Troy had come to Evander's tonight to ease his dark mood, not make it worse.
"You must be out of money," Zeke said with a chuckle, clapping a brotherly hand on Troy's shoulder. "Come on, let's see if Ty's got something behind the bar that can take away the sting of losing. I'll buy."
Now, that sounded more like it.
Troy followed the other alpha to the bar, where Ty already had two mugs of cold beer waiting—along with a couple of shots of moonshine to chase them down.
"I told you to stop playing him," the bartender said, shaking his head in mock sympathy. "I don't know how the surly son of a bitch does it, but nobody beats Zeke at pool."
Troy grunted in response, then downed his beer in one go. He was even less in the mood for an I-told-you-so than for more losing.
"Another," he ordered, the shot glass halfway to his lips.
Ty complied with no more than a raised eyebrow, then moved down the bar to serve other customers.
Zeke waited until Troy had tossed back his shot to speak.
"Tough day?"
Troy shrugged dispiritedly. That was the thing--it hadn't been.
There'd been nothing special about the day. Nothing terrible either. He'd worked on Aric's transmission. Replaced the ignition coil on Maddox's clunker. Trapped a rabbit and made stew. The day was pretty much indistinguishable from last Monday or the one before that.
The only reason Troy even knew it was Monday was because of the ticking clock that was always in his head. The one that was now telling him he still had four more nights of this boring bullshit before Nicky and her girls came back to Evander's for their weekly visit.
Maybe that was his problem.
Waiting a week to fuck a beta prostitute for a few hours in the back of his truck was tiresome during the best of times, but during midwinter, it was almost unbearable. By Saturday afternoon, the temporary sense of calm that followed getting his rocks off began to lift, and by Saturday night, Troy felt just as restless and dissatisfied as before.
Troy had been a virgin before coming to the Boundarylands, and often thought that every kid should be so lucky as to be with one of Nicky's girls the first time.
But it didn't take long to realize that they were just doing their job. Sure, Nicky had a great crew—Troy had even come to think of some of the girls as friends—but he could no longer pretend that those nights in the back of his truck were anything more than a business transaction. A damned pleasurable transaction—for both sides—but a transaction all the same.
The trouble was that those few hours were the highlight of his week. If he wasn't at home fixing another alpha's truck in his garage, he was counting the hours until he could lose himself between a beta prostitute's legs.
And now that winter had set in, Troy was left with a lot of hours to count. Short days and long, cold nights meant his only choices for passing time were drinking at the bar or sitting alone in his cabin.
That was why he was here tonight, so sick of his own company that he was willing to be hustled at pool by Zeke, of all assholes.
But that didn't mean he was going to sit here with the guy and let him play therapist.
"I need some fresh air," Troy said as Ty slid another full mug of beer in front of him. He picked it up and started toward the door.
The biting cold hit him hard in the face, stinging his skin and cooling his blood. Troy drew in a deep breath, filling his lungs with the scents of pine and snow and even the distant spray of sea salt from the coast miles away.
He'd only been outside a few seconds when he heard the stomp of heavy boots on the porch boards. Without turning, he knew it was Zeke.
Strangely, Troy didn't really mind. He and Zeke had come to the Boundarylands within six months of each other around five years ago, both of them with a chip on their shoulders and an itch to lock horns.
The other alphas gave Zeke and Troy their space as they tangled during those early years, knowing from experience that that kind of restless energy would work itself out in time as the two men settled into life in the settlement.
Sure enough, the hard work of building a home and establishing his place in the settlement eased Troy's need to go around provoking people. Eventually, he and Zeke stopped nipping at each other's heels and largely left each other alone.
Recently, Troy had found himself warming to the grumpy bastard. A few months back, he and Zeke had been involved in a bloody episode when they'd come to the aid of a reclusive alpha named Maddox, who had an intruder problem on his land. There was nothing like destroying a couple of trigger-happy beta bastards together to make you appreciate a guy.
It also helped that Zeke knew when to hang back and keep his mouth shut. Troy didn't need to turn around to know the other alpha was settling in, getting comfortable leaning against the weathered wood siding of the joint.
"You don't have to stand out here and freeze your balls off, Zeke," Troy grumbled. "You've won all the money you're gonna get off me tonight."
"I know."
"So what the hell are you doing out here?" Troy propped his elbows on the railing, gazing bleakly out over the parking lot, watching snowflakes dancing in the porch light. The gravel was blanketed by a couple inches of snow that shimmered under the full moon, a single set of tire tracks already disappearing under fresh snowfall.
"I'm waiting for you to tell me what crawled up your ass and died," Zeke said calmly.
Despite his foul mood, a smile played at the corner of Troy's lips. In the not
