Gamers’ Omega (Gimme MMMMMore #5)

Chapter 5

~February~

“O ne large pepperoni, mushroom, and green chile,” I announced, setting the pizza on the table with a flourish.

“You’re a lifesaver,” Ian replied, reaching for a piece. “I was about to starve to death.”

“I know we’re busy, but…”

Freddie laughed. “Oh, he still might starve to death, but in the game. He hasn’t played a food card in a while.”

I grinned and glanced at the box at the far end of the table. “Something new? I don’t recognize the name.”

Beck nodded. “It hasn’t been released yet. This is a review copy.”

“Sweet!” I chirped. “How’d you score that?”

Beck’s cheeks turned pink. “It’s… kind of my job. I run a game blog, post video reviews, and freelance for a couple magazines. I don’t always get review copies, but several companies will give them to me.”

“It’s the perfect job for him,” Tony said with a grin.

Beck chuckled. “It is, but it’s still a lot of work.”

“You didn’t see his office that night of the storm, did you?” Tony asked.

I shook my head.

“You should see it,” Freddie cut in. “He’s got this huge lighting rig setup so that he can take good photos and look good on video.”

“Actually,” Ian said, swallowing a bite of pizza, “you should come over tomorrow after the normal game night and play this one with us.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Hmm?”

“That’s not a bad idea,” Freddie said. He motioned to the cards in his other hand and a line of small tokens on the table in front of him. “This game is supposedly up to six players, but the resources feel a bit thin at four. It could be a fun challenge with more people, or frustrating.”

“Are you sure?” I asked. “Don’t you have people you’ve gamed with longer?”

“I would appreciate it if you came,” Beck said softly. “A lot of others don’t like Pico being out, and social time is critical for birds. I hate keeping him caged any more than necessary, and you seemed ok with him.”

I smiled at the memory of Pico falling asleep on my shoulder when I’d stayed at their place.

What could I say? The little thing was cute as hell.

“I take it that’s a yes?” Ian said with a grin.

I laughed. “Ok. I’ll come over after game night tomorrow.”

“Sweet!” Ian replied. “Just know, I’m taking all y’all down.”

I burst into laughter. “You’re on.”

∞∞∞

Pico ran across the table, scattering lines of stat tokens, and climbed up onto my hand.

“Hey Pico,” I said, moving cards to my other hand before he could nibble on them.

He started bopping his little head. “Pico bird is in the house tonight…” he declared, slightly off tempo from the song the words parodied.

I chuckled. “Is that new?”

Ian nodded. “Beck’s spent the past month or so working with him to learn that. He’s only started saying it clearly the past few days.”

“Good job Pico!” I told him. Then I glanced up at Beck. “Do you have a treat or something I need to reward him with?”

Beck stood, walked over to the cage area, and picked up a container. He brought it over and poured a small pile of tiny colorful pellets between myself and Freddie.

“That’s his regular food, but we save millet for special occasions. He’ll appreciate it though.”

“Ok.”

I set my cards down and picked up one of the seed-sized pellets. I held it out to Pico, who chirped as he plucked it from between my fingers and started crunching it.

Once my hand had a light dusting of pellet powder, Pico decided to climb up my shirt to my shoulder. Within a minute he was grinding his beak, which Beck had told me was a sign that he was a content bird.

We took a minute to rearrange the tokens Pico had disrupted, then resumed the game.

It didn’t take long for the guys’ concerns about resources to manifest. The game was a solo dungeon dive, with the goal of being the first to beat the tenth level. However, simply surviving long enough to reach the lower levels seemed to be the true challenge. While there were plenty of encounter, treasure, and trap cards, the ones for food and healing items were in short supply.

“Good bird,” Pico mumbled from my shoulder. “Pretty boy. Step up. Gimme kiss. I love you.”

I smiled. His little sleepy mumbles meant that he was about to fall asleep on my shoulder again, which was adorable.

My turn came around and I studied the cards in my hand. There was no way I was going to make it to the end of the game unless I found more resource cards.

I drew a card, and was faced with a floor boss. I quickly considered my options: fight, or retreat and hope to draw some resource cards. I was low on health tokens, but would likely survive the battle. However I would enter the next level vith very low health and energy.

