Page 19 of Sincerely, Pack Pucked
I had never imagined that I would become so attached to an omega whom we’d met via a class assignment of Percy’s, but within a few messages, we were all addicted. ChattyPack was a silly little app run by the university, but we had decided to join it to support Percy.
We knew full well that Maple could actually be an overweight man named Chad, in his forties and living in his mother’s basement, but since she was insistent she never wanted to meet, we could enjoy the conversation.
“You should have sent a bigger gift card.” Jasper frowned as his eyes never left his phone screen.
“I didn’t want to freak her out too much.”
All four of us were lounging around the living room while waiting to go to the NHL rink for a game tonight.
We signed as a pack with the California Chargers almost three years ago, and it had been everything we had dreamed of. We loved hockey. Had since we were children. The sensation of being on the ice was so freeing, and the speed was downright exhilarating.
We’d been offered contracts with different teams across the United States, but we decided to go with the Chargers when Percy expressed his interest in getting a degree in California.
It was highly unusual for a professional athlete to also pursue a full-time degree, but Percy was determined. His father had been an athlete, and when he suffered an injury at a young age and had nothing else going for him, he unfortunately turned to alcohol, something Percy remembered all too well. As his pack, we chose to support him, thus agreeing to sign the deal with the Chargers and move to a penthouse near the campus.
So we were now campus alphas. The university was amazingly supportive, even letting us use the rink facilities to practice occasionally, and we were all taking some classes here and there. Percy was the only one going in person. The rest of us enrolled in a few online classes, mainly for fun and a little something to do outside of our careers.
“Have you heard anything from the omega?” I asked, turning to Percy.
His ears turned pink as he shook his head. We were all curious if she was going to message him. He had come home smelling faintly of her, and even that small scent had been hypnotizing. Saint hadn’t been home, but Jasper and I had gotten a good whiff. He had been practicing at the rink, his hair still wet from the shower, when he finally came home late that night.
“I think I was just there to scratch an itch, nothing more,” he said, but there was no missing the sadness in his voice.
“That special?” I asked.
We were all young alphas and dated individually, but we were waiting to find that special someone our pack would like together. Jasper had briefly dated an omega last year and brought her home to meet us, but it was clear that once she was around the entire pack she wasn’t a good fit.
He’d broken up with her the next day.
Our future was going to be as a pack, and an omega needed to fit into that. I was under no illusions. I knew it was a big ask. Four alphas with their own strong personalities was a lot to handle.
Percy cocked his head to the side. “Yeah, she was… Sometimes I wonder what it’ll be like when we finally take that step.”
I nodded. Finding an omega for our pack was going to be a challenge, but one I was looking forward to.
“We’re going to have to try and find an omega who knows absolutely nothing about hockey,” Jasper said with a laugh.
Saint groaned. “But that’s also our worst nightmare ‘cause imagine being with someone who doesn’t understand the sport we’ve dedicated our lives to.”
This was the debate we kept returning to. Over the past few years, our public profile had grown significantly. Now that we had our fair share of fans, we were worried that finding an omega who saw us for us and not international hockey superstars would be impossible.
We were silent for a moment before Jasper spoke. “Maple likes us for who we are…”
“Maple is a pipe dream, remember?” I wasn’t an idiot—we were all a little in love with the omega we had been talking to online. She was sweet, kind, and funny, but we had no idea if she was even real, so we had to take our feelings with a pinch of salt.
“I know, I know, she’s probably catfishing us, butdamn, she just feels so real to me.”
Percy shifted in his seat. “Well, we know that Maple is at least a girl, because remember when she sent us a photo of her holding the coffee cup? She had painted long nails. I doubt that was the hand of a basement-dwelling guy. Then there’s the timeshe showed us her herb garden. Those legs couldn’t have been male.”
“The image could have been fake. And you never know—even basement-dwelling nerds may enjoy getting a manicure now and then,” I said. “Come on, guys, we’ve heard the horror stories of guys from the team who have been stalked.”
“Actually, I reverse image searched out of curiosity,” Saint said. “It wasn’t pulled off the Internet, so it was likely real.”
I tilted my head to the side. Good to know. We were talking to a real woman, but was she even an omega? I sounded like a cynic, but I wanted to protect my pack. If I encouraged them to think of Maple as a real possibility in our lives, I was just setting us up to be hurt.
That didn’t change the fact that I looked forward to her messages every day. I refused to admit it to my pack mates, but she was the reason there were two small plants living on the windowsill off my bedroom now. Maple loved plants and had told me that pothos was an easy plant that even I could keep alive, so I had taken her at her word and bought two.
Truthfully, I had bought two plants thinking I would kill one almost immediately and then pretend that I hadn’t by using the other one to show Maple. I didn’t want her to think I was completely inept—yet, somehow, both plants were alive and thriving on my window ledge.
