Chapter 5

Five matches, five losses.

That was Dante’s track record before meeting Rhys.

Every single one of his previous five relationships had ended in miserable betrayal. On the midsummer night his last girlfriend dumped him, Dante had been kicked out of her Upper East Side apartment, left to wander through Central Park without even managing to straighten his clothes properly. Several passersby stole glances at the handsome man drifting alone through the shadows in visible melancholy. That was how utterly wretched Dante looked.

Ahh.

His chest ached as if his heart had been scraped across raw asphalt. Grief rose in him like sudden drunkenness. He briefly considered calling his friends to go out for a round of drinks, but acting out like that immediately after being dumped felt entirely unmanly.

A man should overcome pain alone. With that dignified resolution, Dante decided to walk through Central Park to regain his peace of mind. Surrounded by the beauty of nature, perhaps he would realize that human suffering was small and insignificant, and then… he could… overcome… this breakup!

Walking without a destination, Dante dropped heavily onto a bench by the lake. The second he sniffled—his nose prickling as if it were about to run—his eyes began to sting.

No. Don’t cry. It isn’t manly to cry over something as minor as a breakup.

Reason scolded him, but it was useless. In matters of love, Dante’s body always did the exact opposite of whatever was going on in his head. In the end, heavy tears slid down his cheeks. To preserve at least a shred of pride, he made no sound, but the tears rolled steadily over his tightly sealed lips. Staring at the ground with reddened eyes, he did something he had not done in a long time.

He thought.

Why was he always the one getting dumped? Was there something inherently wrong with him? Or was his face simply not good enough?

Hmm. He could confidently answer no to that last question. Dante Bellini was the very embodiment of a sexy lifeguard. And he wasn’t one of those little poolside kids, either; he was a lifeguard in a maritime rescue unit—a man who cut through rough, dangerous seas.

That was him.

Dante Bellini.

No matter how far back he looked, he could not understand the reason for his failures. Dante always did whatever his girlfriends wanted. Thanks to his mother’s strict upbringing, he kept the bathroom spotless, washed his hands frequently, and though he tended to shed his clothes and leave them wherever they dropped, he never did that at a girlfriend’s place. Even when they poured out incomprehensible troubles to him, he knew exactly how to respond with the soul-bearing phrases required of him, offering lines like, “I see. That must have hurt. Want me to go beat that person up for you?”

Faced with a problem that yielded no answers, Dante finally let out a strained, miserable groan. He was barely holding back the sobs threatening to burst from his chest when a handkerchief suddenly appeared before his eyes.

The abrupt arrival of the soft, blue square of cotton startled him. Dante turned his head, his eyes widening, and discovered a man sitting beside him on the bench. He had no idea how long the stranger had been there.

“You looked like you needed it,” the man said softly.

Because the day had grown dark, the stranger’s face was not fully visible. Yet even beneath the dim evening sky, Dante could tell he was astonishingly beautiful. His hair, a transparent gold like sunlight reflected on the surface of a lake, was a rare, striking color. The features watching Dante steadily were as distinct as a classical statue’s, yet filled with grace.

For a moment, Dante forgot who he was and why he was hurting. As if bewitched, he accepted the offered handkerchief.

“Um… I don’t know who you are, but… thank you.”

Since his nose really might start running if he kept this up, Dante wiped his face with the handkerchief first. Even so, his gaze kept drifting back toward the man sitting silently beside him. As a native New Yorker, Dante had seen countless handsome men and beautiful women while crossing between Manhattan and Brooklyn, but he had never seen anyone who looked quite like this. The phrase ‘a beauty you cannot take your eyes off’ seemed to exist for this man alone.

“But… how long have you been here?” Dante asked, his voice hoarse from crying.

At the question, the man tilted his head slightly, answering with a smooth, elegant curve of his lips. “Since the gentleman over here sat down beside me while crying.”

As if to prove his words, the man indicated the sketchbook resting on his lap with a slight dip of his eyes. A quick glance revealed an impressive drawing, high enough in quality that he clearly worked in the field. He seemed to have been sketching the park scenery. Dante, who had been listening in a daze, belatedly reached enlightenment.

Oh, damn. So I just suddenly sat down beside this person while bawling. How absurd that must have been—to have some random lunatic appear out of nowhere. Dante looked at him, his expression a mingling of profound apology and shame, struggling to figure out how to salvage the situation, when the man spoke again.

“It seems something sad happened to you. May I buy you a drink?”

According to Mr. Cancio, the neighbor who had taken care of Dante when he was young, one should never carelessly accept kindness from strangers. However, Dante was no longer a teenager. He was an adult man with both the strength and the means to protect himself. Of course, if he ran into a serial killer or a thief with a gun, none of that muscle would matter, but…

His reason numbed by the pain of a bitter breakup, Dante nodded as if enchanted. Perhaps it was because the handkerchief clutched in his fist felt far too soft and warm. Or perhaps it was simply because the man was far too good-looking to be a serial killer.

