Ulysses felt a twinge of something deep inside him, which might have been caused by surprise that Robbie remembered such a thing. Seeing as this was a safer topic of conversation, he followed it. “We have open time slots at the garage for anyone who wants to use the space to work on their bikes. It’s not too expensive. Wheeler said he’d be willing to halve the hourly cost for me since I work here. And, if I get parts through him for the bike, I can probably spend less than $1,000. Maybe even half that if I’m careful.”
“What?” Robbie laughed, sounding a little startled. “That’s absurd, isn’t it? That’s hardly anything!”
Ulysses preened a little, feeling proud that he knew things the other wolf didn’t. “I could buy a whole bike for around that, but that’s not what I want. I want a custom chopper, made from scratch. But, see, you can start with the frame, or you can literally buy bits and pieces and put them together. Shops will have specials on parts, or you can go to a junkyard and salvage what you want, pretty much for free. Those babies are usually shit, but sometimes they’ve got a gem or two.
“It’s not really money that’s the biggest investment. It’s the time and work. The money just depends on what I’m willing to spend. Could be a $500 bike. Could be a $1,000,000 bike.”
Robbie still looked a little doubtful, but he just shook his head. “Still. That’s amazing. I had no idea it could be so cheap to build something from scratch.”
“You just don’t get it,” Ulysses grunted. “If time was money, you wouldn’t consider it to be so cheap. I’m not going to have an actual, full bike for months.”
Robbie looked thoughtful now, which Ulysses silently counted as a point in his own favor. “When you put it like that, it makes more sense. That’s okay, then, I guess.”
They had been talking for much too long, as far as he was concerned. It was time to end this so they could both get on with their lives. “I should go back inside, Robbie.”
“Sure, Lee. Sure.” Robbie sighed faintly, then shook his head. “Whatever you want. I won’t bother you anymore.”
The omega looked like a puppy that had been punished for something it couldn’t understand, tail between his legs, ears drooping, eyes wide and sorrowful. And still Robbie hesitated for another moment or two, like he was waiting for Ulysses to take back what he’d said.
Ulysses wasn’t going to take it back. This was how things were meant to be. They had their chance in the past. It fell through. Now they had come together again for a short time, but Ulysses no longer needed Robbie’s assistance. He could work, could take the bus to get here. Things were returning to normal, so they no longer had any reason to be in contact with one another.
Finally, Robbie sighed and turned away. He went in the direction of his van, climbed inside, and drove away without so much as another look back. He had received the message loud and clear. Ulysses would see no more of him from now on.
That should have been a good thing.
Why did it feel so wrong?
It’s just his emotions lingering here, getting me down. I’ll feel better as soon as I get some food inside me, get back to work.
Thanks to Robbie, he now had a convenient lunch to eat. It wouldn’t be this way any longer, but he could enjoy this last free meal.
Ulysses turned to head back inside the shop and ran into Brody as soon as he was through the doorway.
“Who was that?” Brody asked, pouncing on the words in the way that a fox will lunge after a rabbit. “Your boyfriend bring you some lunch?”
The boyfriend taunt was really more than Ulysses could tolerate right now. He turned on Brody, pressing up very close to the other man so he couldn’t escape. He could feel the limits of Brody’s personal bubble, first dimpled and them completely popped by his intrusion.
“Back off me, homophobe,” Ulysses snapped, bringing his face right near Brody’s. “Understand?”
Brody held up both hands, every muscle in his entire body craning away from Ulysses. He clearly wanted to push away, though he was smart enough not to touch. Or maybe he had his own boundary rules so ingrained he couldn’t break them even when he wanted to. “Yeah, sure,” Brody said, almost muttering. His eyes darted frantically from side to side as he searched for an escape where there wasn’t one. “Whatever you say, man. Absolutely. Won’t say another word about it.”
