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"I believe you met my packmate, Brooklyn. She told us your name. Said she met you yesterday actually." Her shoulders relax when her hypnotizing brown eyes land on Brooklyn. The weight that was on my chest vanishes with her fear of me.
"Oh. You guys are packmates?" I nod, "And the two other guys you were here with last week?" she asks, looking at Hudson and Mason.
"They're pack, too. It's the four of us. We've known each other since we were kids; well except Mason." Mason is pack, but he was brought in because of me. It was just Hudson, Brooke, and I out here, looking for our fated mates and choosing to live as a pack until we found them. Then I met Mason coming up on two years ago, and I couldn't let him go. He was everything I didn't know I needed; Vibrant and enigmatic and beautiful.
"That's your boyfriend. Or mate?" she asks in a curious voice, looking between the two of us. She probably did see me kiss the shit out of him last week when I was trying to release some of the pent up energy accumulating from being around her. From finally finding my mate.
"Is that a problem?" I ask, voice tight. I don't want to give too much away, but it would devastate me if she didn't want us to be together. She doesn't know it yet, but she holds all the power right now.
Her eyebrows shoot up at my question. "Why would it? Besides, it's not really my place is it?"
Isn't it, though?
It's still abundantly clear how ignorant of our bond she is. Where mine is screaming at me to take her and mark her as mine, she's holding a casual conversation with me like I'm just anyone else at the bar. I have to make a mental note to call the doctors back.
I put out a few calls to some doctors our pack has worked with personally and trust implicitly. None have called back yet. I know they're all busy, and I did stress that it wasn't super urgent, but it's starting to feel like it just might be. I need someone to give me a little bit of a clue.
"Did you want something to drink?" she asks sweetly, pulling me out of my own head.
Right. Drinks.
"Yeah, sorry. We'll take four tequila shots with lemon, two Tom Collins, and two Whiskey Sours," I tell her, handing over my card and asking to keep it open. Something tells me we'll be here a while. Not that we'll be getting drunk or anything. Well, I won't. What if Summer needs me for something? What if some drunk asshole gets a little too flirty or handsy with her?
A grunt pulls me back to the present to see my mate hunched over the register, hand fisted against her abdomen. My back straightens, and I glance back at the rest of my pack to see worry lining all their faces as well.
"Summer...you okay?" I ask slowly, worry marring my voice. Her back heaves a few times before she straightens and rolls her shoulders back. By the time she turns around to face me, there's a smile on her face. There is no missing the light sheen of sweat on her forehead though.
"Fine. Here's your card, give me a second on those drinks." Before I can say another word, she's turned around again and has started making our cocktails. I feel helpless staring at her, with no idea how to help or what the problem even is. All I know is she can't tell who her mates are, and she has frequent pains in her stomach. It's not her heat, I'd be able to smell if she were perfuming.
Summer comes back over to me, four drinks and four shots on a circular tray table, gives me a sweet smile, and then turns to help another patron. All the while, I'm standing here with my thumb in my mouth, wondering how that conversation ended so abruptly. A little shell-shocked, I grab the tray and take the drinks back to my waiting pack.
Sliding in next to Mason, I set them on the table. As I glance up, all eyes are on me, waiting impatiently for my synopsis. I run them through the very little that happened, to which Brooklyn huffs her disappointment.
"You didn't get any new information!" she hisses, leaning forward and whisper yelling at me.
I bristle. "You try! She isn't exactly going to tell her whole life story to a bunch of strangers."
Brooke's eyes light up in challenge.
So that's how the next few hours go. Each of us takes a turn going to get a round or order something to eat. Each one trying to glean one little iota of information about her. The only one even remotely successful was Mason, and all he got was her favorite beer on draft. Which he only got because when it was his turn to grab drinks, he just asked her for four of her favorite. Basically, he cheated. Any other personal question we asked her—where she's from, how far her commute is, if she's single—she expertly guided the conversation in a different direction. I'm both extremely proud of our mate and thoroughly frustrated.
No matter.
We'll just have to gain her trust. It'll take time, but it's going to be worth it, getting to know her. She's about to have a lot ofrandomrun-ins with Pack Whitlock in the near future. I just hope we don't scare her off.
After about five hours of sitting in the same booth, drinking and eating bar food while quasi-stalking the beautiful omega bartender, we can't stay any longer. It's starting to get real weird, and the owner—our friend Ava—already came over to our table once to see how we were doing. It was right after a quick, hushed conversation with Summer, and I think she told Ava about all the personal questions. Not that Ava would ever believe us to be malicious towards an omega, or anyone for that matter, but she seems to be taking Summer’s comfort seriously. So, here we are, dragging our feet as we leave the now very crowded dive bar.
"I don't like this," I mutter, and a growl of agreement slips through Brooke's lips. "Someone should hang out nearby and make sure she gets home safe."
Everyone nods in agreement, and Hudson volunteers. The rest of us start heading toward the car to drive home. Our pack house is a little outside of the city since we sit on a couple acres of land. Hudson will either call one of us to get him or take a cab home whenever Summer gets home safe.
In the meantime, I've been itching to call one of the doctors again and get some answers. I put a call in to three of them and stress the urgency, asking for a call back as soon as humanly possible. Just as we make it back to my forest green Jeep Wrangler, my phone rings.
I answer immediately. "Hi, Doctor Tanner. Thank you so much for calling me back."
"It sounded urgent," she says back, all business. Urgent, in her line of work, means expensive. I don't mind paying her fees in this instance though. Doctor Tanner is extremely sought after. In addition to being one of the most respected and accomplished pack doctors in Chicago, she just opened several low income offices throughout the city where she helps provide affordable care to people in need; omegas specifically. That’s something Ava and she have in common. Doctor Tanner works between those offices when she has time during the week and takes house calls for the most affluent packs to supplement her income. It's incredible, really. One of the reasons I hoped it was her who called me back.
"It is, can you meet us at the Whitlock pack house in thirty?" It'll take us no more than twenty minutes to get there from here, but that seems too optimistic a time-frame for a last minute appointment.
