2. Garin

Chapter 2

Garin

I needed to stop doing this to myself. I pressed my forehead against the tile and let the hot water pound down my back. I knew better, and yet time and time again, I made the same mistake. And who did it hurt? Me. I was such a dumbass.

Pining for my best friend wasn't healthy for either of us, and yet, here I was doing exactly that. It was hard not to. He was kind, hot, and damn, he had the perfect ass. It was a struggle not to pinch it every time he walked by. Just thinking about it got my cock stirring and ready for action.

Every time I watched Trig leave the house to go on another job—a.k.a. date, since that was usually what he was hired for—my heart broke a little more. Why didn't he see me?

It was a question I'd been asking myself for years. Asking and making myself miserable. The reality was, the answer didn't matter because the end result was the same. He saw me as a friend and nothing more. The most probable answer was that I was an alpha too and that automatically put me in the friend zone. I got it. I really did. Not everyone was willing to look past someone's designation, and there was nothing wrong with that.

Didn't make it hurt any less.

Honestly, I thought—no, I hoped that moving in together would be the precipice for us. It would push us together and we could finally explore the chemistry that I thought we both felt. But neither of us ever made a move, and then he started working at Alpha For Hire and had these dates all the time, and…he seemed to forget about me.

I reached for my cock and quickly jerked one out as I tried not to think about my best friend in that adorable little bow tie. He looked so fucking good in everything he wore, and it killed me. He could never get the stupid things straight, and that only made it a thousand times cuter.

When I got out of the shower, I slipped on a pair of basketball shorts and planted my ass on the couch. Another wild Friday night for me. I could go out to the bars and find an omega to warm my bed. There had been a time in my life when I'd thought that was a good time, but that ship had sailed. There was no one who could compare to Trig, so why bother?

A couple of my wolf buddies invited me to meet them for darts, but I just wasn't interested. I couldn't get into hanging out with the guys when I just wanted to be with my guy. Being there with them, surrounded by couples out on dates, would only remind me of what I didn't have.

Staying in by myself was better.

The messed-up part was that the guy I was skipping a night out for was the same guy who was currently on his way to meet up with some rando at a wedding. They would probably end up fucking in a coat closet before he finally decided to head back home to me. I remembered the first time he came home having hooked up with his date. He didn't brag about it or even tell me, but I could scent it on him, and it cut real deep. So what did I do? I started telling him to get lucky. It was my way of shielding my heart. If I told him to, then it wasn't that bad.

Maybe he had the right idea. Not only did Trig make a shit ton of extra money taking jobs at Alpha For Hire, but he was making a lot of great connections too.

The people who hired him were mostly wealthy members of the community who either needed arm candy for an event or someone to help out with projects around their house.

I could do either of those, and it would help get us to our goal of buying a house together even sooner. At least, that would be my excuse for taking the gig work. Even though the truth was that I needed something to help me get out of my funk.

Trig and I had been talking about getting a house for a few months, and after my last bonus, I had enough in the bank to cover my half of the purchase price in cash, but Trig didn't know that yet. I didn't want to put the pressure on him to get the money faster. He already worked so hard, and he was adamant that we go completely even on the purchase, and I wasn't allowed to put in extra. When the time came, I would "coincidentally" reach my goal at the same time he did.

If he asked why I was suddenly interested in gig work, he would totally buy that I was gonna use the money for our down payment. In fact, he'd hinted that he'd soon have enough in the bank to cover his half too, if he hadn't already reached his goal. And yet, he was still taking every job that was offered, not once mentioning it in conjunction with the house.

Clearly, he was searching for something—or someone—that he hadn't found in his own home. That had to be the answer, right?

Fuck, I needed to get a grip.

On a whim, I pulled up the Alpha For Hire website just to see what the application process looked like. After a few seconds on the landing page, a pop-up window almost made my heart stop.

Shifter For Hire was looking for shifters.

What the hell?

I followed the link and read through the information page. The company Trig contracted to as a paid alpha had recently started up a sister company called Shifter For Hire.

Well, hell. I'd been hearing about more of my shifter friends going public, but I still generally kept that aspect of myself private. It wasn't a secret, but I didn't go around announcing it. And I wasn't sure how I felt about being a novelty people could pay for.

Trig knew about my wolf, of course, but I had to wonder if he was aware of this new shifter branch of his company.

If he did, he definitely would've mentioned it to me. Probably .

As I explored a little deeper, the funner it sounded. They had an immediate need for bodyguards and event bouncers, which I could totally handle. If nothing else, I'd spend fewer nights alone watching TV. The starting rates were double my salary, so even though I didn't really need the money, it was a nice bonus. Within a few minutes of clicking around on the site, I made the decision to fill out the application and join their roster.

Now it was just a waiting game.

I'd just sit back and see if anyone even wanted to hire me for anything. Trig got tons of jobs as an alpha, but that didn't mean anyone would want me as an alpha wolf.

I turned on the TV and found a cheesy romcom. Just because I wasn't ever going to get my happy ending didn't mean I couldn't enjoy watching other people find theirs.