“There’s nothing to say anything about.” Ulysses pulled back, then placed one hand on Brody’s shoulder and shoved him aside. He caught himself at the last moment, so he didn’t use his full strength and send the other man flying. They were, after all still friends. “Understand?” he repeated.
Brody nodded wordlessly, lifting one hand up as if to grab at his aching shoulder. Instead, he brushed himself off, as though the touch of another guy was like having a bug land on him. Annoying, unwelcome, vaguely disgusting.
“Good.”
Holding onto his lunch, Ulysses went back into the break room. He chose a quiet spot near the rear for himself, opened the container Robbie had given him, and then just stared at it. The enchiladas within looked just as delicious as everything else the omega made, and they were even still warm. Robbie must have made these, immediately packed them up, and then went in search of him.
He couldn’t bring himself to eat them.
His fork stilled in his hand, the plastic bending under the pressure he was applying to it. He put his hand down on the table, then sat back and sighed. He more or less just sat there at the table until his break ended, at which point he threw the uneaten food away and went back to work.
The rest of the day passed in an unhurried slog, followed by what must have been the longest bus ride of his entire life.
He headed from the bus stop and started to walk home, limping slightly as he went. As he passed by the yards of other houses, he saw a family. He didn’t think he had ever seen a full family out all at one time before, but there they were. A tired-looking woman wrapped up in the arms of a thin man, sitting on the porch step as they watched their two children wrestling in the dust.
A more or less normal sight. Nothing noteworthy about it, except for the way it made him feel.
Only once he was safely inside his house, away from prying eyes, did he admit to his own emotions.
He felt bad for the way he had treated Robbie. All the omega had been trying to do was help him, and he’d sent him away because he felt pressure to act a certain way at work, around the friends he’d had for years.
“Well, shit.” Now he was thinking about it, he felt even worse. He’d gone back on the feelings he’d just been starting to have. He’d been a jerk. Not that he wasn’t often a jerk, because he was. Some people deserved to be pushed around, treated badly.
This time, he hadn’t meant to be like that. He hadn’t really thought about the way he’d been acting, he’d just fallen back on old habits and been a jerk to someone who didn’t deserve it.
Other people didn’t do that. That man and woman on the porch, that tired and proud couple, hadn’t done that to each other or else they wouldn’t look so happy.
“Well, shit,” he repeated. “Now what?”
He was fantastic at starting things and ending them.
He hadn’t ever tried to fix something before.
6
Ulysses stood in a place where he never imagined he would be. He’d been having a lot of moments like this lately, where he was doing things he never expected to have to do.
Pulling in a deep breath, he lifted his fist and knocked on the door.
He was standing in front of a cozy little house in a middle-class neighborhood, which looked more or less identical to all the others around it. They were affordable cookie cutter houses, nestled up against each other all in a row, separated by moderate, well-maintained yard.
This particular house had a little more character than those on either side, caused by the occupants being more excited to live there. Decorate, seasonal decals covered every available windowpane, cheerful penguins and dancin
g snowmen, snowflakes of various sizes and formations, even though Christmas was still several months away. A wreath of fake autumn leaves blocked out the large house numbers on the front of the door. And the yard was groomed to perfection, with painstaking love. Statues of deer and rabbits and squirrels lived together in harmony underneath bushes and the newly-planted maple tree.
It should have warmed his heart to be here, in the presence of this house and the occupants who made it a home.
Instead, he was nervous as hell, because he hadn’t spoken to the people inside for several months. He always got along with one of them, but that wasn’t who he was here to see.
Soft footsteps approached from within, coming up to the door. Ulysses took a step back, watching the panes of glass on either side of the door to try and see who exactly was going to answer. He couldn’t see anything but colored smudges and a shadow though, because Christmas trees and prancing reindeer were blocking his view.
The door opened, and Moody stood there.
