“I didn’t think we had to rescue cats from trees,” Jesse muttered, driving the truck down the narrow street.
Dom shrugged and flipped through the call details on his tablet. “It’s a service we provide.”
Jesse bit down his inappropriate remarks about ‘services’. Especially between the two of them.
He’d been on calls with Dom before. This one would be no different. Except it also was, because neither of them was acknowledging the most recent bar night. The one where they’d both creamed their pants. And Dom had sent Jesse home.
Since that night, he’d cooled off and thought about it. Dom shoving him into the cab, paying for the ride. Jesse had been honest with himself, and he’d admitted that no one had done that for him before. If it had been an omega paying, Jesse would’ve refused. But an alpha... maybe he could let it slide.
It doesn’t even count anyway. That bastard was drunk.
He shoved that thought aside, pulling up in front of their destination. Jesse didn’t even have to double-check the house number—they’d been here a number of times before. For the exact same reason.
Dom sighed, climbing out of the truck. Jesse grabbed the ladder and followed him to the door.
Mrs. Mulberry greeted them, all delighted when she caught sight of Dom. “Oh, thank you for coming, dearie,” she gushed, ushering them into her yard. “Milly has been stuck in the tree for ages. She’s so scared!”
From her perch in the tree, the tabby cat sent them an unimpressed look. Jesse felt the exact same way.
“Jesse will get her down,” Dom said.
Funny how Dom used his name when they were in public. Back in the alley, Dom had called Jesse by his last name—only then had Jesse realized exactly how Dom regarded him.
Mulberry frowned. “Oh? Won’t you be the one getting her down instead?”
Dom shrugged. “Jesse has the same qualifications as I do.”
Mulberry looked uncertainly at Jesse; she’d always avoided engaging him in conversation.
He gave her a nod, setting the ladder up against the tree branch. He didn’t mention the fresh ladder marks in the ground—probably from just a few minutes ago.
Carefully, he climbed the ladder. Milly never seemed to mind the various firefighters rescuing her, but Jesse was wary anyway. A cat had scratched him when he was a child.
He held his hands out to the tabby, half-expecting her to reach out and sink her claws into his fingers. But she stared placidly at him, even as he gently scooped her off the branch.
Jesse made sure she was tucked safely against himself, before descending the ladder. Once he was on the ground, he held the cat out to Mrs. Mulberry.
Mulberry took her cat back, being very careful not to touch his hands. “Ah, thank you,” she said awkwardly. Her gaze drifted over the silvery scars on Jesse’s arms, lingering on the round beads implanted just beneath his skin.
“What are those?” she asked.
They were little things half the size of his pinky nail, but they bulged out enough that they cast shadows across his skin, making them appear larger than they actually were.
If he was being honest, Jesse had completely no idea what purpose those beads served. Rutherford had checked for them every time. After Jesse had been freed from the Facility, a government doctor had tried to explain. Jesse had walked right out, ignoring the stacks of files on the doctor’s desk.
He didn’t want to know what Larson had done to him. He wanted a new beginning.
“They’re beads,” he said to Mulberry.
Mulberry frowned. She was a retired elementary school teacher, if Jesse remembered right. “What are they for?”
He shrugged, feeling Dom’s stare on his skin. Probably judging him again.
“Are you a gangster?” Mulberry asked next, looking horrified.
Jesse was about to answer, when Dom cut in. “No,” Dom said. “Our team wouldn’t have welcomed him if he were.”
Welcomed? That was the last word Jesse expected him to use. He stared at Dom in surprise, trying to understand. Dom didn’t have to come to his rescue; Jesse had handled similar remarks over the past few years.
Hell, Dom didn’t even know the details about Jesse’s past. For all he knew, Jesse could really have been a gangster. Nate had mentioned that Gareth and Harris had asked for details about Jesse, but that Dom had never approached him at all.
For Dom to step in... Did he think Mulberry wouldn’t believe Jesse?
“Will that be all?” Dom asked her.
She smiled brightly again, gushing when he got her to sign on the call tablet.
It was only when they were back in the truck, that Dom asked, “So, what’re they really for?”
Jesse’s skin prickled under his attention. Not for the first time, he wanted to scratch those beads out of his arms. So Dom wouldn’t keep staring at them like that.
The doctor in Highton had said, Don’t remove them.
Jesse rubbed his callused hands down his arms, the beads pressing indents into his skin. “Don’t know.”
Dom furrowed his brow. “You don’t?”
“No.”
“How the hell do you keep things in your body that you don’t know about?” Dom looked incredulous. “Didn’t you do that to yourself?”
Anger surged through Jesse’s chest. “Must be nice to have control over your body, huh?”
For once, Dom had nothing to say to that. And his silence filled Jesse with recklessness.
“You ever stopped to think,” Jesse growled, “that there’s people out there who’ve been trapped against their own will, being cut open because someone else thinks it’s fun?”
Dom blinked. Then he glanced at Jesse’s head, where the most obvious scars were. He looked at Jesse’s face, with the blotchy skin and silvery lines, and the puckered blemishes riding down Jesse’s jaw.
Vaguely, Jesse knew that the moment Dom understood his outburst, it would also mean that Dom would understand Jesse had been powerless. Less.
He refused to let it humiliate him. Not right now. Because Dom had been judging him for three entire years. That bastard had
