Quinn truly had never considered that he would end up in a situation like this. He never, in his wildest dreams, considered that he would end up sex friends with his childhood best friend.
After all, he'd been there with his best friend when they'd both gotten their results from their trait tests. He'd seen the look of pure pleasure that had crossed his friend's face when it became clear he was going to follow in his family's footsteps. He was going to awaken as an alpha.
Not just any alpha, but a dominant alpha. Like his father, and like his elder brother. And his grandfather and so on and so forth.
Quinn had held onto his own trait test, staring at the two lines near the top that told him two things. Beta. Extra beta. Not even a chance for recessive anything. Just beta.
He wasn't an alpha, he wasn't an omega, but he was the 70% average that supported the world. Kept it moving. Even then, Quinn had done his best. He had pushed down the anger and upset feelings he'd had inside of him at his own results and had been excited and happy for his best friend. This was exactly what he wanted, exactly what he had been afraid of.
It was that day that he'd seen a small shift in his dark eyes. Something had changed in Michel once he'd seen his trait test, and Quinn had been in denial about it for years. He'd watched as over the years, Michel shifted. He got a little meaner, a little cruel. Quinn had just brushed it off, telling himself he was under more pressure because of his family expectations.
Now that he was going to be a dominant alpha his family had to have higher expectations for him, even as the second son. That was what Quinn told himself as his friend, the one who he'd grown up with for 8 years before they'd gotten their test results, started to act like a jerk.
He started hanging out with a different crowd. These people sucked up to him, trying to use him for his money. This included alphas, betas, and even some omegas that were social climbers. Quinn just…watched it all happen. He couldn't say anything because everyone had always thought he was a social climber when that wasn't the case.
He had just liked who Michel was as a person before he'd gotten his test, but once he started filling out, getting taller, turning from a pretty young child into a handsome adolescent, others began to notice. That put Quinn on the outside.
He didn't come from the same crowd that Michel had begun to surround himself with. He'd been a scholarship kid, and didn't come from the same kind of money that everyone else had. He worked hard to fit in, worked hard to just blend it. It had been his friendship with Michel that had kept him safe from bullying in school, but when it came to high school Michel had abandoned him.
Michel had told him then that it wasn't anything personal, he was just making sure that those around him were of the best stock. His father had been breathing down his neck to keep away from regular betas that couldn't bring anything of worth to the family name. Quinn had heard those words, sitting in a cafe that they had frequented as kids, and had done his best not to cry. It would do him no good or for Michel if he cried.
Not for the first time he had cursed the fact that he had been born as a beta. He had wanted to be an omega. He had wanted to be able to stay by Michel's side. He had wanted to be cute and sweet and delicate. Instead, he was watching as his body filled out and he became taller. Too tall. Not as tall as the dominant alpha that Michel was, but he was towering over the other alphas.
He hated it, and Michel must have noticed. He had to.
So, Quinn stepped back. He didn't get bullied because he was too tall for the others to even consider it, but he didn't get to hang out with Michel like he used to. He was alone for most of his high school days, only making one friend who then stuck with him into university.
Noah was also an outcast like Quinn but unlike Quinn, he was hiding where he came from. It wasn't until university that Quinn found out that his friend was the illegitimate child of a rather rich family and was also a dominant alpha. Noah didn't tell anyone because he didn't want others to do what they were doing to Michel.
Noah didn't want others to approach him because they thought they could get something from him. Quinn understood that, especially since he had stumbled across him in a meeting with people that he recognised because he had been close to Michel before and had gone to parties with him as a child. Others probably wouldn't have noticed, but this was Quinn. If there was one thing that was consistently good about him, it was his mind.
Quinn had a really good memory, which was why he was able to get a scholarship even as a beta. His new friend, who had been cautious and concerned that Quinn would reveal what he knew, had pushed Quinn away as well as soon as Quinn had told him what he had witnessed.
At least at first, until Noah realised he was being an idiot and that Quinn wasn't the kind of person that would do that.
Those had been a very lonely two weeks for Quinn and they had left a big impression on him.
Even now, 7 years later, Quinn still thought back on those 14 days and how that had broken something inside of him. How else would he have found himself agreeing to the foolish arrangement that Michel had proposed to him only a year ago?
He had known, fuck, he wasn't an idiot. He was a smart man, people kept telling him that. He had a good head on his shoulders, so why had he agreed to what Michel had suggested? Was he a masochist? Did he hate himself?