Once upon a time, the two of them had lived in the Shadow Claws garage, and they had always clashed. Ulysses didn’t know why this was, just that he automatically disliked the omega the moment they crossed paths. Moody was small and slender and tried too hard to be edgy and sexy, with a scowl that never left his face. He had gone out of his way to avoid having fun, and he wrote cringe-y poetry in the dark of his room.
And then, Moody had hitched up with an alpha from Lethal Freedom called Isaac. They moved here and had a child together.
Even though he knew this was Moody, he had a hard time recognizing the other wolf because of how much he had changed. His cinnamon eyes, which had always been so heavy-lidded and dour, were now sparkling and clear. His messy hair, so annoyingly perfect before, looked truly messy and tousled, like he’d been very busy today. Even his posture was different, his stance more confident.
And then his eyes narrowed and Ulysses caught a glimpse of the past, the annoyed omega who used to argue and scrap with him. “What the hell are you doing here at my house? Isaac isn’t here right now.”
“It’s not Isaac I want to see,” Ulysses grunted. He stopped before he could say anything else, took a deep breath, and tried again. “I need your help with something.”
Moody stared at him, mouth slightly open. He shook his head and closed his mouth, then opened it again. “What?” was all he managed to say.
Ulysses gritted his teeth, fighting down a wave of embarrassment. He wasn’t doing this for himself. His pride was not on the line. He just had to get through it, self-consciousness be damned. “I need your help,” he repeated.
“What the hell could you possibly need my help with?”
“Can I come inside?” If he was going to be ridiculous, he didn’t want to look ridiculous, standing out here on the porch.
Moody regarded him in silence for a moment, then took a step backward. “Sure. Come on.”
Ulysses tried a smile, although he didn’t know how successful it was, based on the odd look Moody threw in his direction. He stepped inside the house and looked around. Directly in front of him was a hallway with several doors, all of them closed, while to his right was a closet. To his left, a handsome living room done in gorgeous shades of red and gold. The color scheme might have been a little overbearing, if the walls weren’t a modest shade of off-white and the carpet harmless beige. The TV was on and muted, displaying some sort of nature documentary show where enormous spiked crabs crawled across the ocean floor. Tufts of feathery coral swayed gently in a current, and luminescent speckles faded in and out of the background.
A beautiful and enchanting scene, which somewhat contrasted the chaos of what was on the carpet. Toys and thick cardboard books were everywhere, some of which bore clear marks of chewing.
Past the living room was the kitchen. From what Ulysses could see, the space was cluttered but not dirty. Faint warm and buttery scents reached his nose, strengthening as the seconds went on.
“Hey, nice place,” he said, trying to think of a compliment that would sound genuine.
“Get real,” Moody said. He placed his hands on his hips and shook his head. “And would you shut the damn door? You’re letting the cold in.”
The days right now were nowhere near as cold as the nights, but they were both Southern men and Southerners can be a very temperature sensitive type of people. Anything below 60° was a cause for alarm, a reason to stock up on eggs, bread and milk, and break out the long sleeves.
“Sorry,” Ulysses said, turning around to shut the door. He felt decidedly out of his league, floundering in a place he didn’t know, a situation with which he had no experience.
“Thanks,” Moody said. “Now take off your fucking shoes. How old are those damn things?”
The omega spoke with a tone that suggested he was enjoying being in a position to boss Ulysses around, which was really very irksome. He could feel his hackles rising, irritation making him square his shoulders. Then, he sighed and just did what was asked of him. He probably deserved this, he supposed. This was the way he had always treated Moody and now the other man was finally having a chance to give back everything that he had endured.
Ulysses kicked off his boots, which were scuffed and covered with dirt almost all the way to the laces. “They’re only two years old,” he muttered.
“Maybe if you cleaned them, they would look better. Right now it’s just like you’re wearing corpses on your feet. And I could say a thing or two about those socks.”
One was black, and significantly longer than the other, which was white and pocked with holes.
No mention of my missing toe. There was clearly something missing from one of his feet, even when covered in fabric.
