CHAPTER 18: THAT ALPHA TOTALLY HAS A THING FOR YOU!

"Zander Harlight is taking me and my mother out for dinner." Ethan says as he makes a cup of coffee for a customer. There’s a loud clatter of a tray dropping from behind him. Ethan sighs, he knew this is the reaction he was going to get. He debated whether or not to tell him, but Ethan figures if he didn’t, Leo would have found out some other way.

"What the fuck did you just say?" Leo gapes at his best friend.

"Language!" Rox calls from the kitchen.

"Sorry, momma!" Leo gives a guilty smile at the window where she glares at him. She tisks at him and continues to prep for her next dish. Leo picks up the tray he dropped and slams it on the counter. Then in a lower voice, "What the hell did you say? He’s taking both of you out?" He leans forward, eager for his answer.

Ethan licks the corner of his lip and sets the drink on the counter. He doesn’t answer. As he delivers the cup to the person who ordered it, he can feel Leo staring daggers at him. The impatient curiosity is pouring out of him.

Ethan returns to the counter and sighs. He explains what happened the night before, not bothering to bring up how natural it felt for Zander to bring a ’clean up crew’, and Leo is grinning wide.

"No way." He laughs. He walks around the corner and stands besides Ethan. "That alpha totally has a thing for you!"

The beta frowns, "Thing? What thing?"

"Don’t be dense!" He smacks Ethan’s shoulder. "You know exactly what I mean! He’s into you. If he really wanted to say thanks he could’ve just sent a fruit basket or something." He waves his hand, "Rich people love doing that."

Ethan snorts.

Leo rolls his blue eyes, "What kind of classy rich man would stick around a little ol’ beta from some small restaurant, no offence," he gives Ethan a sheepish smile, but Ethan just shrugs. He’s not wrong. "unless he wanted some?" Leo wiggles his eyebrows.

"Stop being so crass." Ethan glares. He glances back at the kitchen to see his mother still cooking. He really doesn’t need her to hear about this nonesense. She got enough ideas after flirting with a man twenty years younger than her. He shivers and shakes the memory away. Best not to think about it.

"Dude, come on!" Leo groans. He pretends to drop the topic with a huff and messes with a few clean coffee mugs on the counter before turning back to Ethan, "So, do you like him?"

"You know what?" Ethan mutters. "I don’t see Max here today." Ethan glances around the lobby, in search of the brown haired alpha. "Has he finally gotten the message that you’re not into him?"

Leo stares down at the counter, his face burning red. "So what if he did?" Leo is pretty sure he didn’t though. Not after what happened in a bathroom of all places. Leo had a few drinks and next thing he knows he’s letting Max dry humps him into an orgasm. He clears his throat and ignores Ethan’s curious stare.

"See. You don’t want to talk about Max. I don’t want to talk about Zander. Truce?" Ethan holds out his hand. Leo’s nose wrinkles, he doesn’t want to give in. He wants to know about his friends romantic life, or the lack there of, in Ethan’s case.

Things are starting to get interesting! Eventually, Leo caves and shakes his hand. He’d have to talk about Max if he didn’t, and he’s rather forget about it all. But now that Ethan mentions it, he’s right. Max hasn’t come in today. The alpha is usually in around lunch time, but it’s an hour past that. He quickly scans the customers in the lobby and huffs when he doesn’t see the brown haired alpha.

Did Max really believe that he rejected him? Leo frowns as he wipes down a table. Or is what happen in the bathroom what he really wanted, and now that he’s got it, he’s going to disappear? His jaw clenches, if that’s the case then Max is no different than all the other alphas out there.

***

Roxanne closes the restaurant an hour earlier, and leaves Ethan to clean up so she can get ready for the outing Zander is going to take them on.

Ethan is almost finished when his phone vibrates. He pulls it out and stares down at the message from Zander.

Not too expensive, right?

Ethan hesitates over the keyboard. That alpha totally has a thing for you! Leo’s annoying words come to mind. The beta scoffs and types out a quick and simple agreement. Leo couldn’t be anymore wrong.

He finishes tidying up and heads upstairs to get ready himself. Although Ethan said Zander shouldn’t take them anywhere too nice, he still decides to put on a button up purple shirt and black slacks. His mother would just turn him back around if he came out wearing jeans and T-shirt.

He waits in the living room when his mother comes out a few minutes later.

"I didn’t know you had a dress like that." Ethan says. She stands on two inch black heels, and wears a black and white flower dress. The beige cardigan warms her arms and shoulders, and she holds a black hand bag.

"I never had a reason to wear it." She shrugs, but Ethan can hear the words that were left unsaid. Not since your father left. Ethan rubs the back of his neck. Ethan’s father left them when Ethan entered high school. He didn’t like running a restaurant. He insisted he was meant for something more, something like a lawyer. Ethan admits he has the smarts for it, but the man was too skittish.

Ethan scratches the side of his face, if they had more of a budget, Ethan would have taken his mom out somewhere nice a long time ago. He thinks it’s too bad that they don’t.

"No tie?" She frowns.

"Be glad I’m wearing a button up, mom."