Irresistible

Chapter 2: Gossip

2

Louis watched as the milk he poured turned his coffee from a deep, almost black colour, to a light beige colour. He wondered if there was anyone that would lighten his world like that.

Will I get a mate? Am I worthy of one? What about my true mate?

Being the youngest and the smallest of his family was a nightmare in disguise, especially when he was an Omega. From an outsider’s perspective, he was loved and spoiled; always happy. On the inside, however, it was far from perfect.

Louis wasn’t spoiled. If anything he was neglected. He was not abused, thankfully, but being left alone and getting verbally degraded did just as much emotional damage as physical abuse, in his perspective. He was lonely and he had contemplated running away many times, but his town was small and if he wanted to leave for good, he would have to bus or take a train to the next city, which he did not have the money for. His family was wealthy, having a successful wine company in Lyon but they did not give him a single penny, even out of pity.

That meant that he was stuck in the small village of Yvoire without any form of escape. Besides, even if he did gather enough money to afford a bus ticket to Paris, the other villagers would notice that he went missing, even if his parents did not. That was how small his village was.

“Hey! If you’re done staring at your coffee, go fetch me a pail of water. I need to water the plants because unlike you, I have a job to do,” Louis’ oldest sibling, Samuel, a Beta, called, smacking the Omega’s head. Louis winced but remained silent, doing what he was told. 

“Here,” he handed the silver pail to his older brother who just sneered at him before walking away. Louis sighed. Why did bad things only happen to him? His luck truly was the worst.

Louis didn’t think he lived up to his surname quite as well as his siblings did. Beaux meant ‘beautiful’ but the young male didn’t think he was even close to beauty. While all his siblings had his mother’s beautiful golden hair and his father’s stunning blue eyes, Louise had gotten his paternal grandmother’s straight, light brown hair and green eyes from one of his distant ancestors. 

He supposed his eyes were ok, but the rest of him was not. He was skinny and frail-looking, but that was because of his Omegan genes. His hair refused to stay up when he attempted to style it and worst of all, he was short when compared to his siblings. 5'6" was not tall at all in their family. Even his sister stood taller than him, at 5'7".

Louis sighed and stirred his now cold coffee.

“Louis! Don’t you have work?” Samuel’s twin and Louis’ only sister Marie, asked, poking her head in through the door. The female Beta had a straw hat perched atop her head and looked like she was sweating buckets. The male glanced at the wall clock and nodded.

“Yes, I do. In 25 minutes,” Louis said and Marie shrugged.

“Whatever. Just make sure you’re not late. Last time you were late Mama yelled at me and Sammy. Your paycheck matters more than you think, runt,” Marie rolled her eyes before disappearing back into the field.

“My paycheck matters more than my life. That’s kind of obvious,” Louis murmured bitterly. To get some extra cash for himself, Louis had to work at the local cafe that was a few minutes away from his home but even the money he earned himself was taken by his parents. They claimed that it was ‘rent for living here and for the food you’re eating’.

Louis mumbled curses under his breath as he stood up, grabbing the cup of coffee and dumping the contents into the sink. As much as he hated wasting food, he had lost his appetite and forcing himself to eat would only do more harm than good. Louis rinsed the cup, putting it back into its place on the shelf so that his mother wouldn’t find more reasons to yell at him.

The young boy then walked up to the main door of the house grabbing his own old beret, slipping the hat and his shoes on before exiting the house.“I’m leaving,” he muttered bitterly.

When his siblings left to go somewhere his parents would fuss and make sure they dressed well but when Louis was leaving, no one seemed to care. His siblings would be in their own worlds, his mother would be in the kitchen or the yard out back while his father would smoke his pipe reading the daily newspaper. All in all, no one cared and while most people his age would be glad that no one was snooping through his privacy, all Louis wanted was some attention. 

Even if it was just a speck of it but even that was too much to ask for.

“Hello Louis dear, how are you?” Madame Dubois, the older lady across the street, called out and Louis gave her a polite smile.

“I’m good, madam. How about you?”

“I’m well dear. I’ve baked a few strawberry tarts and I can’t possibly finish them by myself. Would you like some?” the kind lady asked and Louis smiled brightly. As much he knew taking food from others was rude, he couldn’t resist the older woman’s tarts.

They were absolutely delicious. 

“That’s very kind of you Madame Dubois but are you sure Monsieur Dubois wouldn’t mind?” Louis asked, not wanting to butt into their family matters. The older Beta just laughed, shaking her head.

“Of course not. He’s already taken his fill. Now come quickly. I know you have work to do so I’ll pack them up for you to enjoy during your break,” the lady rushed inside her house while Louis stood outside the door awkwardly. 

It wasn’t even 5 minutes later when Madame Dubois came back outside, this time with a small container in her hands. 

“Here you are, dear. Now rush along. Don’t want you to be late,” the kind lady gently shooed the young male back onto the road. Louis once again gave her a warm smile, thanking her many times before rushing to the cafe where he worked. 

One of the very few perks of being an Omega was the fact that the omega didn’t have to help with the family winemaking business. Although their village was small, winemaking was a tradition that had been around for a long time and his family just so happened to be one of the main producers of wine. The Beaux family was quite well known throughout the village so that made it a tad bit harder to escape. 

“Hello, Monsieur Leroy. I’m here to cover my shift so you can send Zoé home,” Louis called out as he stepped into the fairly quiet cafe. Since it was almost 2 pm on a weekday, there weren’t a lot of customers so Louis would be able to take it a bit easy today.

“Oh, hello Louis. Zoé, you heard him. You’re free to go,” a pale girl with striking blonde hair peeked her head out from under the counter. The female Omega looked around and when her eyes landed on Louis, she grinned.

