That Telling MomentChapter 8

When in doubt, hide in the server room.

It wasn’t a glamorous option, but neither was the alternative of pretending not to notice alphas sniffing around him like he was a particularly enticing bacon butty. The gentle hum of servers drowned out the whispers that followed him through the office. The blue LED lights eased his increasingly stress-induced migraines. Most importantly, nobody knew he was in there, which meant nobody bothered him.

Today’s retreat had been necessitated by an incident in the break room that ranked somewhere between “mildly inappropriate” and “grounds for immediate dismissal” on the workplace harassment scale Stephen had developed (four out of five vomit emojis). Stephen was just too chickenshit to march up to HR and find out how they’d rate it.

“Heat coming up soon, Huxley?” Elliot Mann-Fielding had asked, leaning against the counter while Stephen attempted to extract a halfway decent coffee from the temperamental office machine. “I’d be happy to help you through it. Professional courtesy, of course. Just pop a calendar request through any time and book one of the focus rooms.”

Stephen had maintained his composure just long enough to respond with, “I’d rather deep-throat a cactus, but thanks ever so much for the offer,” before abandoning his coffee quest and positively speed walking to his digital fortress of solitude.

It wasn’t the first time he’d needed the refuge. Last week, he’d ducked in after witnessing CEO Eames perform an Olympic-worthy about-face in a narrow corridor rather than pass within five metres of Stephen. The eye contact. Eames’s brief flash of panic. The subsequent 180-degree spin. It would have been comical if it weren’t so bloody mortifying.

Stephen had spent an embarrassing amount of time wondering exactly which of Lysander’s videos had made it impossible for Eames to meet his eyes. Perhaps “Begging for the Knot: Desperate Omega Can’t Get Enough”? Or the holiday special, “All I Want for Christmas Is Your Fat Alpha Cock”? The truly horrifying possibility was “Office Omega: Taking Dicktation from the Boss,” which featured Lysander bent over a desk, begging his “CEO” to fill him up in a distinctly American twang.

God, he hated that he knew these titles, having absorbed them by osmosis through popular media, tabloid outrage pieces, and concerned citizens who felt compelled to screenshot Lysander’s videos as “evidence” whenever they demanded governmental censorship of male omega “degeneracy.” Hated even more that his brain insisted on cataloguing them neatly like the world’s most disturbing legal precedents. Stephen’s Compendium of Professional Humiliation, Volume One: Videos My Company’s CEO Has Definitely Wanked To.

Now Stephen sought refuge whenever the pressure mounted, whether from inappropriate alpha advances or the complex legal document he was currently battling. The Crawford merger agreement had more loopholes than a crochet convention, and he needed absolute focus to plug them all before tomorrow’s partner review.

He pushed open the server room door, the familiar blue glow welcoming him like an old friend, and froze.

Ryland was already there.

The alpha sat cross-legged on the floor between server stacks, typing furiously on a sleek laptop, fingers dancing across the keyboard with the precision of a concert pianist. He glanced up briefly at Stephen’s entrance, those intense blue eyes registering his presence before returning to his screen without comment.

Stephen hesitated, one foot still in the hallway. The unwritten rule of the server room was that whoever arrived first had territorial rights. He should leave, find another hiding spot. The maintenance closet on the third floor. Possibly New Zealand.

But the Crawford merger wouldn’t review itself, and Stephen was running dangerously low on both time and patience. With a silent prayer to whatever deity might be listening, he stepped fully into the room and closed the door behind him.

He settled on the opposite side of the server bank, positioning himself so that Ryland was just out of his direct line of sight. The typing continued, neither acknowledging nor objecting to his presence.

Stephen pulled out his laptop and opened the merger documents, determined to focus on work rather than the alpha’s proximity. Two cats occupying the same room while pretending the other didn’t exist.

An hour passed in productive silence. Stephen lost himself in the legal complexities of the merger, restructuring clauses and closing loopholes with the precision of a surgeon. The background hum of servers mixed with Ryland’s occasional typing created an oddly soothing soundscape.

The peace was broken by Stephen’s stomach emitting a growl that sounded like a small woodland creature being slowly strangled. He had chosen hunger over braving the breakroom again, after bloody Mann-Fielding. He froze, mortified, as Ryland’s typing abruptly ceased.

Without looking up from his screen, Ryland reached into his messenger bag, extracted a protein bar, and extended it toward Stephen without comment.

Stephen stared at the offered item, torn between hunger and pride.

“It’s calorically efficient,” Ryland said, still not looking at him. “Twenty-three grams of protein, twelve grams of fibre, minimal refined sugars. You could theoretically subsist on these bars indefinitely, though scurvy would become a concern after approximately forty-seven days due to insufficient vitamin C. I’ve calculated the exact supplementation required to prevent nutritional deficiencies if you’re interested.”

A startled laugh escaped Stephen before he could stop it. “Are you preparing for the apocalypse or just really committed to avoiding the Pret queue?”

“Both,” Ryland replied simply.