A glance at the cards for the current floor was enough to make the decision. I was the first to draw a boss card for that floor, but the pile was significantly smaller than that for the next floor. I had a better chance of finding the items I needed if I pushed forward and had a chance to grab resources first.

“Floor boss,” I declared. “I’m fighting.”

One of Beck’s eyebrows went up, but he gave no other indication that he was wondering what I was doing. The other three all asked if I was sure given how low I was on health.

Pico was grinding his beak again, and I took that as a sign I was on the right path.

I won the battle, and it proved to be the correct move. I’d picked up several resource cards—using some and holding others in inventory—before anybody else joined me on the floor.

Beck was the first to mirror my strategy, but by then I’d managed to refine it. I ended up winning the game, with Beck in close second.

“What did you think?” Freddie asked as he gathered the pieces to put away.

I grinned. “That was fun!”

“Of course you loved it,” Ian grumbled. “You won.”

“He won because he had a strategy,” Beck explained. “It was the most obvious one, but it confirmed my initial thoughts: the game favors the bold. We’re still playing fairly straightforward, but there are enough card options to make for some really competitive rounds.”

“It’s still early,” Tony said. “Wanna watch a movie before you head home?”

I hummed. “Sure.”

“Sweet!” Ian chirped. “We’ve got the latest Spacedivers movie. Does that work?”

“Ooh! I haven’t seen that one yet. I was moving when it came out and didn’t find the time until after it left theaters.”

Ian laughed. “It’s long but good.”

I grinned. “Tomorrow’s my day off, so I don’t have to worry about getting to bed early.”

“I’ll start the popcorn,” Tony declared.

∞∞∞

I blinked my eyes open and briefly wondered where I was. Luckily, it took less than a minute for me to realize that I’d fallen asleep during the movie.

The guys’ house was quiet and mostly dark—with only some dim illumination coming from the light over the table.

I sat up from where I’d slumped on the couch and saw Freddie working on a laptop.

“You’re awake,” he said softly.

I rubbed my head, stood, and shuffled over to sit across from him at the table. “Sorry about that. I didn’t mean to fall asleep.”

He smiled. “It’s fine.”

“Why didn’t anybody wake me?”

“It seemed you needed it.” He paused and rubbed the back of his neck. “And… umm… it smells like your heat may be coming. All the omegas in my family are tired in the days before their heat.”

I turned to sniff myself. It was faint, but he was right: my scent had started to deepen.

“Ugh,” I groaned. “Damn heat again. Guess I’ll have to let Owen know so I can take time off.”

“Are they good about that there?”

I nodded. “As good as can be expected. I get the day of my heat off, but sometimes it’s hard to get an extra day of recovery. That’s pretty normal in the restaurant industry though, so I’m used to it.”

“You mentioned you don’t have an alpha. Does your heat partner have a hard time getting off?”

I shook my head. “I don’t use a heat partner. I prefer to be alone for my heats.”

One of his eyebrows went up.

Here it is. He knows somebody who would help me through my heats. I thought. Alphas always know somebody willing to fuck an omega in heat.

“Eh,” he replied. “Whatever works best for you.”

Wait… what?

“Where is everybody?” I asked, changing the subject.

“Ian and Tony are in bed already. I think Beck is still working in his office.”

“Wh-what time is it?”

He glanced down at the laptop screen. “Just after midnight.”

“Oh…” I mumbled, feeling guilty for keeping Freddie from bed. “I’m sorry. I… I guess I should head home.”

One of Freddie’s eyebrows went up. “You’re welcome to stay in the guest room.”

“Really?”

He nodded. “Of course.”

I let out a sigh of relief. “Thank you. I know it’s an imposition, but I don’t like driving once it gets too late.”

He chuckled. “Not an imposition at all. That’s what it’s there for.”

“Still… thank you.” I smiled, and scooted a bit closer. “What are you working on?”

Freddie turned the laptop so I could see the screen. “I’m reviewing some plans of Ian’s.”

I blinked. “I thought you worked on historical buildings.”

He nodded and turned the screen back. “I do, but this is one of those cases where our firms are working together. Do you know the Santuario downtown?”

“You mean that old church?”

“Yeah.”

“I think I know which one you’re talking about. What about it?”