The instant Dante nodded, the man smiled brightly.

At that exact moment, all the streetlamps in the park flickered to life. Amber light spread wide across the path, illuminating the man’s face. His smiling eyes were an unreal color, matching the ethereal quality of his hair: a luminous blend of gray and blue. His golden-brown lashes were long enough to cast soft shadows over his cheeks.

“Good,” the man murmured.

Dante, who had never once felt his heart flutter because of another man, felt it begin to pound like mad in that exact instant.

The two of them drank until the bar closed that night. When the man finally rose from the bench, Dante discovered the stranger was actually taller than him and a little broader in the shoulders. Normally, seeing a man who outmatched him visually made Dante feel vaguely resentful, but strangely, he felt no such thing toward this person. If anything, he was entirely impressed.

The man’s personality seemed just as lovely as his face. From beginning to end, he listened to Dante’s rambling story with a calm, gentle demeanor. Dante’s resolution to bear his breakup alone like a man had completely vanished the moment the lamps of Central Park came on.

“Your name is Iris? It sounds beautiful,” Dante slurred slightly.

“Doesn’t it sound too feminine?”

“Before beauty, gender has no meaning.”

That was the grand philosophy Dante spouted the moment he heard the man’s name. The stranger told him his full name was Iris Elliott, though he usually introduced himself simply as Rhys.

“Mr. Dante, you say lovely things so casually,” Rhys replied.

“Maybe that’s because you’re so lovely to look at, Mr. Rhys.”

Dante, half-drunk and speaking whatever unfiltered thoughts passed through his mind, was watched steadily by Rhys for the rest of the night. Those gray-blue eyes seemed to be measuring what hidden thoughts Dante might have behind his words. In reality, Dante had no thoughts at all. He was simply saying whatever occurred to him, letting his instincts loose to run wild.

“Dante, haven’t you only dated women until now?” Rhys asked smoothly.

“That’s right. I’m a Beta, so… I only date female Betas. Alphas and Omegas feel kind of overwhelming.”

At those words, Rhys’s hand paused briefly as he swirled the whiskey in his glass. With only the corners of his mouth lifted in a gentle line, he made a soft sound of understanding.

“Don’t misunderstand,” Dante added quickly. “It’s not that I dislike them. I just can’t sense designation or… pheromones… or anything like that at all, so I feel like I’d mess something up. And… I’m weak against complicated things.”

“No. I know what you mean,” Rhys said, smiling softly. He added, “I’m a Beta too.”

As someone with absolutely no ability to smell pheromones, Dante had no way to confirm whether Rhys’s words were true. But it did not particularly matter. There was no reason to lie about one’s designation to a stranger met only hours ago. What mattered right then was Rhys’s face.

When Dante kept staring at that face in a daze, completely unable to look away, Rhys rested his chin on his hand and smiled seductively.

“Why do you keep looking at me?”

“Ah, I’m sorry. It’s because I’ve never seen anyone as handsome as you, Mr. Rhys.”

“I’ve never seen anyone quite like you either, Mr. Dante…” Rhys trailed off.

“What am I like?”

By then, Dante had knocked back five tequila shots and was on his third straight whiskey. He was thoroughly drunk. Normally, he was an ordinary New York civilian who drank nothing stronger than beer, but something about the way Rhys drank whiskey looked so cool that Dante had copied him and gotten hit hard by the alcohol.

“Handsome. Like a statue,” Rhys finished.

Compliments about being handsome should have meant nothing coming from another man with the same equipment, yet Dante’s heart began thumping as if it had stepped on the accelerator. Only later did Dante realize that this was the exact moment he had fallen for Rhys at first sight. Specifically, he realized it about… one month after that day.

“Have you ever thought about modeling?” Rhys asked. “I’m a sculptor.”

Dante thought the profession suited him perfectly. He also thought the line was extremely typical. There were many scammers who said things like that in New York, or so he had heard. Even while the pathetic owner of his body was drunkenly babbling nonsense, Dante’s shining reason flashed a warning light.

However, as always, Dante’s reason and body operated entirely separately.

“Of course,” Dante grinned. “If a beauty like you wants me to, Mr. Rhys, I’ll do anything.”

Rhys seemed amused even by Dante’s greasy line. He smiled, bringing his whiskey glass against Dante’s, softly toasting him with a quiet clink. Watching him, Dante smiled until his eyes curved into crescents. How could Rhys act so elegantly, just like his name? So elegant that… everything was suddenly spinning… round and round….

The moment Dante’s smiling body collapsed forward, Rhys caught him. Though tall, Rhys had only looked slender; up close, his arms were harder and firmer than expected. In his embrace drifted a scent that perfectly suited his name—an exceedingly faint, delicate floral fragrance.

I should ask him later what perfume he uses. That was, carelessly, Dante’s last coherent thought before he lost consciousness from the drunkenness.

***