Page 148 of Now Their Starlet

“Come here,” I snap. Shit. Too harsh. “Please.”

“I’m not a dog,” Andi huffs, that familiar snark emerging, despite the thick cloud of hopeless despair hanging in the room.

But despite her protests, she still makes her way to me until she has to tilt her head back to meet my gaze.

“Good girl,” I murmur. “Thank you.”

I rest my hands against her waist, needing to ground myself in her presence.

“Leo and I have come to the conclusion that we’re...”

“We’re fucked,” Leo finishes for me.

Eli and Beck’s heads jerk towards him. It’s an understandable reaction. Leo rarely curses like that.

“How so? Stop edging us and just spit it out,” Andi huffs.

“The moment Gina catches the faintest whiff that we’re all here in a hospital, she’s going to find out that Edison is in a coma. And then she’s going to file another emergency petition.”

That cloud of despair turns into the thickest fog imaginable. It hurts to breathe, the stressed notes of all of our scents mixing together.

“And it will be granted,” Cameron finishes for us. “Because the judge will have no choice. The likelihood Gina will be granted custody again will be high. Andi doesn’t have any other family it could go to.”

Andi’s hands come to rest against my chest. They’re trembling.

Fuck, her whole body is trembling.

I pull her tighter to my chest, offering her physical reassurance because it’s the only kind I know how to give her.

“No,” Beck says quietly. “Not fucking happening.”

“You have an idea?” Eli asks, his arms crossed over his chest.

“I do,” Beck says, stepping toward Andi and I like he’s being pulled into her gravitational field. “Andi... do you trust us?”

“Of course I do,” she sniffles, wiping at her damp cheeks.

“I know—I know these aren’t the circumstances omegas dream of while growing up. but how do you—how do you feel about spending the rest of your life with us? All of us?”

Beck’s idea clicks into place with startling clarity.

It’s genius—from a logistical perspective.

But from an emotional one?

I’m unsure.

“Are you—are you asking what I think you’re asking?” Andi whispers.

“Yeah,” Beck says, offering her one of his signature grins. “Would you do us the honor of bonding us, Andi? Making the pack official?”

We all go still, waiting for her answer. The steady beep of the heart rate monitor the only thing that breaks up the suffocating silence.

“How—how exactly will that help the situation?” she asks.

I tense against her, closing my eyes to hide my reaction.

Well... that certainly wasn’t the resounding yes I think we were all hoping for.