Page 4 of Pin My Alpha
Tessa appears at the table, wiping it down with a damp cloth. “Last call on the pity party, Thompson. You want another or are you just gonna stare at that ice until it melts?”
“I’m good.”
“He means we’re closing,” Declan calls from the bar.
That voice again. It winds through the noise and straight into my gut, and I have to press my thighs together under the table before I can think about why. I should be immune by now. Three years of this. I’m not.
“Come on,” Milo says, already shrugging into his coat. Callum takes a container of leftover cookies from him, handling it with the careful reverence of a bomb-disposal expert.
The whole table dissolves into a tangle of goodbyes. Rhys steers Jude toward the door before he can walk into a table. Knox pulls Benji’s beanie down over his eyes. Soren hovers by the edge of the booth.
“Are you coming?”
“In a minute.”
His eyes flick to Declan, then back to me. The look is so obvious it’s insulting.
“I’m just finishing my drink,” I say.
He glances at my empty glass. “Right.”
Soren offers that tiny, apologetic smile and leaves. Even the romantic has clocked exactly why I’m still in this booth, and he’s too polite to say it out loud.
Jude, already tucked under Rhys’s arm at the door, sees me still sitting here, opens his mouth to say something stupidly well-intentioned, and I give him a look that could strip paint. He shuts it. He’s trainable.
“Text us when you get home,” Milo calls over his shoulder.
“I’m aware of the concept of texting.”
“Just do it.”
The door clicks shut behind them, and the quiet that follows is immediate and heavy. Tessa flips a stool onto a table with a thud. Diego starts stacking chairs, humming something that is definitely not a real song.
“Night, Shay,” Diego says, his grin a little too knowing.
“Night, Diego.”
Tessa slings her bag over her shoulder. “I’m going to pretend I don’t know why you’re still here.”
“I’m enjoying the ambiance.”
“You’re a terrible liar.” She glances at Declan. “Night, boss. Don’t forget to lock up.”
“I know how to lock a door, Tessa.”
“Do you?” She gives him a look that is entirely too meaningful, and then she’s gone.
And it’s just us.
Me on my side of the bar, him on his. The jukebox is off. The only sounds are the hum of the coolers and a pipe knocking once, deep in the walls.
Declan is wiping down a patch of counter that is already gleaming. The motion pulls the dark fabric of his Henley tight over his forearm—thick, dusted with dark hair, a faded scar just below the wrist catching the low light. I let myself watch this time. Just for a second. For three years I’ve wondered how he got that scar. Never asked. Asking would mean admitting I notice.
He looks like a man who knows how to fix things. Like he could change a tyre or build a shelf or hold his ground in afight. The thought makes me hot in a way that frustrates me down to the bone. It’s the exact promise my mother fell for, over and over. This one’s steady, Shay. This one’s different. And for a while, he always was. Until the steadiness curdled into boredom, or resentment, or he just got tired of playing house and disappeared, leaving her standing in the kitchen trying to figure out what she’d done wrong this time.
Don’t need anyone. Don’t let them get a foothold. It’s a simple rule. It’s kept me safe.
But my body doesn’t care. My stupid omega hindbrain has been cataloguing Declan Byrne for three years—the scent, the shoulders, the low rumble of his voice—and tonight, after getting stood up by some faceless app, the want is a raw scrape under my ribs. Not the clean, transactional itch I’m used to. Something messier. Something that feels dangerously close to need.
