Chapter 262

Dream makes a face. "Yeah, that's right, you are... But, Hayden? A part Werewolf? A male Omega?" He points out, disbelief coloring his tone. "Really?"

Mae could understand that, she could see a little hope dancing behind the blue-grey depths of Dream's eyes, how he needed someone like him to understand him so badly that he was scared to hope.

She immediately dials back, if this was nothing but a nasty prank it would really break Dream.

"You know what, you might have a point." Mae let's go of him and leans back into the chair. "But there's still the undisputed issue surrounding your strangely matching birthmarks."

Dream covers his face with both hands and shrugs. "I don't know, I've never met another male Omega, people have birthmarks all the time, it would be strange to discuss that with everyone you met."

"Yeah." Mae sighs, doing up calculations in her brain.

The door dings at this point startling them with how tense they were.

Dream knows who it is before even turning around to look, closing his eyes briefly as he prays for strength to get through this while worried silly about Hayden.

"Dale?" Mae exclaims in surprise when he immediately beelines for their table, visible circles under his eyes. "What happened to you?"

Dale pulls up a chair and practically collapses on it. "I didn't get a wink of sleep last night." He mutters wearily.

Mae's and Dream's eyes grow round at this.

"You don't mean..."

"Yes, exactly that."

"No way!" Dream whisper yells, eyes glassy, just when he thought Hayden couldn't be more perfect.

"Shana kept rambling on about how you didn't believe her..."

"With good reason too." Mae shrugs slightly. "Oh and are you going back to her?" She tags on. "I need you to help me tell her something..."

"She's already on her way back." Dale cuts her off. "You can tell her yourself."

"Oh." Mae mutters. "You didn't just come here to tell us that did you?" She asks knowingly.

"Maybe." 

Dale's sketchy reply was enough for her. "Whoops! Look at the time, I need to get home before Shana does..." She suddenly pipes up, sending an apologetic glance at Dream's betrayed expression as she pulls him into a quick hug.

It wasn't like they would be able to meet with Hayden, not for a couple days at least.

"Ruby, it's time to go, say bye to Honey and Alpha Dale." She coos to her daughter who easily plays along, bless the sweetheart.

Mae quickly bundles herself and her daughter away from the table, remembering to say goodbye to Jennie before they left.

An awkward silence falls over the table when the two girls leave, Dale ditching the extra seat he was occupying to sit across from Dream.

"You don't look so good, are you okay?" Dale asks in concern.

"That's a little bold coming from you." Dream scoffs.

"Hayden is a sweetheart most of the time but he can be pretty much exasperating when he wants to be." Dale explains.

Dream shrugs. "What can I say, I woke up and chose to be miserable." He says tightly.

"Dream..."

But he was already making a move to get up. "You should get some sleep Dale..."

"Dream..." Dale says again, wrapping a gentle fist around his wrist.

A flash of desperation lights up Dream's soulful eyes before he relents, settling back on his couch.

"I won't be able to fall asleep." Dale says, eyes down. "I should know, I've been trying all morning..."

"Then you should get a prescription for insomnia or even better pay Mae a visit, she'll put you right to sleep without any of the side effects."

"I know why I can't fall asleep, Dream." Dale continues gently, unruffled by the Omega's unusual chattiness.

Dream goes into a mini panic, eyes darting around as he looks for a way to get out of the oncoming conversation but nothing short of running flat out of the bookstore would save him.

And knowing Dale, the Alpha would chase right after him and Dream would die of mortification from the drama that would ensue.

He logs back into the conversation to Dale apologizing for the biting situation.

"You don't have to apologize." Dream stops him mid sentence, knowing that Dale didn't owe him an apology, he bit him harder anyway. "It... It's fine." He waves away. "I wasn't mad at you."

Dale clamps his mouth shut, stunned. "You weren't?" He asks.

"No." Dream sighs.

"Oh." Dale leans back. "Then... what happened?" He asked curiously, fiddling with his hands.

Dream tries to come up with a plausible excuse, gives up and decides to go for the truth, this entire situation had more power over him than he would have liked anyway.

"I... I was more upset with myself honestly, at my reaction to your bite... no! no..." He puts out a hand. "Don't apologize." He says with a weak smile. "It's fine." He reassures Dale who still looks highly skeptical.

The entire situation just got worse while he had been having a sleepless night because he thought that Dale would see him less or an easy prey from his reaction, only to find out that the bumbling idiot thought he did something wrong.

"You should get that sleep now, we're good." He smiles easily at Dale, the weight off his shoulders as well after being honest.

"You still look dull, let me buy you coffee." Dale suggests with tampered excitement, dark green eyes brighter than they were when he first wandered in.

Dream gives him an incredulous look. "I don't think that's a good choice before you sleep."

"No, not for me." Dale is quick to refute. "I'll just watch you..."

Dream's eyes widen marginally at this.

Dale face palms. "Shit, that came out wrong, I... I meant..."

"It's fine, Dale." He laughs lightly. "You don't have to try so hard and yes, I could really go for a shot of caffeine right about now." 

"You're saying yes?" Dale asks in shock, like he couldn't believe his own good fortune.

"Mmhmm." Dream nods, watching Dale already bright expression dial up a couple notches that he was pretty sure if the Alpha was in wolf form his giant tall would be swinging furiously.

A unbidden image of Dale's threatening wolf doing that made Dream choke on laughter.

Dale seemed to have read this reaction wrong as Dream cruelly toying with him and Dream had never seen the light go out of someone's eyes so fast.

Without stopping to explain, he reaches across the table to grab Dale's hand, ignoring his sounds of surprise and the attention from the rest of the bookstore as he tugs him right out the door.

"Alright! You offered me coffee." Dream announces when they got outside. "So fess up."

Realization hits Dale and he beams. "With pleasure."

Dream nearly keels over when Dale gives him a genuine smile that slowly fades to a soft smirk showing off one of his fangs.

"Come on, let's get going." Dale grabs his hand this time, the cafe was a couple buildings down.

Dream let himself be pulled along, ignoring the very obvious eyes ogling them.

His best friend was a male Omega like him, he was also coming to terms with and starting to slowly accept how Dale made him feel, all was right with the world.

•~•

Yanis lets out a steady stream of curses under his breath, the flight was barely halfway done and yet he was about ready to shatter the window beside him and jump off the plane.

His every movement was being monitored closely by the media and he couldn't risk bringing that kind of spotlight to Pine Creek so instead of having an easy stress free journey in his private jet straight to Reef City which would be a lot faster.

Here he was in first class, making the one way trip to California, where he would board another flight down to Reef.

He didn't mind going through the trouble for Hayden but that didn't mean he couldn't bitch about it, besides the surprise on Hayden's face would be totally worth all the stress.

His mom was down in England and he was grateful for that because she would straight up have an aneurysm if she found out about the way he decided to travel.

He pushes a hand through his wavy, inky black hair, adjusting his neck pillow.

Gratefully, the person seated beside him was a generic business man who had spent most of the trip with his head down an endless stream of self help books.

Yanis could probably give him a couple tips on what he was doing wrong but the snotty suited man didn't seem like he was up for a conversation.

Well, that's was fine with him, he sighs, putting his headphones over his ears again.

He had decided on glasses instead of contacts to help with his disguise, dressed as differently as possible in guady, oversized designer clothing that made it look fake.

He couldn't wait for the journey to be over, he sinks into his reclining seats, eyes closed.