Page 145 of Lyric & the Heartbeats

Lyric shrugged. “I don’t know. It shouldn’t bother me at all. Being in the public eye, I should be used to having judgment passed on me, and sometimes it’s easier to let it go than others. I just—ugh!” Lyric groaned. “After everything I’ve accomplished, everything I’ve done, that guy still saw me as—”

She cut her words short, letting her frustration fill in the blanks. At this point, she felt like a scratched record, but that was how it had always been for her. Her entire life was filled with people only glancing over the surface without deeming her worthy of seeing what was beneath.

But they don’t.

Lyric had to accept it—that was all some would see her as.

“You are an omega,” Emerson said.

Nohen nudged him in the side, a warning expression painting his lips in a frown, but Emerson waved him off.

“You’re not just an omega though, and we know that. You know that.”

“You can’t control what other people think about you,” Adra interjected softly, his voice rumbling beneath Lyric’s cheek.

“I know, I know,” she murmured. “Doesn’t mean I have to like it.”

Adra’s arms tightened around her waist, and she tilted her head up to him.

She didn’t even have to ask, he just dipped his head down and gifted her with a soft, gentle kiss, a press of lips that was comforting. It made her chest warm and fuzzy.

“You taste like sugar,” he announced.

“Oh, sugar,” Lyric said, and reached an arm out toward the opposite couch. “Gummy bears.”

“No,” Desi replied, cheek smushed against the couch, eyes closed as she hid a smile. “Get them yourself.”

Lyric had a perfected whine ready to be let out, but Nohen grabbed the bag from the couch beside Desi and brought them to her.

“Yes,” Lyric hissed before blowing a raspberry at Desi. “Nohen’s my favorite beta.”

Nohen snorted, snagging the bag and pouring himself a handful of multicolored bears while Desi snickered. “Well, I’m not the one giving you orgasms for breakfast, so that’s a given.”

A red gummy bear sailed across the bus to bounce off the side of Desi’s head in return.

The rest of the drive was easy, and Lyric dozed on and off as she was passed around from alpha to alpha to Nohen, cuddling and soaking up all their warmth.

And in her hazy, half awake state, she kept returning to what Adra had said.

“You can’t control what other people think about you.”

He was right.

She would never truly know what others thought of her.

Will the world ever see her as more than an omega?

What would she do if she never got the answer to that question?

Does it even matter?

As the bus rolled to a stop at the venue, and one by one, they stood up and stretched, Lyric decided it didn’t.

The only thing that mattered was that these people, her bandmates, her alphas—she blushed just thinking the phrase—saw her as Lyric.

“I’m not tired,” Lyric argued as she and her bandmates walked through the venue.

“Well, I am.” Nohen smiled. “Can I sleep with you tonight?”