“I need your opinion on something,” I said as I pushed my now-empty dessert plate away.
My stomach was far too full now, and the moment I thought of my father, my stomach started turning.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
“So, my dad showed up,” I started. “Apparently, Coach Hayes and my father played together, and he showed up to catch up with an old friend. Only his old friend is mates with the daughter he rejected all those years ago.”
“Ouch,” she gasped. “I’m taking it the meeting was not exactly a joyous reunion full of regret and apologies?”
“No. That asshole found out I was going to be born and immediately ditched me and Mom. Tried to pay her off so she wouldn’t have me—or if she did, so he would have nothing to do with me.”
“Fuck that guy,” Kieran said, his anger palpable. We were family. We’d both grown up knowing Mom was a single mom and my dad was an asshole. She never told everyone who he was because my family could be petty when they wanted, but it was clear that he was an asshole.
“The family never told me why,” he said. “I should’ve known it was some bullshit like that. Your mom is amazing. No sane alpha would leave her behind.”
“Yeah. He didn’t even recognize me, then was stunned. He invited me to lunch to catch up and hear him out. Hayes thinks Ishould go and hear him out. He wants to meet for lunch. I’m just not sure that I trust it.”
“Do you think that if you don’t go, you’ll wish you had? Wonder what would’ve happened?” she asked.
“That’s exactly what he said,” I muttered, pointing at Hayes. “I don’t know the answer to that. I’ve always just been so angry about it that I haven’t considered if he would ever regret his choices or wonder what happened to me. I’m still mad that he thought I was a disgruntled fan.”
She wrinkled her nose. “What an asshole.”
“Understatement of the century. He’s awful.”
“But my point still stands,” she said with a shrug. “You can hear him out and find out he’s still an asshole and then write him off and never have any second thoughts about it. Or he could have truly changed and you realize you don’t want to give him a chance anyway. Or maybe you do. It couldn’t hurt to go to lunch, and you don’t necessarily have to go alone, do you?”
I knew the guys would go with me if I wanted them to. The problem was I didn’t know that I wanted that.
“Okay, enough deep talk,” I said, waving my hand through the air as if I could push it away. “Let’s focus on the fact that we’re here and having some girl time, which is exactly what I needed.”
“Hell, yeah,” she said, clinking her wine glass to mine.
I thoughtabout what we’d talked about the entire way home and through the movie. My mood was off and I was quiet, but the guys didn’t push.
As soon as the credits rolled I stood.
“I think I’m going to go take a shower.”
“We’ll be down here when you’re done,” Rylan reassured me.
I went upstairs to the room I’d claimed as my own. It was still fairly empty outside of a few bags of my things. We still had to move and do house tours, all we knew were the main rooms and the bedrooms.
I sat on the bed for a second, torn between my two sides. My omega was unsettled and wanted her pack’s scents. I wanted to be alone to process.
I peeked out of my room to make sure they were downstairs before sneaking through their rooms. They had all claimed rooms near ours.
Rylan’s room was first. I snagged a pair of sweatpants right from his floor. Hayes’s room was clean and tidy, but almost as bare as mine. I found a pair of long socks in his luggage and moved to the next.
Greer’s room was messy but I managed to find the comfy shirt I’d wanted during his rut. By the time I got to Kota’s I snagged his entire pillow. I was past self-control and in full gremlin-mode.
I piled everything into my room, setting up my bed into a cozy little nest. That way when I was done showering, I could be surrounded by my pack’s scent and pure softness.
Before taking some of the clothes into the bathroom with me, I rubbed them all over the blankets, adding their scents to my bed.
It wasn’t the kind of night where I wanted to linger in the shower. I took a quick one, hoping it would help wash away some of the anxiety bubbling in my stomach.
When I was done, I pulled on the clothes I’d scrounged from the guys before towel-drying my hair and braiding it.
