He nods. “It really is. Trust me, I know my steak.”
I consider getting the dip anyway, but honestly, I’m not up to getting another lecture. Easier to just eat my bread and wait for this dinner to be over at this point.
I do order the ribeye, and I don’t ask for input about the sides from Leo, who I’m sure has something to say about green beans and potatoes with steak.
Once the server disappears again, he looks at me, and I blink back, not sure what he’s looking so intently for.
“I know what you’re thinking,” he finally says.
“I don’t think you do.”
Leo smiles. “I do though. You’re thinking that since I’m not an Alpha, I can’t give you what you need. That’s why you’re doing your own thing here. Eating the bread, ordering green beans.”
“I like green beans,” I tell him. “There’s nothing else to it.”
“There is, even if you don’t know it. I know how Omegas work.”
Oh, here we go. There’s always an Alpha—and sometimes a few Betas—who think they understand Omegas better than Omegas themselves. They’ve watched movies and porn and think they know how to ‘handle’ an Omega. It’s always wrong and usually a little offensive.
“You want someone strong enough to take charge and show you the right way to do things,” Leo continues. “And you think since I’m a Beta, I can’t do that. But I just do things differently than Alphas do them. I’m not going to demand that you listen to me. I’m going to let you find things out for yourself. Like, when you leave here with three quarters of your steak in a to go box,I’m not even going to say I told you so. But tomorrow, you’re going to text me and you’ll be saying I was right about the steak not being as good reheated. And then next time, you’ll listen to me right away.”
He says it like he thinks Omegas are children, who have to be gentle parented into knowing what’s best for them. I grit my teeth, resisting the urge to walk out immediately. He’s not the first Alpha, or Beta for that matter, to be ignorant and rude about Omegas, and he won’t be the last.
“I don’t think it’s that serious,” I say, trying to stay measured and chill.
“I know you don’t,” he replies with a wink. “But we’ll get there. I’m definitely not going to call the date off because you don’t know how to eat steak yet.”
How magnanimous of him.
The food comes soon enough, and Leo goes into another spiel about how he never orders sauce with his meat because if the meat is good, it doesn’t need sauce.
“What if I just like sauce?” I want to know.
He gives me another of those looks, like he doesn’t think I know what’s good for me and pities me for it. “There’s no sauce out there that’s better than the taste of well-cooked meat.”
I put more sauce on my steak, just for the principle of it.
Leo watches with that amused little smirk, but doesn’t say anything about it. The food is good, at least, so if we manage to make it through this date without him saying anything else to piss me off, it won’t be the worst date I’ve ever been on.
We eat in silence for a good ten minutes before Leo opens his mouth again.
“So, where are you staying while you’re in town?” he asks.
Ordinarily, I’d never tell anyone where I live on a first date, but if Leo shows up at the Alphas’ house, he’s going to be in for a rude awakening.
“I’m staying with friends,” I tell him. “The ones who own the bar.”
He makes a face at that. “The Sheriff lives with the other two, doesn’t he?”
I nod. “Yeah. Why?”
“Just… be careful.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, you know about the man who was sheriff before him, right? His father?”
“Yeah?”