Page 40 of Knot Their Girl
Don’t apologize. It’s okay. I understand… or, I get it. He’s an alpha. You’re an omega. You’re both packless.
“That’s no excuse,” I say. “It shouldn’t have happened. I’m supposed to be getting to know you, not Pax.”
With a shake of his head, he writes out,There isn’t anything to know. I’m pretty boring.
“I don’t believe that.” I rattle off the first thing that comes to my mind: “You’re an amazing artist. I’m jealous of your skill.”
It’s nothing.
“No, it’s not nothing. It’s amazing. I could never do anything close to what I saw on that canvas upstairs. Seriously, if you saw something I drew, you’d think a third grader did it. I can barely do stick figures.”
If you really are that bad, I think I need to see it for myself.
I chuckle. “Well, let me know when you’re available, and I can show off my pitiful art skills whenever you want.” That came out sounding flirtier than I intended, but once it’s out there, I don’t feel like taking it back.
Colter and I may not have spent much time together before now, but it’s easy talking to him. I don’t have to be on guard, don’t have to worry about keeping my walls up—and I don’t have to fret about him smelling me and losing his shit like Pax did downtown today. I can simply exist with him, and that… that might be more important than I previously thought.
I’d like that,he writes out.
We stare at each other for a few seconds too long, and I have to look away as I offer him the bag on my lap. “Pretzel?” Though I don’t watch him do it, I hear him go for the bag, and he pulls out a few of them.
The cool night air blows around us again, and I shiver. Should’ve brought out a blanket or something, or tossed on a jacket. The sun goes down and it really cools off.
Colter finishes the pretzels he took, and then he sets his tablet down on his legs. He reaches over his head and tugs off his hoodie, which he then offers me without a word. When I don’t go to take it right away, he pushes it toward me and nods his head, insisting I take it.
I take his hoodie. Slipping it up and over my head, I wriggle into it easily. He might not be as big as an alpha, but the hoodie is still way too large on me. It’s warm from his body heat, and even though I know I won’t be able to smell anything thanks to the injections I take, I still try to inhale his scent when I put it on, a natural reaction and not something I force.
“Thank you,” I whisper.
He hunches forward, typing out a fast,You’re welcome.
Only a moment later, he shivers, and I say, “Now you’re cold.” He tries to shake his head, but it’s too late. I saw himshiver. I scoot closer to him, reacting instinctively. I don’t offer him back his hoodie—because it is warm and comfy and I sure as heck don’t want to take it off—but I do lean into him and hook my arm through his. He wears sweatpants and a t-shirt, nothing too crazy. I lean my cheek against his shoulder.
The action makes him tense a bit, but in the end, he doesn’t pull himself away. He lets me hold onto him, lets me help keep him warm.
I’m never one for prolonged silence, so I fill the night air with aimless chatter. I tell him about me, about my family. How my mom is loving but incredibly overbearing to the point where she makes me want to pull my own hair out. I tell him about my dad and my brothers, typical alphas, through and through. I tell him about Nicole and how she’s the perfect omega, how, once she presented as an omega, my mom never shut up with the comparisons.
Why couldn’t I be like Nicole? Why did I have to give her and the world so much trouble? I’d be so much happier if I settled down and found myself a pack. I can’t go through life by myself. Blah, blah, blah. It seriously got to the point where the amount of nagging my mom did was on repeat in the back of my mind.
I tell him about my new friend Mercedes and how she’s the reason I got set up with Pax as my bodyguard to begin with. How Pax is the older brother to her three mates. I talk about N.O.A. and how I want to keep helping, even if it’s just to help fund the academy.
And then I talk about stupid shit. My favorite color: pink. My favorite foods. My favorite movies and TV shows. I gab like I’ve never gabbed before, and throughout it all, Colter listens. Granted, he doesn’t talk, so he can’t really say much, but he sits there with me and listens.
It’s… nice. Strangely nice. It helps me forget the regret that shadowed me like a storm cloud after everything with Pax, andit stops me from thinking too much about my maybe-crushes on the two alphas in the house.
If this is what life would be like, if this is what spending time with Colter is, then I can get behind it. It’s simple. Easy. Not a feeling I’ve ever had before in my life.
I don’t want to let it go.
Chapter Twenty – Colter
Raeka sits directly beside me, her arm hooked through mine, her cheek resting comfortably on my shoulder. We’re outside, on the patio in the back, under the moonlight. My tablet rests on my legs, while the bag of pretzels sits on her lap. She’s talking about the most recent television show she fell in love with, some post-apocalyptic show where the world was swallowed in nukes and humanity somehow survived.
Not the kind of show I’d peg her for, but then again, I don’t really know her.
I don’t know her, but I want to.
It’s bizarre. It’s not something I thought I’d want. I wasn’t exactly the happiest person around when my uncle told me she was here for me. And then, when he informed me of what took place between her and Pax while they were in the city…