“They’re investing in some outbuildings. Since it’s new construction they have to meet modern building codes, but they also need to meet the stringent guidelines of the historic society—which means they have to look like they were built at the same time as the church.”

“Oof.”

He nodded. “It’s not the first time our firms have worked together. We adapt historic building styles where we can, and determine the best way to keep the appearance when we can’t.”

“You must like it when your firms work together.”

Freddie burst into laughter. “You’d think so, but I usually let one of the other guys work with him.”

I blinked. “Why?”

He smiled. “I love Ian, but our work styles are very different. His mind is constantly going, and he’s always tossing out ideas of how to mesh this or that. I like to sit and think about an issue for a while. It means that he’s distracting me from my thoughts while working through his. However, there are a couple guys at work who can match him on brainstorming. Ian works best when he can bounce suggestions off somebody, so pairing him with somebody who can meet that energy gets the best results.”

“Why are you working with him on this one then?”

He shrugged. “Other people were already booked with projects. That’s one thing my boss is fantastic about: he won’t let anybody take on more than is reasonable. But we’ve got to have the plans finalized soon to get the approvals through the city before summer. The new buildings will be adobe, which means construction needs to happen when the weather is good.”

“In other words, it needed to get done and you were the one available.”

Freddie chuckled. “Pretty much.”

“How do you mesh your work styles then?”

He motioned to the laptop. “I let Ian think it out during the day and take notes. Once I have a quiet moment I sit with the plans, review his ideas, and determine how they address problems. It means a few long nights, but we make it work.”

“That’s good.”

He nodded.

“What made you decide to work with historic buildings?”

Freddie leaned back in his chair with a soft smile. “I blame my parents. They were history nuts, and while all the other kids were going to amusement parks on vacation, we were always off to different historical sites.”

“Did the other kids at school make fun of you for that?”

He chuckled. “Sometimes. Though I was the cool kid the year school started and we’d gone to Egypt and toured the pyramids.”

“You’ve been to the pyramids?”

“Yeah. Both Egypt and Mexico. I need to go see more in other countries, but we all take turns deciding on where to go for our big vacations. An international vacation is pretty expensive, so I’ve held off on suggesting one. Plus…”

I waited for several seconds for him to continue. “Plus?”

He sighed. “I don’t want Beck to have a bad time. It’s harder for him to be on his feet all day.”

“What about a solo vacation?”

Freddie hummed. “I’ve thought about it, but it would be pretty long, and would mean a shorter group trip. Don’t get me wrong, we all do little solo or duo trips throughout the year. Beck goes to a lot of conventions, sometimes as a speaker, others as just an attendee. Ian and Tony have similar tastes in music so go to concerts together. Sometimes Ian and I will take a day when on a convention trip with Beck to go look at interesting buildings. But we do try to take at least one larger trip every year where we’re all doing the same thing.”

I smiled. “It sounds nice. You’ve all worked out a way to feed your passions. And you still make sure you’re keeping the love alive.”

He nodded. “It’s important to us. We all know that relationships take work, so we try to take things head-on rather than let even minor issues fester. Making time for all of us is one part of that. Nobody feels left out.”

“That’s sweet. I wish more people thought like that.”

He frowned. “If somebody isn’t willing to put in the effort, are they really worth your time?”

The question hit me like a brick, and all I could do was stare.

“Eric?”

I remembered all the alphas who’d only thought about themselves, and here, right in front of me, was a man who’d casually explained how important working with his partners was.

Would I ever find a man who’d respect me like that?

“I… I guess I should go to bed,” I stammered. If I didn’t I’d end up talking about my bad dating history, and neither of us needed that.

He tilted his head to one side and studied me. The low lights caught his different eye colors and for a moment I was struck by how stunning he was.

“Are you sure?” he asked.

I nodded, probably quicker than necessary. “Yeah. I don’t want to distract you from your work.”

He smiled. “You don’t have to if you’re not tired. I can chat for a bit. Beck will probably be working for a little while longer, and I’d planned to go to bed at the same time as him.”

“I should let you work.”

“Up to you. Were you warm enough last time? It’s the same blankets.”

“I was fine.”

“Ok, let me know if you need more.”

“I should be ok.”

He studied me again, then nodded, almost as if it was to himself. “Ok. Sweet dreams.”

“Thank you. Goodnight.”

“Goodnight.”