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“Mostly fine. Nothing worse than the usual. Where were you?”
Flattening my lips, I held back a sigh. He was just as much a worrier as I was, and while I remembered calling him from Leo’s, I wasn’t sure how clear I’d been. It still wasn’t a conversation I wanted to have with my little brother.
“I was somewhere safe. It hit so fast I couldn’t get home, and it was better for me to be somewhere else.”
His eyes still searched my face, but I avoided meeting his gaze. If he had been an alpha like Daddy, I wasn’t sure I’d have been able to lie and hide things from him, despite being the older one. Another reason I was glad he was a beta.
“Cadence—”
“Michael, the last few days are not something I really want to discuss with you. It’s… personal. And weird to talk about with my little brother. Just, please, let’s move past it.”
It was rude to cut him off and I was sure he was frustrated, but I really couldn’t do it. Standing, I turned to go up to my room, but before I made it around the table, he brought up one of the things I didn’t want to think about.
“What about next time? What about when I’m at college, and Momma only has you, and you disappear?”
Momma looked up, brow furrowed as she glanced between us. I ground my teeth, wishing I had an answer that would satisfy either of us.
Keeping my back to him, I let my head drop, weariness catching up to me with the weight of the two people who depended on me.
“I’ll figure it out. It’s not your problem.”
He didn’t say anything else as I walked from the kitchen, Momma’s murmur following me out as she asked what we were talking about. I couldn’t hear Michael’s answer as I climbed the stairs, retreating to my room.
More and more things were getting tangled up, and I wished I could just tell him what was going on between me and Leo, but part of me wasn’t sure he’d understand. What was I supposed to say if he asked me how I met Leo? Or why Leo had paid off everything for us when I was barely more than a stranger?
What if he demanded to know how I’d covered his debt to the Galleons?
Heaving a sigh, I sat on the edge of my bed, frowning at the lack of scent that met me. I was spending less time in my own room than I was in Leo’s, and his was the one that felt like home now.Thisnest was incomplete.
Groaning, I flopped back onto my mattress and ran a hand over my face. It was early afternoon already since Leo and I had woken so late, and to keep up my façade I’d have to leave in a few hours. If I’d really just missed three days of work to my heat, I’d have been frantic to make up the time, but at least I didn’t have to worry about it too much. My check would be a little short, but money wasn’t the issue it had been before. I’d even managed to squirrel a little away for emergencies since I had less bills to worry about now.
I let myself melt into the mattress, taking a few minutes to just breath and force my mind to quit spinning. The past few days were a blur when I tried to remember what had happened, but one thing I was certain of, Leo had kept his promise and hadn’t claimed me.
The omega part of me was upset about that, but the logical part was thankful, as well as a bit surprised. If Leo had been who I thought he was in the beginning, there was no way I’d have been able to walk away from him without his mark on my neck. He’d have sunk his teeth into my flesh the first chance he got.
I raised my hand to cover the spot where he’d mouthed me, pretending to bite without breaking skin, my nipples tightening and core pulsing at the thought. He wanted to, I knew he did, but he hadn’t.
Because I’d made him promise not to.
The smidge of disappointment was buried beneath the warmth that filled my chest. I had accepted my attraction to Leo, accepted that I enjoyed being with him, but there had been that little seed of mistrust for me to use as a shield so I didn’t completely fall for him.
And now it was gone.
I had nothing to hide behind.
And the fact that he’d kept his promise despite his instincts urging him to do otherwise proved how good an alpha he really was.
If I hadn’t loved him before, I couldn’t deny I very well might now.
Sighing again, I rubbed my hands over my face before rolling upright. I was tired of the lies and the hiding and the sneaking around. I needed to find a way to tell my brother what had been going on. We’d have to take things a day at a time with Momma, but I couldn’t exist in the limbo between my life before Leo, and the life I wanted to have, and the longer I stretched it out, the worse it was going to be when the truth came out.
I forced myself to get up and go back downstairs. While part of what I’d told Momma was a lie, I really had missed them, and I felt bad running off to hide when Michael had already done so much.
They were sitting at the table when I came through the doorway. Michael had shoved his laptop aside and was playing cards with Momma, and I paused for a moment to just watch.
Even at seventeen, Michael was already taller than Momma and me. He was slim, but not in a starved kind of way. Betas were rarely bulky, so he probably wouldn’t get much bigger. It was strange to think he was almost an adult, and while I wanted him to go to college and have a life of his own, watching him leave was going to be bittersweet.
It was hard to see changes in the people you lived with, but when I turned my attention to Momma, I could tell she’d lost more weight. We did our best to get her to eat and take care of herself, but it wasn’t like we could force her when she didn’t cooperate.
