Page 38 of Knot Their Girl
After all that, after knowing the truth about what nearly happened between me and the omega he wants to set up with his nephew, he’s leaving the choice up to me? Honestly, I don’t know what to think of this man. He’s coming at it with a prudent attitude I didn’t anticipate.
“Maybe,” I say, “Raeka should be the one to decide if I stay or go.” As Gideon nods along with me, I ask, “Should I talk to Colter?”
“No. I’ll handle my nephew. You just…” He coughs. “Go take a cold shower or something.” And then he walks away, heading inside the house, thereby leaving me standing outside, under the warm sun, alone.
Well, if you would’ve asked me how I thought that talk would go, this is not it.
I don’t like screwing up jobs. I take pride in what I do. Still, I can’t help but want to stay. The thought of leaving, of never seeing Raeka again, fills me with such bitter agony it chokes me.
There’s just something about that omega that drives me crazy.
Chapter Nineteen – Raeka
I don’t eat dinner with the household. I’m too nervous to—which is just ridiculous, because I’m me. I don’t get nervous and shit. If there is one thing I am, it’s unapologetic. But what happened earlier with Pax… I’m not proud of it. I want to hide from it, and so I do: I hide from it by hiding from them.
Pax doesn’t strike me as the type of guy who hides things like that, so I bet he went straight to Gideon. I can’t imagine how that talk went, but if Pax is still here, I’ll be surprised.
My silicone knot helped me for a while, and then I scurried over to the shower to wash everything off. I balled up my panties and hid them near my injections, between the mattress and the box spring. I’ll have to remember to grab it when it’s time for me to do laundry. As of now, it’s the only place I know of to hide my damp panties.
Slick. Ugh, it might make alphas go crazy, but as an omega, it’s just gross. That stuff just comes out, and there’s no hiding it. Yes, you can get liners for your panties, but there’s only so much slick they can hold, and none of them can adequately hide the smell.
I’m so out of it that dinnertime comes and goes, and I’m not even hungry. I text my sister a bit, she wants to call and talk, but I’m not really feeling like I want to talk—I’d make it obvious by the sound of my voice that something’s wrong, and I don’t want my sister knowing the truth.
I should not have whined at Pax, and he shouldn’t have responded the way he did. It’s as simple as that.
And at the same time, it’s not simple at all.
How are things going with Gideon?Nicole’s message reads.
I start typing out the wordFine, but then I quickly delete it, figuring my sister would know something’s up. Instead, I tell her,Things are moving slow.
Slow?One message comes almost immediately, followed shortly by a second one:Who’s the problem, him or you?
I chuckle aloud. Leave it to my sister to somehow know I’m probably behind it. She’s not going to get all of the details, but I decide to tell her enough:Both of us. I’m still not keen on alphas, and he’s… awkward.
Awkward? Really?
I think about Gideon and how he acts, how easily he blushes, how he stumbles over his words when he doesn’t quite know what to say. If that’s not awkward, I don’t know what is—but all that to say, it isn’t a bad thing, either. It’s kind of cute.
Oof. Cute. Something I shouldn’t think about Gideon.
I respond to her,Yep. He’s not used to having an omega around. It’s just been him and his nephew for eleven years.
Her next text hits me like a brick wall:Do you like him?
Do I… do I like him? The answer that’s on the tip of my tongue, purely based out of habit, is a resounding no, but for some reason, I can’t make myself type out that short, two-letter word. And of course, I can’t forget the fact that I’m supposed to be here for Colter, not for Gideon himself. My sister can’t know that, though, so I have to keep playing along.
That’s what I’ll keep telling myself, anyway, because other than the part of me that wants to say an immediate no, there is a part of me that wants to admit the opposite.
Maybe I do. I shouldn’t, but maybe I do like him a little. Maybe I like Pax a little, too.
Shit.
The realization twists my insides up, and I message Nicole:I got to go. Talk later.And then I put my phone down, screen-down, and stare at the ceiling.
I can’t like two alphas. It goes against everything I stand for, everything I want. The only reason I accepted this offer was because it was for a beta, not an alpha, and definitely not two of them.
I lay around in misery, alone, until night falls. My stomach gurgles in hunger, but I force myself to wait until I’m absolutely sure everyone else is in bed before I get up and wander downstairs. With the realization that I may or may not have teeny crushes on the two alphas currently in the house, I shuffle down the dark hallway.
