Page 126 of The Price of Ice

“It is,” Taylor said from the side. “I think you have earned some cake.”

While they grabbed refreshments, Analisa came and put an arm around his waist, leaning on him while she sipped her coffee. Kallen was just drinking water, a little tired and a little sad. He’d ask her about the budget in the car, he decided firmly, and he couldn’t quite put it aside, the heaviness of the axe about to fall, but once they went back to work for the last half hour, his distraction worked out for the best when Analisa got him to smile again by loudly transmitting her own feelings about a joke she’d been told the previous day.

Given the mood he’d been in, he’d conceded defeat at once, still smiling.

HIS JOY LASTED UNTILthey were back in his car, and he put the key in the ignition and then left it there, turning to her. “So... do you know anything about budgeting?”

She blinked her long dark eyelashes at him. “What?”

“Sorry, I just... I realised when I quit my job, I’ll need to know what I can spend and all that. And I have never done anything like that.”

“I figured you’d stay with your parents.”

He shrugged a little. “Well, yeah, but then I’d help them. And I wouldn’t stay forever, anyway.”

“Huh,” she said slowly. “Is that what’s got you all over the place?”

He turned to look at her, a little alarmed. He’d hoped she hadn’t noticed. He didn’t want to lie to her about Levy. It’d have been like saying there was something wrong with their relationship. “One of the things.”

Analisa looked thoughtful. “Well, all I know is you do your incoming money and then your outgoing expenses and see if the first cover the second. Like, it works for me with my flat share and the bills. But I’m not paying insurance or anything like that.”

“Insurance?” he echoed. “I think I better ask my mum.”

His friend agreed with him, then started asking him about what they’d do in the class once they all managed to get the other person to do what they wanted. And could they get volunteers that weren’t aware they were being lured to simulate real life situations?

Kallen was already planning to ask them to try and outlure each other once they got it to a 100%, but he liked the idea. “Alpha volunteers? Or you figure it doesn’t matter? Like betas react to alpha will so we could assume they’d respond to us too?”

“Betas are probably keeping all their willpower to themselves,” Analisa theorised.

Kallen shot her a surprise look, but given he hadn’t even known about lure for most of his life, it was as reasonable as any theory could be. “Huh. I guess that would explain how most presidents have been betas.”

“Wait, what?”

Kallen took the turn to merge into the motorway. “It’s an intense job, isn’t it? Politics? You have gotta keep up with lots ofthing, it requires constancy more than anything, and alphas and omegas are too cyclical for that to be easy.”

“Cyclical? Oh, you mean like alpha rut? But that’s rare, isn’t it? It wouldn’t affect most alphas.”

“It still means they have cycles,” Kallen said. It was a good point, why didn’t alphas go into rut all the time? “And that their hormones can mess them up. Plus, if betas don’t have external will, they have got to havesomething, right? Otherwise, there wouldn’t be betas.”

She pointed out the window at a falcon flying low, and Kallen leaned over to steal a glance, keeping his hands steady on the wheel. When it’d passed, she added, quiet and thoughtful, “I guess we should ask some betas then.”

HIS MOTHER WAS DELIGHTEDto help him with his budget, and all his fears turned out to be for nought. She had him read her numbers from his bank statement and put them into three columns, then he added all the variable expenses and came up with an average.

“I’m not sure if that’s right,” he argued. “Like, I haven’t been going out much lately.”

She smiled, soft and encouraging, a flashback to getting stuck on a homework assignment, and suggested he round it up. He did, generously so. Because now he had a reason to go out regularly, or at least he thought Levy might want to explore the city some more and Kallen definitely didn’t want to be worrying about money if they did.

“So how much are the bills?”

His mum seemed surprised but wrote down the numbers on a new column.

It was her silence that made him brave enough to ask the next question. “And would that be the same for a flat? Like it should be cheaper to heat, right?”

“Probably,” she agreed easily. “If you look at listings, they sometimes mention it and if not, you can ask when you view them.”

His heart skipped a beat. “I’m not—” She didn’t look upset, but it felt like a betrayal. “I’m not sure if I want to,” he admitted.

“That’s perfectly alright. I hope you know you are not talking us into paying any ofourbills,” she said next, that glint of stubbornness he’d spotted in the café.

---