Against his better judgement, Stephen accepted the bar. “Thanks,” he muttered, unwrapping it and taking a cautious bite. The taste hit him like a nutritional betrayal. “Christ, this tastes like bird feed.”

“Yes,” Ryland agreed, typing resuming. “But birds are exceptionally energy-efficient for their body mass. Hummingbirds, for instance, consume approximately half their body weight daily to maintain their metabolic functions.”

“Are you comparing me to a hummingbird?”

“No. Your body mass is significantly greater, and your wing structure is non-existent.”

This time, Stephen’s laugh was genuine. “Right. Silly me.”

They lapsed back into silence, but something had shifted. The protein bar, despite tasting like someone had swept up the floor of a health food store and compressed the findings, quieted Stephen’s hunger. He found himself stealing glances at Ryland. The way the alpha’s dark hair fell across his forehead when he leaned forward. The precise, economical movements of his hands. The complete absence of typical alpha posturing.

“The candle incident was particularly juvenile,” Ryland said suddenly, breaking the silence.

Stephen tensed, his fingers freezing over his keyboard. “Excuse me?”

“The heat-scent candle left on your desk. Juvenile and scientifically inaccurate. The synthetic composition lacked at least fourteen key molecular components found in natural omega secretions. Analytically speaking, it was an insult to organic chemistry.”

Stephen’s mouth opened and closed several times before he managed to form words. “You… you know about my twin?”

“Statistically improbable that I wouldn’t. Dabney’s gossip network operates with 78% efficiency, approximately 2.7 times faster than official communication channels through Slack or Teams.” Ryland glanced up briefly. “Your brother’s synthetic slick candle is a disgrace to chemical engineering, based on what I could smell of it from you. Whoever developed it should be barred from laboratory settings permanently.”

Heat rose in Stephen’s cheeks. “Yes, well, I’ll be sure to pass along your critique at the next family dinner. I’m sure Lysander will be devastated to learn his reproductive fluid replicas don’t meet scientific standards.”

Ryland tilted his head slightly, like a curious bird examining something shiny. “You’re upset.”

“Brilliant deduction. However did you arrive at that conclusion?” Stephen snapped, gathering his papers with quick, angry movements. “Was it my tone, my expression, or have you developed some sort of emotional ESP that only works on omegas with porn star siblings?”

“Your scent changed,” Ryland replied simply. “It’s quite distinct. Like citrus with underlying notes of… I believe the technical term is ‘pissed off.’”

Stephen stood, laptop clutched to his chest like a shield. “Fascinating. And here I thought I was masking properly.”

“You are,” Ryland said, returning to his typing. “I’m just unusually sensitive to molecular variations. My olfactory processing operates at approximately 3.7 times the neurotypical range. Makes cologne counters at department stores feel like chemical warfare. For me, the Dabney cafeteria on fish Friday is a legitimate human rights violation.”

Stephen hovered, caught between the desire to storm out dramatically and the stubborn refusal to abandon his sanctuary. This was his space too, dammit. He’d claimed it fair and square, through tears and professional humiliation.

With a defiant tilt of his chin, he sat back down, opened his laptop with unnecessary force, and resumed working on the Crawford merger. He would not be chased out. Not by inappropriate alphas, not by his brother’s sex work fallout, and certainly not by a socially inept genius whose conversational style could best be described as “Wikipedia entry meets toddler’s brutal honesty.”

The silence returned, stretched taut. Stephen attacked his keyboard with violent precision, transforming legal jargon into watertight clauses with the focused aggression of someone imagining each keystroke as a tiny act of vengeance.

“I apologise,” Ryland said abruptly, several minutes later. “My observation was inappropriately timed and expressed. I tend to verbalise analytical conclusions without adequate social filtering.”

Stephen looked up, surprised by both the apology and its apparent sincerity. Ryland wasn’t looking at him, still focused on his screen, but the set of his shoulders had changed. Tension visible in the rigid line of his spine.

“Yes, well,” Stephen said, finding himself oddly disarmed. “I tend to react defensively when people bring up my twin’s slick-scented merchandise out of the blue. I’m much more personable otherwise.”

Ryland nodded once, accepting this exchange as adequate resolution. They returned to work, the atmosphere gradually easing back toward neutrality.

Days turned into weeks. They established an unspoken schedule, somehow never arriving at the same time but often finding themselves sharing the space. Stephen would work on one side, Ryland on the other, two outsiders carving out territory in the digital wilderness.

One afternoon, Stephen arrived to find a steaming cup of tea waiting on “his” side of the server room. Earl Grey, perfectly brewed, with a precise half teaspoon of honey. Exactly how he’d mentioned liking it during a throwaway comment the previous week.

Ryland didn’t look up from his calculations. Didn’t acknowledge the offering in any way. But as Stephen settled in with his tea and legal briefs, he noticed something unexpected: for the first time since the candle incident, the knot between his shoulder blades loosened.

The server hum continued around them, the blue lights cast their gentle glow, and two people who didn’t quite fit anywhere else sat in each other’s quiet, strange company.