try to take me out of the garage."
Sandy laughed, hiding her smile behind her hand, and led him through the long hallway through the corporate offices and up to the fancy reception area.
Hartmann wasn't a bad-looking guy, taken objectively. He had that stereotypical omega build, slim and narrow-hipped, and his tailored suits emphasized that body. His blond hair was impeccably styled. He could probably have been a model for a fashion magazine for omegas, if omegas had fashion magazines. He really only had two drawbacks, at least two drawbacks that were visible on first glimpse. One was his teeth, which were crooked and in terrible condition. The other was his scent. The tulip-and-incense aroma hadn't been off-putting when Ben had first met him, but their contact had been brief. Every time he encountered the scent since then, it reminded him more and more of a church after a funeral.
"Alpha." Hartmann turned from where he'd been examining an award plaque on the wall, the vague frown on his face melting into a suave smile when he saw Ben's face. "How are you?" He reached out for a hug, but stopped when he saw Ben's greasy, stained coveralls. "Oh. Sorry."
"Yeah, we've had a busy day in the back there." Ben held out a hand to shake instead. He didn't want to se
em rude. "How can I help you today, Mr. Hartmann?"
Hartmann fluttered his lashes. "Oh, come on, Alpha. No need to be so formal." He followed Ben's glance at Sandy and Maris, the other receptionist, and gave an affected little titter. "Right. Anyway, I have some kind of a do tomorrow afternoon at the country club. I'd prefer to go with a date. I'll pick you up at two thirty?"
Ben blinked. Had Hartmann really just assumed that Ben would just go along with it? "Ah, sorry. It sounds great, but I've got work until five, and then I have plans after work. Thanks for the invite, though."
Hartmann's eyebrows drew together. "Oh." He sounded confused, like he didn't get turned down very often. He probably didn't, if Sandy's reaction was anything to go by. "I suppose that it is short notice. Some other time, then. I hope you'll accept this token of my esteem." He passed a long, thin box, wrapped in plain blue paper, at Ben. Then he waved at the secretaries, waved to Ben with an eerily intimate smile, and sauntered away.
Sandy and Maris stared at him. "So are you going to open the present or what?" Maris asked, using the cap of her pen to scratch behind her ear.
Ben winced and opened the gift. When he saw what was in the box, he gaped. "It's a tie."
Sandy took it carefully out of his hands, before it could touch his coverall. "It's expensive." She ran a light finger along the top. "Nice. High-quality silk. And the color complements your eyes."
"It's nice, I guess." He grimaced. "Except I own exactly one shirt that goes with a tie. It's the one I interviewed in. I don't know how to tie a tie." He scratched his head. "I don't know, guys. This is making me kind of uncomfortable, you know?"
"I guess." Sandy shrugged. "I mean you never know your luck. He's obviously got a thing for you, and it could be nice, you know? You wouldn't have to work anymore. You could sleep in. He's got an awesome place in La Jolla."
"Spend the entire day just hanging out, working on your tan, and maybe going to watch the seals." Maris leaned forward and rested her head on her hands, a dreamy expression on her face. "I can think of worse lifestyles."
"Okay…" Ben stared at the receptionists, trying to figure out if they were joking or not. "Anyway, I'm going to get back to work and try not to be too creeped out now. Thanks, guys."
He let Sandy box the tie back up and wrap it up in a plastic bag, so he could put it into his locker without risking it. Then he headed back into the garage, hoping that he could focus enough on the dozer to get things done.
Bob, of course, wanted to know what had gone on. Fortunately for Ben, he was a little more understanding than Sandy or Maris. "Sounds like he's more interested in you than you'd like."
"That's putting it mildly." Ben reached for a mallet. He'd been trying to hammer out a dent that blocked access to the nut holding the dozer's blade on when he'd been interrupted, and now he needed that kind of physical outlet. "What the hell am I supposed to do with a tie?"
"Hell if I know." Bob coughed. "I've got one somewhere. I think the wife's going to bury me in it or something. Now, the thing is, Hartmann contracts with us for a lot of projects, but we're a good, quality company. We don't pimp out our workers. I need for you to understand that. If he starts being less subtle, pressuring you in ways that you can't ignore, you need to let me know. Okay? We'll make sure he knows that's not okay."
Ben turned scarlet. "Thanks, sir. I mean I'm sure it won't come to that. I've got a guy… maybe. I mean, I don't know. I don't want to make assumptions about where that's going, but I think if this Hartmann guy realizes that I'm with someone else and the timing is wrong he'll back off."
Bob guffawed. "You don't let the grass grow under your feet, do you? You've got two omegas vying for your attention and you've been in town for what, a week?"
