Page 68 of How to Lose a Pack in 10 Dates

Let this be a warning: scent-matching is just a high-tech version of snake oil.

If an app claims it knows who you belong with, ask yourself: what happens when they don’t treat you like you’re theirs?

Chapter Eighteen

Cam

Dogs never ask questions.

It’s probably why I loved them first.

Before there was Wes, there were animals. Before I knew how to talk to people—or stop crying long enough to try—I knew how to sit quietly next to a dog and feel a little less invisible.

I used to sneak out into neighbors’ yards to lie in the grass with their pets. I’d pretend they were mine, that I wasn’t just the quiet kid with a broken mom and no one left to fix it.

My mother was never cruel. Just…wrecked. After my father died, she retreated into herself, but then Wes’s dad came along and changed everything. Their relationship didn’t last long, though. And when he left her—the man who’d promised forever and then handed her back to loneliness—she barely looked at me.Couldn’tlook at me, not properly, not without seeing all the things she’d lost.

I think I reminded her of too much.

But Wes stuck around. And even though my mother couldn’t stand to look at the boy she used to call her own, I couldn’t get enough of him. He was everything I wasn’t: loud and angry, brilliant and brave. He was only two years older than me, but he seemed so grown up, so mature; and I followed him like a shadow that barked.

Still: dogs were there for me first. And sometimes, when things get too loud or complicated, I still come back here. To the dogs. To the quiet.

They don’t care that I’m the lowest-ranked alpha in the house, or that I alphabetize our snack drawers as a stress response. They don’t blink if I smell like nesting diffusers or pink glitter or someone else’s omega. They just wag their tails and shove toys at me and act like I hung the moon.

It’s humbling. And therapeutic.

And the only place I can wear mypaws before broscap without Wes threatening to burn it.

I’m kneeling by a litter of wriggling mutts, half-covered in fur and slobber, when I hear the front bell jingle.

“Hi,” Aimee’s voice floats in—syrupy-sweet and doing strange things to my heart rate. “We’re looking for a tall, soft alpha with abandonment issues and a mild savior complex?”

I glance up just as Jace closes the door behind her. He’s got his sunglasses pushed up into his hair and the vaguely annoyed expression of someone who’d rather be scenting her neck than making small talk with strays.

“Hey,” I grin, tossing the toy I’d been holding aside and wiping my hands on my jeans. “Didn’t know I was getting visitors today.”

Aimee crosses the room and crouches next to me without hesitation, easy and unbothered by the smell of kibble or chaos or the trail of fur on my shirt. Her thigh brushes mine as she reaches for the nearest puppy.

“Jace said you were here,” she says. “I wanted to see your secret life.”

I watch her as she laughs, soft and unguarded, when one of the pups licks her wrist. The sound curls under my ribs and settles there.

“Pretty glamorous, huh?” I manage.

“It’s adorable,” she murmurs—and then she looks up at me, her dark eyes wide and warm. “And so are you, by the way.”

My brain short-circuits. I blink at her, suddenly aware of every inch between us.

“Oh,” I say, very intelligently.

Aimee tilts her head, the corner of her mouth curving upward. “What?”

“Nothing. Just—uh. You’re here.”

She smiles again, softer this time, and reaches out to brush a bit of fur off my chest. Her fingers skim my shirt—barely there, but enough to ground me in the fact that this is real.

Behind us, Jace snorts. “You two want a room, or are we just gonna vibe next to the pee pads?”

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