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“Jesus, no,” I say, scribbling extra hard over that name. “Next up, the Franklin Pack.”
“Jeffery Franklin is currently being investigated in New York state for embezzlement from his own company. Next.”
This list is looking worse and worse. “The Dougherty Pack?”
He snorts and rolls his eyes. “No. Just trust me. Next.”
“That’s as far as I got,” I say, handing him back the note. “You’ll have to read the rest.”
He nods, taking the paper without a word. Like Miles and Levi, Thane never comments on my dyslexia, and they’ve all made the necessary accommodations I need at times. I couldn’t ask for a better pack.
“The Livingston Pack?” he says with incredulity before crumpling up the paper and tossing it at the fridge door. The paper ball knocks a magnet to the floor before joining it. “Miles is out of his damn mind.”
“Is he?” I ask, leaning back, elbows on the island. “Or are you just warming up to having Riley around and therefore no packs are good enough for her?”
Honestly, I’m feeling the same way. I can’t imagine handing her off to a pack that isn’t perfect for her. Scratch that, I can’t imagine handing her off at all.
And if Thane would just get on board then we wouldn’t have to.
His back stiffens. “Not at all. I still don’t want her in my pack.Ourpack,” he corrects himself. “But Miles is legally bound to Riley, so we need to do this right. For one, I don’t want any black marks on Miles’s record, and second, I don’t want anyone to look negatively on us. Word would get out that we set up the match for her and if it’s a bad match then…”
He trails off.
Smells like bullshit to me, but I won’t call him on it.
Thane sighs. “Besides, you know how moody Miles gets when he’s emotionally invested in something or someone. If we don’t put her with the right pack, he’ll be in a bad mood for months. Remember the cat in college?”
“Oh, God.” Miles found a runaway kitten when we were all living off-campus our senior year of college. He grew instantly protective of it, but Levi ended up being allergic to cats, so it couldn’t stay with us. Miles mourned for a week after we rehomed the creature despite the hundreds of what he affectionately called ‘claw-kisses’ still scabbing over all over his body. “He does tend to pick up strays wherever he goes, doesn’t he?”
“Well, next time, he can bring home a dog instead of an Omega,” Thane retorts before finishing off the last of his milk. “Levi isn’t allergic to dogs.”
“Sure,” I say, shaking my head, thinking that Levi sure as hell isn’t allergic to Omegas either, but who am I to correct him…
Sensing where my mind went, or maybe reading it on my face, Thane sighs and shakes his head. “We’ll have to get Miles to come up with a new list.”
“Or you could make one, since you seem to know everyone’s dirty laundry.”
He freezes for a moment before standing and picking up his laptop case. “I’m going to change. And you—go shower. You’re making the kitchen smell like a locker room.”
There isn’t even a hint of his Alpha command in his voice, so I flip him off right back, reveling in the way he’s finally full-out grinning at last.
ELEVEN
—
T H A N E
People always saythey’re exhausted down to their bones, but I never understood it until I went into medicine.
As I collapse on the edge of my bed, too tired to even change into my casual clothes, I am hit with the familiar weight of heavy bones and the muscles too strained to support them. Weariness is just embedded into my body at this point, like shrapnel. I wake up tired, I go to work tired, I come home tired, and then the process begins again.
Coming off a double shift doesn’t make it any better, but remembering what it was like before I left the cervology department makes it a little more bearable.
Despite what my parents and the bigwigs at the hospital want, I can’t go back to treating a disease that has no cure. I just can’t. I’ve watched so many patients waste away and die, only able to regulate their pain and symptoms as they slowly make their way to their graves. After only a few years, I found myself wanting to join them there.
It wasn’t until Miles, Levi, and Fox sat me down one night, intervention style. I was exhausted all the time. Losing my temper at everything. I lost twenty pounds. I never did anything I cared about anymore, sometimes spending my days off alone in my bedroom, just existing.
“Change fields,” Miles pleaded with me, his eyes shining. “You’re killing yourself, Thane.”
