“At night in that alleyway I told you about. You even went so far as to do it when I wasn’t scheduled to work. Well done, idiot. I was filling in for a coworker that day. You didn’t even see me come outside to take out the trash.” Neil snarls. “Too busy sucking face, I guess.”

It’s like the incident in the cafe all those weeks back. Ice clinking in a glass of strawberry soda, not a soul daring to breathe. Once cool air is now frigid and Neil stands like he towers over the pathetic alpha standing before him. He doesn’t move any closer, but he tilts his head down to glare up at Kash, poised like a bull eyeing its target.

“Actually, now that I think about it? We should have talked about this sooner. It would’ve spared me the headache.”

With that being said, Neil huffs a rush of air through his nose and turns his back to Kash. It Isn’t worth dragging him across the coals now. Not when he’s this tired from spending all his time letting it eat at him. He doesn’t have the energy to waste on a cheater. As Neil is on his second step away from this whole thing, Kash speaks up.

“It’s a misunderstanding!” He spits out.

“Ha! Yeah? Now how could that be?” Neil says dryly, keeping his back turned but not yet walking away.

“Right- I… right. So… Can we do this somewhere else?” Kash tries.

“I’m good here, thanks.”

“Neil, please...” A sigh. “Fine. Fine. It was… it was an accident.” Behind him, Neil can hear Kash take a step closer. “We were the last ones left working on the project that night. Everyone else went home and we decided to stay a little later to get just a little bit more done.”

“When we were done we felt pretty accomplished for getting such a big part of the workload done, so we wanted to celebrate with some snacks and alcohol. And you know better than anyone that the alcohol where you work is cheaper than the ones sold just off campus because of where it is.”

The more Kash speaks the better his speech flows. His voice is steady and confident, still taking on a note of caution but one that was justified given the situation. Neil feels the urge to block out everything he’s hearing, having already made up his mind, but the story sinks its hooks into him and he wants to know how it ends. It doesn’t help that what he says about the gas station is true. It’s located in a rougher part of town where stores tend to price their items on the lower side.

“Obviously… obviously we didn’t go inside. Like I said, he has a hard time with his pheromones. I think it’s a medical condition, but it never bothered me before. The only reason it affected me this time was because he went into heat. It came a week earlier than it was supposed to so it caught us both off guard and I… I couldn’t… It's biology. There was only so much I could do when blindsided with heat pheromones like that.”

“Next thing you know, well, you know. After that we went back to campus. When we got there some students figured out what was going on and separated us. Other than what you saw, nothing else happened. And nothing else’s happened ever since.”

With the full story laid out, Neil… is a little off balance.

He goes over what he just heard back to front. He rolls it over, flips it inside out. He examines it for everything it’s worth. Thanks to their habit of keeping minimal contact during the busy season, there isn’t much evidence he has to use against this. It makes sense. There’s bits and pieces that Neil can attest to and the rest is just a matter of asking around to confirm. Yet something about the whole thing doesn’t sit right with him. What is it? It is odd that Kash is this keenly aware of an omega’s heat schedule, but that can be chalked up to security risk. Needing to know so an incident exactly like this one doesn’t happen by mistake.

Neil finally looks over his shoulder at Kash, who, for all intents and purposes, looks distraught. He gives the alpha a once-over before slowly turning back around. That one little trickle of discomfort swarms at his brain like a colony of wasps, tugging his lips into a small frown. His previous anger simmers below the surface, the fine hairs on his body rising as if in anticipation of a coming lightning strike.

It’s approaching mid November. Along with the pale gray clouds blocking out the sun came a cold front that’s encouraging everyone to dress warmer. Kash is currently wearing a scarf to combat the weather, and one Neil hasn’t seen before which he doesn’t find all that pressing right now. A muscle jumps in his jaw. No, that goes to the other three things he’s come to acknowledge.

“You swear you’re not lying?” Neil checks, his voice unrecognizable to his own ears. Kash takes Neil’s response as some kind of win with the way his shoulders slump.

“I swear on my project grade.” He chuckles softly, shoulders stooping and an easy smile resting on his face. There’s a high pitched ringing taking home in Neil’s ears.

“Cool, can you answer three questions for me then?”

“Huh? Yeah. Yes, of course.”

“Can I see your phone?”

Kash’s entire body stiffens as a sharp wind tears through, tugging lightly at his scarf. His expression suddenly seems more strained. Neil takes a step closer to him.

“I would- I mean I will! I will, but it’s dead right now. I forgot to plug it in last night and didn’t have the time to charge it this morning so it’s been a brick sitting in my pocket all day.” Kash rubs the back of his head. Pairing it with an awkward chuckle, he perfectly acts out the image of a sheepish and clumsy man. “Once I charge it I’ll give it to you right away. All good, right? What’s… uh, what are the other two?”

Neil nods slowly with a soft hum of acknowledgment. He’s taken another two steps closer to where they’re only a few inches apart.

“About the whole heat situation. You’ve been in the same situation before, haven’t you? It was on the bus to that shop you wanted to go to, I was with you. You didn’t have any problems with the omega that went into heat on the bus. How come?” His eyes pierce into Kash’s, who swallows nervously, throat bobbing.

“That was because you were with me. There were also a lot more people around and that omega’s pheromones were weaker than… than the omega in my group so it was a bit different then.”

“That makes sense.” The words fall flat. Neil releases his grip on the strap of his bag, his right hand, to reach out and rest it on Kash’s left shoulder. The angle is clearly a little weird but Kash seems to brush it off. “Sorry for doubting you.”

“It’s okay, it happens. I can understand why you were worried, and I know this conversation won’t fix my mistakes. But I’ll do whatever I can to make it up to you.” A soft sigh passes through Kash’s parted lips, the corners of his eyes crinkling when he smiles down at Neil. “Oh, right, you had one more question.”

“I did.”

“And it is…?”

Neil lifts his hand, placing his pointer finger on the left side of Kash’s throat. From where the pad of his finger meets skin, he can feel the way Kash’s breath hitches at the touch. He then drags it in a straight line across the alpha’s neck before stopping at the right side where the green wool of the scarf has been dislodged from the wind. There is no hesitation when Neil presses on the dark bruise encircled by teeth marks.

“Now where’d you get that?”

It takes Kash a moment to process the question. “What’s-” Then it hits. Neil pulls away in time for Kash to slap a hand over the mark, stumbling back as recognition blooms across his face. Neil narrows a vicious glare up at the cool gray eyes staring back at him.

“I- that’s-”

“That’s what I thought.” Neil doesn’t wait to hear the excuse this time. “We’re done here.”

He takes a step back and Kash breaks out of his stupor, arms shooting out to grab at whatever he can reach.

“Neil, wait!”

Both hands manage to latch on to Neil’s upper arms, trying to hold him in place or pull him back. Neil chokes out half a growl as he pulls back from Kash’s grip. Noting it’s too tight to break out of, he does the next best thing he can think of on the spot. With as much force as he can muster he shoves both hands into Kash’s chest, consequently forgetting that one of them was occupied by a half-full coffee cup.

The cup gets crushed against Kash’s jacket, popping and spewing boiling hot coffee down his entire front. Kash almost falls over backwards from the unexpected strength behind the push and gets distracted trying to catch his balance. The cup clatters to the ground and Neil doesn’t spare another second for the dumbstruck alpha with a massive coffee stain on his jacket, gaping on the sidewalk. He turns around and finally charges forward, away from the pleas and calls from behind him, barely able to hear anything over the monsoon raging inside him.