Page 69 of Pack Plus One

The kind I need to fix myself.

But how? How do you apologize for pushing away the people who bring whiskey you like, who carve spoons for your bakery, who bring you lamb because you mentioned loving Mediterranean food once?

How do you explain that you’re terrified of how much you want them? That your ex’s voice still whispers you’re not pack material in your head, even as your body begs to prove him wrong?

Another pang, hotter this time. My thighs press together instinctively.

Fuck.

I’ve spent so long building walls to keep from being hurt that I didn’t realize I’d locked myself inside them.

And now, with pre-heat simmering under my skin and the pack’s scents still tangled in my apartment, I know one thing for certain:

If I don’t fix this—if I don’t try—I’ll regret it forever.

Even if it’s already too late.

16

LIAM

The pack house was silent when we returned last night.

No jokes from Jude. No dry commentary from Mason. Even Caleb’s usual brooding takes on a sharper edge, his scent bitter with something dangerously close to shame.

I sit at the kitchen table until three AM, running the entire dinner over and over in my head.

We fucked up.

Not just the panty incident, or the vegetable bouquets, or even the disastrous dinner, but the way we’d overwhelmed her from the start. Pushed when we should’ve waited. Assumed when we should’ve asked.

And now she thinks we’re exactly what her ex had claimed: alphas who see her as a conquest, not a person.

“Still up?” Mason’s quiet voice breaks the silence.

I don’t look up. “Can’t sleep.”

He slides into the chair across from me, his usual composed facade cracked around the edges. “None of us can.”

“We ruined it,” I say, the words sour on my tongue. “All of us.”

“Maybe,” Mason concedes, running a hand over his face. “Or maybe we just need to learn how to be patient.”

“Patient?” I laugh without humor. “We fought over her underwear like teenagers. We invaded her space. We argued over her like she wasn’t even in the room.” I groan. “Patience isn’t our problem. Respect is.”

Mason’s expression softens. “You’re right.”

“I know I’m right,” I mutter, massaging that spot at my temples. “I just don’t know how to fix it.”

The stairs creak, and we both look up to see Jude descending, hair disheveled, eyes without their usual sparkle. For once, his ever-present smirk is nowhere to be seen.

“Meeting of the ‘We Fucked Up’ club?” he asks, his voice lacking its usual verve.

“Charter members,” Mason confirms dryly.

Jude drops into a chair, looking uncharacteristically serious. “I took it too far with the underwear thing. And the vegetables. And probably everything else.”

“We all did,” I say. “In our own ways.”

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