Pretty early on in their meeting, when it was clear how things were going between them, he’d asked where they could get hold of poppers. Which prompted Hairy to start chatting about his favourite types of popcorn. The alpha spoke so brightly that Bikey let himself be happily distracted by comparing the merits of truffle popcorn with traditional salted varieties. They’d talked about at least fifty different varieties and possibilities, before Hairy revealed he’d never eaten popcorn, he’d only seen it on telly and dreamed about the day he could watch films with his friends and all be munching on it together.

‘When I was a kid, I once made some out of cardboard. It didn’t taste good, but it lasted a long time,’ Hairy laughed.

‘Let me go get some right now, we’ll have a popcorn feast!’ Bikey said.

‘No. I can’t. You can’t either. Nutrition is like super important. You have to keep a diary of everything that goes into your mouth.’

‘Everything?’ Bikey said suggestively.

‘Everything,’ Hairy said with wide eyed insistence. ‘Our bodies are machines and you don’t put sugar, fat, or anything tasty, in if you want the engine to run right. That’s not quite how new new coach says it, but you get it right?’

‘Okay. But promise the first day off from your training regime, you’ll come party with me and we’ll eat all the popcorn I can buy.’

They’d linked their fingers and then Hairy had asked him to describe all his favourite foods and what they tasted like.

Bikey forgot to ask about poppers again.

At least he had lube in his case, so he didn’t have to worry about that. In one of his early experiences, not even with an alpha, but another beta, the man had insisted the ‘spit and stick’ method would work fine if Bikey relaxed and stopped making a fuss. He was always prepared after that.

But at a not too wild guess (he’d spent a lot of the day looking at the bulge in Hairy’s shorts), Hairy was going to be the biggest man he’d ever been with. So something to relax him might make the start of the night go easier.

Which was why when Hairy produced a bottle of alcohol he’d been gifted, (due to a complicated story about rescuing a three-legged pet cat from a duck pond that was a little hard to follow with Hairy’s thick accent), Bikey felt that one way or another everything today was going his way. Alpha strength alcohol would smooth away any tension or fear that sometimes struck him in the moment however much he wanted it.

Aki, slightly reluctantly, and Hairy, laughing, clicked cracked mugs, toasted their new friendship, and downed a shot with him. It worked immediately, fire in his throat, everything feeling a bit softer around the edges.

He was ready for everything that would happen tonight.

Hairy sprung up. ‘I’ve got to write this down in my food diary! Hopefully I won’t get in too much trouble when new new coach checks next term. You don’t officially start training until tomorrow, Bikey, so take advantage and drink as much as you want.’

He winked at Bikey and all Bikey wanted to do was to disappear into Hairy’s strong arms and forget about everything but pleasure for the rest of the night.

But Hairy and Aki started bickering over where Hairy’s food diary was. 

A repetitive argument that he got the impression they’d had many many times before: 

Hairy moaning about Aki continually pretending to tidy up while secretly hiding things to teach Hairy a lesson. Aki saying that five thousand volts directly wired into his peabrain couldn’t teach Hairy a lesson so why would Aki waste his precious time trying to train the stupid alpha?

The sniping seemed both unnatural to the happy Hairy he’d spent all day with, and beneath his impression of the serious eyed beauty of Aki. But they kept on going as if they’d forgotten Bikey was there.

His head hurt. There was no way he could try and intervene between two arguing alphas. All he could hope was that it remained strictly verbal. Which wasn’t likely. It so frequently got violent with alphas for reasons no beta would ever be able to fathom. The sensible thing was to collect his luggage and make a dash for the door before it progressed beyond Hairy shouting ‘you’re a mean stuck up grass muncher’ and Aki glaring at Hairy as if he longed to find the missing food diary and stuff it down his flatmate’s throat.

But if he left now, would he ever have another chance with such beautiful men?

He poured himself another drink to try and regain that pleasant fuzzy feeling.