Ben shook his head. "It's not like that, Bob."
Okay, maybe it was technically like that, but it seemed to Ben that his supervisor was oversimplifying it so badly that he could hardly recognize his own situation. He had Hartmann slithering around, but he also had Ty. Ty was everything he wanted, and the only thing that gave him pause was how quickly things were moving with Ty. Hartmann made him nervous and edgy. Ben could spend days with Ty, he thought, and never want them to end.
Maybe that made Ty the scarier of the two.
Chapter Four
Ty and Ben got seats out on the patio when they went for dinner on Friday. They weren't necessarily looking for that, but they weren't going to object either. They had a lovely evening for it, and Ty certainly didn't mind enjoying the mild sea air after a long day indoors. "So how was work today?" he asked, toying with his margarita.
"Today was good." Ben grinned. "No interruptions. Yesterday we had a bulldozer wreck, and I've been working on that pretty much non-stop. It's one of the newer ones, with a lot of automation and stuff built in, so the company's really not willing to scrap it. I think I'm going to be able to get it running again by Tuesday, maybe."
"That's awesome." Ty had no idea if it was awesome or not, objectively speaking, but he knew that no one was going to pay to relocate a guy from wherever Ben had been before this to one of the more expensive real estate markets in the world if he wasn't one of the best. If one of the best construction equipment mechanics was talking about the repair of a bulldozer in a certain amount of time, then it was probably a pretty impressive measure. Plus, Ty had done a little bit of research. "That's one of the ones with the automatic blade control?"
Ben's denim blue eyes widened. "Why do you know that?" He put his drink down, a broad smile widening his face. "Did you look that up? Did you actually do research?"
"Is that weird?" Ty ducked his head, hiding behind the curtain of his hair.
"No." Ben reached out and took Ty's hand. The calluses, rough and solid, felt good against Ty's skin. He remembered how they'd felt against his chest and his breath caught in his throat, just a little bit. "I think it's sweet, actually."
Ty's cheeks burned, but he couldn't say he was ashamed. He always liked to know a little bit about what his boyfriends did; it gave him some clue what they were talking about. "Look, I like you, Ben. I want to know you. I don't need to know how that stuff works, and I can barely change the oil on my old Honda, but people spend a lot of their time at work. It's part of your life." He squirmed. "I want to understand it, just a little. That's all."
Ben squeezed his hand. "That's not a bad thing, sweetheart." He looked up and pulled away, and for a moment Ty was afraid that he'd come on too strong but no, the waiter was just coming back with their dinners.
Ty relaxed a little bit as they ate, although he couldn't force his brain to completely wind down. He liked to know about what his partners did and what interested them, but he'd never gotten this into a guy this soon. They'd only known one another for a week, and at this time last week Ty would have preferred to be anywhere else. Part of him accepted that this was just life, he couldn't fight his attraction or his pheromones, but he still needed to be logical about this.
Then again, what was logic when there was Ben? Ben was everything that an alpha should be, wrapped up in beautiful packaging. Maybe Ty should stop questioning himself and just enjoy the ride, wherever it led him.
A shadow fell across their table, and Ty looked up to see Dick Hartmann standing there with one hand curled into a fist at his side and his lip twisted into a sneer. "This? This painted rat is why you turned me down, Alpha?"
Other patrons stopped and stared, not trying to hide their curiosity. One even said, loud enough for Ty to hear, "Well I don't think he's ratty looking, I think he's hot." Ty made a mental note to be flattered by that later. Right now, he was too busy fighting down the adrenaline. He wanted to run back to the apartment. He was pretty sure he could outrun either of these guys. He also wanted to punch Hartmann right in the jaw. Maybe he could get a good punch off before he took off and get the best of both worlds.
Ben wrinkled his nose. "I told you I had plans." He picked up his margarita and sipped from it, looking just as calm as could be. "I honor m
y commitments."
Hartmann glowered at Ty, pulling his sport coat back as though Ty might contaminate it with his touch. "I suppose that's laudable, but really, Alpha. He's a street rat. He came from the street, he's going back to the street, it's where he belongs. I mean, you do know he was homeless?"
Onlookers gasped. Ty couldn't help but stiffen. Did they think that homeless people just became one with the pavement for all time?
Ben shrugged. "As a matter of fact, yes. That's not important. What I know is that I committed to having dinner with him and I'm having dinner with him." He set his jaw and met Hartmann's eyes.
"Of course." Hartmann straightened his back. "We'll talk about this on Monday, Alpha." He turned on his heel and stormed back toward Harbor Drive.
Ty and Ben watched him go. Their waiter approached. "Was that Richard Hartmann, the real estate developer?"
