Page 18 of Pin My Alpha
“You did all this… since this morning?” I ask. The words sound stupid and hollow.
His eyes narrow. “Don’t make it weird.”
“I’m not.”
“You’re staring at me like I just offered you a kidney.”
“I haven’t read it yet,” I say. “It might be better than a kidney.”
A sound that’s half-snort, half-cough comes from Tessa’s direction.
Shay ignores her, his focus locked on me. “You’re ignoring community partnerships. There are no alumni events on your calendar. You could do local music nights that aren’t just some sad dude with a guitar. And for the love of God, somebody needs to take over your social media, because I saw three posts in a row about your wings.”
“The wings sold,” I say, because it’s the only thing my brain offers up.
“In February.”
“Right.”
His mouth gives a tiny twitch, a flicker of something that isn’t anger. It’s the closest I’ve seen to the omega from last night, the one who was trying so hard to act like he wasn’t falling apart in my arms. I look away before the memory can do any real damage.
Tessa reaches over the bar. “Can I?”
Shay slides the binder toward her without looking away from me. She flips it open. The pages are full of clean charts and blocks of text, with color-coded tabs sticking out from the side. On the first page, Byrne’s is printed in a sharp, modern font.
Tessa turns a page, then another. The silence stretches.
“This is good,” she says finally, her voice low.
Shay shifts his weight. “It’s a first draft.”
“It’s really good.”
A hint of something sweet cuts through the air, unguarded and unexpected, but it’s gone before I can name it. I see the exact moment he catches himself, his jaw going tight again.
“Which brings me to my terms,” he says, his voice flat. He gently takes the binder from Tessa and squares it with the edge of the bar. “This is a business arrangement. I’m a consultant. You’ll pay me a nominal fee for my work, and we are going to pretend last night never happened.”
There it is. He’s standing there in my shirt, offering me a way to save my bar by erasing him. By erasing us.
The urge to say something stupid and honest is a physical pressure in my throat. I’m sorry. Don’t go. I can’t pretend.
Across the bar, Tessa catches my eye. She gives her head the slightest shake. A warning. Don’t you dare. She’s right. This isn’t about what I want; it’s about what he’ll accept. He’s offering a deal, not an opening.
Shay is watching me, his face a careful blank, but his scent is a wire pulled taut.
I look from the binder to the kid who made it. The kid with my mark, angry and red above the collar of my shirt, offering to fix the one thing I thought I had left to lose.
I hold out my hand. The gesture puts my own forearm on the bar between us, his teeth marks livid against my skin.
“Deal,” I say.
His eyes drop. They snag on the bite.
For a single, suspended beat, the fight goes out of him. He doesn’t look like a marketing senior with a binder full of answers. He just looks young, and tired, and caught staring at the proof that he’d wanted it, too.
Then it’s gone, buried so fast I almost think I imagined it. His expression shutters.
He reaches out and takes my hand. “Deal.”
