Page 5 of Two For the Show
I have your phone sitting beside me on the bed, and yet still I’m texting it. I have no idea what that says about me, but I need you to know this. I need to have record of it.
The guys aren’t doing well. They’re devastated you’ve left, even though we understand it. Surprisingly, I understand it better than I thought I would. I’ve done nothing but avoid my past. So I can’t say I blame you for taking off the moment yours threatened to rear its head.
We fucked up, Alex. We spent so much time focusing on what we should do, what we needed to do, and what Alphas and Omegas do that we forgot that before there were scent matches, friendships were forming.
I mean, maybe not between the two of us, but that’s not because of you. It’s because I’m a douchebag with hangups and couldn’t figure out how to get past them.
But I’m going to try. I told Dario I would try, I told Jude I would try, so now I’m telling you.
I’m going to try, Alex.
When you get back, I’m going to give the Alpha/Omega thing a try. I’m going to push down my trauma, just for a bit, so we can figure out who we could be to one another. Who we would be if our histories didn’t haunt us.
And I know we can’t do that until we make this a safe place for you. I have some ideas, and I know we’re going to be able to do it.
It just may take some time.
We’re figuring out who fucked with you, and once they’re gone, I want you to come back.
The rest of the pack does too, but you need to know I want you to come back.
Okay? I want you to come back.
Chapter 2
ONE MONTH LATER
I winceat the steam that shoots out of the awkwardly placed spout as I attempt, and fail, to make another latte.
“Lexi!” the owner, Sylvia, gently scolds me. “Be careful! I know you’re still new at this, but you’ve gotta tighten up. I can’t have you getting injured.”
My hands shake, and I curse to myself. “I’m sorry. I’ll get better.” It’s only been a week since I started picking up shifts at Brewtiful Mornings, a kitschy little coffee food truck that travels around to various suburbs and neighborhoods in a small but wealthy town. “I’ve never done this before.”
“I know that, but I can’t be spending all day worrying about you. I need help, not to be a babysitter.”
A week ago, three weeks after running from Cirque de Mordu, I found myself standing in line to grab a café con leche at the truck. I’ve been trying not to spend money on unnecessary things, but I had a heat spike the night before and needed a little treat to get through the aftermath of it on my own.
Suffering through it alone in a cheap motel was nofucking fun. I had to stuff towels under my door after pushing the dresser in front of it and lock myself in the bathroom in fear of my pheromones attracting an Alpha.
And then I ached, and cried, and begged for my pack for hours.
I’ve been able to go back on suppressants, but I have to use the over-the-counter ones that only minimize my scent, so it’s not offensive in public, and reduces the severity of my heats, not eliminate them. It’s probably better this way for my Foresaken Omega Syndome, but I hate that I’m having to spend some of my limited funds on descenting products.
Sylvia handed me the café con leche, and I’m not sure what came over me when I asked if she was hiring. She squinted at me and then told me to step to the side and she’d talk to me later. I sat down on the curb and sipped my drink as I watched her handle the morning rush all on her own. By the end of it, her curly red hair, streaked with shiny silver, was sticking to her face with sweat, and she looked a little run-down.
It didn’t take much to convince her to let me join her, especially when I said she could pay me under the table. I didn’t ask for much - enough to cover my weekly rate at the hotel, and then an extra fifty dollars for food.
Three hundred dollars a week.
I work four shifts, from five in the morning until one in the afternoon on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays, and Saturdays. It’s nowhere near what I’m used to being paid, but with clever budgeting, this should be able to tide me over until I find a more permanent solution. The pay is surprisingly good for the job, so I’m not complaining.
I just have to figure out this damn milk steamer.
By the end of my fifth shift, I feel a bit more confident using it.
It’s one, and Sylvia is locking up the truck in the carport outside her house, where I meet her every day. Luckily, it’s within walking distance of my hotel.
I think she knows something is up. The Beta is perceptive, but she hasn’t pushed for information from me. I wonder if I have an “Omega on the run” look. A sign on my head that says, “Wanted by dangerous men and also probably not so dangerous men that I don’t want to expose to the dangerous men.”