It hadn't made sense, since Michel was the one who had pushed him away and made it clear that Quinn didn't have a value to him. Until Quinn got hired at Michel's family company and began making a name for himself.
Michel also got hired here and they didn't even work in the same department. They worked on completely different floors, and Quinn had only agreed because the pay was good and…maybe he was a fool and he wanted to catch a glimpse of Michel. Years had passed and Quinn had realised why he had wanted to always be around Michel. He'd had a terrible crush on the handsome man in his youth and it had followed him his whole life. He had planned to work at the company, get some experience under him, and then maybe try to open a company with Noah.
Noah was working at his family company too, just to get his foot in the door and get his own experience while avoiding his half siblings that wanted him dead. He was trying not to stand out too much, just enough that he could survive. Noah was the one who told Quinn to work somewhere else while he got enough experience to then get out from under their thumb.
That was how Quinn ended up working for the Baxters, and how he ended up running into Michel at the end of the year party.
Michel had noticed him almost immediately, the look of recognition that crossed his face as he held a champagne flute, surrounded by all the prettiest omegas around, should have made Quinn angry. Instead it had made his stomach drop into his shoes, the butterflies so rapid that Quinn knew he needed to stop drinking otherwise he'd make a bad choice.
Quinn had been right. He should have stopped drinking, otherwise he wouldn't have ended up in bed with Michel at the end of the night. He wouldn't have had the awful conversation with Michel the next morning either, when Michel had asked him if he wanted to keep this 'arrangement' going. Quinn blamed it on him still being drunk.
Otherwise he wouldn't have agreed to be sex friends with Michel Baxter. That was what Quinn told himself, and that was what he told Noah when they met up only a week after the disastrous end of the year party. Noah had done a literal spit take upon hearing what Quinn had done and what he had agreed to.
Noah had told him he needed to go take it back. For his own sanity, Quinn needed to not get involved with Michel Baxter. He wasn't the kid that Quinn remembered him as. He was a piece of shit alpha that had a rap sheet a mile long. His parents were constantly getting him out of shitty situations that he found himself in. He used his good looks to get out of everything. He was the worst kind of man out there.
Quinn could hear what Noah was saying, could tell that Noah really cared about him. That his concern wasn't out of jealousy but because he was truly worried for him. However, Quinn…Quinn realised that his feelings for Michel had never gone away. They hadn't faded, they had just been put in a box that Quinn hadn't dealt with.
Now having slept with the man…Quinn wasn't sure if he could break this connection. It was pathetic, pitiful of him even, but he broke down crying in the booth that Noah had booked for them. Noah, distressed, tried to comfort him, the anger he'd felt that he'd expressed to Quinn fading. It smoldered for the man who had put Quinn in this position, but Noah didn't bring up his anger to Quinn again.
Noah supported Quinn, was there for him as Michel kept asking for him. Quinn could never thank his friend enough, even as he watched Quinn turn into a nervous man when before he'd been confident and kind. Now Quinn shivered and shook, hunched his shoulders, and tried to hide from the truth of the situation. He knew that Michel was using him. He knew that he was taking advantage of the fact that Quinn had good memories of their time together as children, and Michel was using that to his advantage.
Still, Quinn couldn't say no. He really couldn't. Even as Noah begged him with his eyes to turn the man down when he would call him on a whim. When Michel began to ask for him at all hours of the night. When he was clearly crossing lines with Quinn that he wouldn't do with others, almost as if to test if Quinn would do it. When his demands were getting absurd and dangerous, but Quinn kept letting him do what he wanted.
Quinn knew he was a pushover when it came to Michel. He wasn't like this outside of Michel, but his feelings were like an oil press around his throat. Slowly squeezing everything out of him until there was nothing left but a husk of a man.
It was almost a year to the day when they'd made their agreement, about three days before the end of the year party when Michel called Quinn up out of the blue. Quinn had thought that they were meeting up at the end of the year party. He'd even prepared a gift.
When Michel called him to the usual hotel, something in Quinn's gut told him not to bring the gift. Maybe it was Noah speaking to him mentally through a bond that Quinn was unaware of, but he didn't take the gift with him. After all, what kind of sex friend brought one year anniversary gifts?
Quinn was glad, in the end, that he didn't. It would have made him more miserable in the end.