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I blow out a breath.
Enough with the heavy. Happy thoughts, Riley. Stay positive.
I reach over to the bedside table and pick up my phone. Checking my email, I find a glowing review from the client on my latest romance manuscript, and a promise for additional work to come, another story about a ranch out West for runaway Omegas. At least I still have an income that is mine and mine only. I wonder if someone can take me over to my apartment to pick up my laptop, so I can keep working. Care’s suggestion about writing my own books niggles at the back of my brain, but that would be a big leap of faith on my part. With ghostwriting, someone else is making the decisions, and I’m writing it out. I’m like a short-order cook in a diner listening to the orders from the wait staff. But writing my own books from beginning to end? That would be like buying the whole diner and running it all by myself.
I stand up, stretching, even though my muscles feel like I just got a deep tissue massage, or maybe one of those weird ones where they stack hot rocks on your spine. I make the bed, trying to restore the room to the neatness it had the night before, but my hands linger on the pillowcase. I lift it one more time to my nose, inhaling the scent, catching hints of old books and wood. It reminds me of Miles, and that reminds me of safety. Comfort.
My stomach growls like a baby bear having a tantrum. I never had dinner last night, too exhausted and rattled to do anything but crash into bed and sleep off the fatigue. I slip out of bed and my feet connect with a soft lump on the floor. I look down to find a small pile of clothing and a fluffy robe. They’d been folded but must’ve fallen from the edge of the bed. Even without lifting them I know each piece is covered in Alpha scent. Tentatively, I reach down but stop just before my fingers can brush the soft fabric of the robe. Swallow hard. Sigh.
It’ll only make leaving that much harder.
Clearing my throat, I smooth out the clothes I passed out in and leave the bedroom. I head down the stairs, thankful the mansion has an open-air floor plan, so I don’t get lost down any mysterious hallways.
When I get to the kitchen, Miles is seated at the island, head bent over a laptop with a frown of concentration. A half-eaten apple and a mug of coffee sit next to a notebook filled with jotted scrawls that I don’t understand but assume have to do with his coding work.
His screen is filled with several open windows crammed full of numbers and code, almost entirely covering a desktop background that I think says ‘Hack the Hackers’ with a weird upside down smiley face.
He lifts his head, soft eyes widening as he spots me in the doorway. “Good morning,” he says in a careful tone as though he expects me to be upset or perhaps even angry.
He doesn’t need to be so wary. I get that none of this is his fault, even if I’d love someone to blame.
“Good morning,” I say, taking a seat next to him on the adjacent stool. “Where is everyone else?”
“Work. Or in Levi’s case, school. He’s getting his master’s degree in psychology. He’s in and out on a weird class schedule this term.”
He closes his laptop, putting his full attention on me. “How are you feeling today?”
“Better. Things are… under control,” I say, referring to the dispersed heat. I don’t have that fervent need like I had yesterday. The suppressants seem to have done the trick, even though being this close to Miles still makes my thighs squeeze. “Your house is really beautiful.”
“Not really my house,” says Miles with a smile, but he looks around the room with pride. “Thane’s parents are absolutely loaded. This is one of their smaller properties.”
“Smaller?” My jaw drops at the thought. “You can fit my entire apartment in the bedroom I’m in upstairs.”
“They gave it to us when we formed this pack, as a bonding gift. We got pretty lucky.”
“And you all just live here together?” I ask. It seems too good to be true. Four best friends, in a mansion, apparently with money to spare. Any Omega would be lucky to be here, and I have to wonder why they haven’t bonded one yet. They all seem to be older. At least, older than me. Miles looks early to mid-twenties, like Fox, who I know to be twenty four from stalking his socials for writing ‘inspiration.’
I think Levi, the aspiring psychologist is the youngest, and Thane… he’s definitely the oldest, not that he necessarily looks it, he just had this air about him. Like life had already had a go at him, made him harder. Wiser.
Miles nods. “As a kid, I moved around mostly with my family until my mom put me into boarding school. That’s where I met Fox and Levi, and we were pretty much inseparable after that. And when we went to college, Fox and Levi were in one dorm room, and I was assigned a first year med student roommate with a massive stick up his ass.”
“Thane?”
He grins. “The rest, as they say, is history. We’re basically a brotherhood of misfits, and we’ve all got our own issues, but we face them together.”
“That sounds…”
Wonderful.
Everything I’ve ever wanted.
“That sounds nice.”
“It is nice,” he agrees. “These guys are my family. Being around them, and having a home of our own, is what I always wished for when I was younger. My dad was in the military, so I never had a chance to settle down. We moved every few months. Here, I finally have a place of my own.”
My chest squeezes. Happy for him. The happiness tainted with something green and sour that tastes a lot like jealousy.
He gives me a knowing look like he can hear every thought in my head. “It could be a place of your own too, if you wanted it to be.”