“Hey Louis, how’s it going?”

“It’s going fine I suppose. The usual here and there,” Louis shrugged as he walked through the swinging doors, setting the container of tarts on the counter as he pulled on his apron.

“Mm, that’s nice. I’m going to your house to see Christian. See you later,” Zoé said as she stood up, taking her apron off and dashing out the door. Louis rolled his eyes.

His last sibling, Christian, was a bit of a playboy and what disgusted him, even more, was the fact that his parents never said anything. One time, a few years back, Christian had a girl over and they accidentally fell asleep in Marie’s room after having s*x. Marie had been furious and when she complained, his parents had just shrugged it off, saying that it was normal at his age.

Mind you, that boy was 18 at the time. That was 3 years ago and nothing had changed.

Maybe it was because Christian was an Alpha. He was the only one in the family and Louis thought that his parents favoured him because of his strong secondary gender. The brunette was the only omega in the family and he thought that his parents avoided him because of his secondary gender. 

Louis shook his head, gently slapping his cheeks a few times to get rid of the thoughts. Now was not the time to get distracted. He had work to do.

With that, the young boy got to work.

- - -

“Alright Louis, it’s really slow today so you can leave early,” Monsieur Leroy said and Louis internally rolled his eyes. It was 7 pm and his shift ended at 8, so leaving an hour early really didn’t do him much but the Omega nodded, not wanting to be rude.

“Ok. Thank you, Monsieur Leroy,” the brunette took his apron off, hanging it up before dusting himself off and grabbing Madame Dubois’ container. He planned to return it on the way back home.

“Call me Arthur, Louis. You make me feel old and I’m only 46,” the man laughed and Louis smiled. “Well, I’ll lock up after you so make sure you didn’t leave anything behind otherwise you’ll have to wait until tomorrow morning,”

The Omega nodded and once he confirmed he had everything, he bid goodbye to his boss before making his way home. Since it was summer, the sun was still high up in the sky, making it seem like it was still the afternoon rather than the evening.

The brunette basked in the sunlight as he walked to Madame Dubois’ house. When he got there, he knocked on the door, which opened to reveal Monsieur Dubois.

“Good evening Monsieur Dubois. I just wanted to thank Madame for the tarts and to return this container,” the teen held out the container and the older male took it, nodding.

“Alright. That’s all. Have a good evening,”

“You too,” and with that, Louis was on his way once again.

As the Omega walked past a few houses, he heard some people chattering and though he didn’t usually pay attention to what they were saying, something caught his attention today.

“Hey, did you hear. That famous film studio is shooting a movie here,” a girl with brown hair and brown eyes, Lara, said and her friends, Camille and Colette looked at her in surprise, just like how Louis did.

“Yeah right. This town’s so small and shitty. Why would anyone in their right mind come here to shoot a film? If anything, they’d probably come for the wine and cheeses,” Colette rolled her eyes and Louis couldn’t help but agree with her.

“I don’t know but I heard papa talk to someone on the phone telling them that the director of the film wanted to use the road by that cafe for a couple of scenes,” Lara said and Louis frowned.

Did that mean he would have to stop working for a couple of days?

“Besides, when the actors come here I’m going to introduce myself to them. See if I can find anyone nice looking so that I can leave this shitty village once and for all,” the girl bragged and Camille let out a scandalized gasp.

“But isn’t Curtis your mate? Why would you leave your goddess gifted mate for someone else? ”

Lara shrugged. 

“He’s not good enough for me, Cam. I want to travel to Paris and live a luxurious life and that man cannot provide that for me so I’ll just seduce one of the actors,” Lara grinned proudly as if she had just won a medal.

“You’re such a w***e,” Camille said and Lara just laughed.

“What can I say? I’m an Omega and I live to please,” the brown-haired girl winked, making Louis feel sick. He was an Omega too. Did that mean he was only born to please as well? Was that why his mother and father hated him?

“Shut up. You’re born to be a person who will achieve things just as an Alpha or a Beta would, not a w***e that people can throw around. Just admit that you like f*****g people and we’ll all agree. Don’t you dare degrade Omegas like that,” Colette fired and Lara turned bright red.

Whether it was in anger or embarrassment, Louis didn’t know, nor did he care. He had heard more than he needed to and if he didn’t get home soon, his mother would lock him out.

Quickly the young male rushed home but when he got here, he was met with a pleasant surprise. There were a few cars outside his house, which was not very common. Moreover, he heard laughter from inside the house, which signalled that they probably had guests over. 

Louis slowly opened the door and as he expected, there were people over. The only thing that surprised him was that he hadn’t ever seen these people around. With how small Yvoire was, Louis had practically seen every single person who lived here and the people in front of him sure as heck weren’t on the list of people Louis saw and knew. 

“Oh, Louis darling. You’re back,” his mother’s sugar-sweet voice made Louis flinch but he managed to pull on a fake smile. After all, his own well being was far less important than his parent’s dignity. That was sarcasm if you hadn’t yet noticed.

“Good evening, mother. Good evening to you as well,” Louis nodded his head politely at the two men who sat on the couch in their living room.

“Good evening. We were just discussing how we would love to use this town and your yard outback as a stage for a couple of scenes in the movie,” one of the men said and Louis blinked, nodding.He had no idea what this had to do with him though. Why were they telling him?

“Oh, ok. Well, mother, I’ll be in the lavender fields if you need me,” Louis turned to his mother who gave him a forced smile and a piercing glare that told him that if he ruined anything here, she would ruin him. With that, Louis left. 

He had no business there and he didn’t want to get involved in things that didn’t include him. Better to be safe than sorry, Louis thought as he rushed away.