Ulysses looked up from the disaster that was his socks, wanting to find out if Moody was just being polite or if he was really that unobservant.
Moody’s warm eyes glimmered with amusement, sparkles twinkling deep in his cinnamon irises.
“You’re enjoying this,” Ulysses said. It didn’t come out as an accusation. He just wanted it out in the air between them, putting them on equal footing. He wanted Moody to know that he was on to him.
Moody smiled and for just a moment, Ulysses forgot what he was doing. Everything about the other man seemed to transform when he smiled, true happiness elevating his features to an entirely new level of handsome. His nose crinkled, his eyes squinted just slightly. A dimple formed in one cheek and Ulysses had no idea if that dimple had always been there or not, because he couldn’t recall ever having seen Moody smile in his presence before.
“Damn right I am. But I’m just fucking with you, giving you a hard time. The look on your face was too priceless. No more though, I promise.” Moody gave another smile, though there was a wry twist to the corner of his lips for this one. “Not like you ever said that to me, though.”
“I’m sorry.”
“For some reason, I believe you.” Moody tipped his head to one side. “I don’t think you would be here unless you felt like you really had to be.”
“Damn right.”
Moody laughed. In a flash, it was quite clear to Ulysses that this was one wolf who was going to have laugh lines when he was older. The thought saddened him, somehow. It had taken Moody leaving the garage entirely, getting away from him and the others who teased him, for this to be able to happen.
“Come into the kitchen with me,” Moody suggested. “I need to check on something in the oven. And then we’ll talk.”
Ulysses did as he was told, taking care not to step on any of the toys littering the path. “Where’s the kid?” he asked, curious without knowing why.
“Charlie’s down for her nap,” Moody said, opened a drawer on the cabinet near the stove. He pulled out an oven mitt, which also looked to have been chewed on at some point.
“Charlie?”
“Charlotte. We named her after my mother.”
“Oh.”
Moody bent over and pulled the oven open, sending a hot wa
ve of steam rolling throughout the little kitchen. The buttery scent strengthened in potency, and now Ulysses could pick out a scent like bread laced with sugar, not quite cake but not like anything else he knew. Curious, he leaned forward to peek over Moody’s shoulder as the omega pulled out a tray of round, lumpy, biscuit-like… things.
“Hey, perfect,” Moody said, his eyes brightening.
“They look a little lumpy,” Ulysses said, interjecting almost before Moody finished speaking.
Without answering, Moody took the tray over to another part of the counter, which was covered with a towel. He placed the hot tray down, shut the oven and turned it off, and then finally removed his oven mitt. Still holding the thick glove in one hand, he lifted his head and looked right into Ulysses’ eyes.
Ulysses took a step back without meaning to, startled by the sheer intensity of that gaze. He had no idea what name he might give to the emotions being conveyed, only that they all culminated into something like exasperation and disapproval.
“Is it possible for you to keep your mouth shut, or are you compelled to give your opinion about everything?”
“I…”
I don’t know what you’re asking.
Moody gestured with the mitt he held, shaking it to emphasize what he was saying. “Your perspective doesn’t always count for something, Ulysses. Sorry but that’s just the way it is. I said my scones are perfect. They’re perfect to me, because they are drop scones and they’re supposed to look like that. It’s rustic. And they’re easier for first-time bakers because you don’t have to worry about them being the wrong consistency for cutting into shapes. Did you know any of that?”
Ulysses held up his hands, feeling very much like he wanted to take another step back. He was being lectured here and he didn’t like it, not at all. He wasn’t angry, and in fact he had no name for the prickling all down the length of his spine, the desire to look away, to sink into the ground and be unseen. “I don’t even know what scones are.”
“Then instead of commenting on something you don’t know about, maybe either agree or say nothing. That applies for pretty much anything. Okay?”
Taming The Alpha: A Wolf Shifter Mpreg Romance (Savage Love Book 3) Page 9
