Page 63 of Heat Clickbait
She pulled up her tablet again, but I caught her sneaking glances at her phone, where Cozy Luke's stream still played in a tiny window, muted but present. The wistfulness was back, that look of someone watching others have what they'd convinced themselves they couldn't want, couldn't afford, couldn't risk.
"Hey Michelle?" I said, an idea forming with the kind of crystalline clarity that meant it was either brilliant or catastrophic. "That twelve percent audience overlap you mentioned. Maybe we should consider a collaboration. With Luke, I mean. Could be good for both our metrics, expand into the cozy gaming space."
Her hands stilled on the tablet, her entire body going carefully motionless in the way that meant I'd hit something important. "That's... I'd have to talk to him about it. Professionally. To gauge his interest in cross-platform content."
"You should," Ghost said quietly from where he'd been silently organizing his streaming cables, surprising everyone. We all turned to stare at him, and he shrugged, looking slightly embarrassed at the attention. "He seems... stable. Good metrics, consistent content, positive community. Safe collaboration partner."
Michelle looked between us, and I saw the exact moment she realized we knew. Not everything, but enough. Her scent shifted again, defensive spikes mixing with something that might have been hope if she let herself acknowledge it.
"I'll consider it," she said carefully, her voice taking on that measured tone she used in contract negotiations. "For professional reasons. Brand synergy and market expansion."
"Of course," I agreed, catching Nova's eye across the room. He nodded slightly, his expression shifting into what I privately called his 'plotting face'. It was the same look he got when he was engineering business deals that somehow benefited everyone involved.
As Milo called us all to dinner, his voice carried the warm authority of someone who considered feeding people a love language, I watched Michelle tuck her phone away. But not before taking one last glance at the stream, her expression unguarded for just a moment.
The longing in her face made my chest ache with recognition. I knew that feeling, the war between want and fear, between hard-won independence and the terrible hope that maybe, possibly, you could have both without losing yourself in the process.
She'd helped me navigate that journey, had held my hand through panic attacks and contract negotiations and the terrifying vulnerability of letting people close. Maybe it was time we returned the favor.
"Pass the salt," she said at dinner, her professional mask firmly back in place as she critiqued Milo's garlic bread technique and tried to negotiate a lower carb count for the pasta.
But I'd seen beneath it now. And judging by the thoughtful looks from my pack, the way they were all paying just a little too much attention to her phone habits and the careful way she never quite met anyone's eyes when they asked about her personal life, they had too.
Michelle deserved her own chance at happiness. And if that happened to involve a certain cozy streamer with a soothing voice and what looked like genuinely kind eyes, well... we were very good at engineering "accidents" and "coincidental" meetings.
I pulled out my phone under the table and typed a quick message to Nova.
We're setting them up.
His response was immediate.
Already drafting the collaboration proposal. Leave it to me.
Across the table, Michelle laughed at something Crash said about turnip economics, looking more relaxed than she had in weeks, her shoulders finally dropping from their default position around her ears. She had no idea what was coming, had no clue that she'd just acquired five very determined matchmakers who considered her family.
Perfect.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Blitz
I stood in the middle of my streaming room, staring at the carefully arranged workout equipment that had become as much a part of my identity as my actual face. The ring light cast perfect shadows across my abs through my tank top, the same calculated lighting I'd perfected over three years of thirst trap content. But for the first time in forty-eight hours, I hadn't gone live.
My phone showed seventeen missed texts from concerned viewers, four from my manager asking about the schedule disruption, and one from Callie that just said:"You okay?"
No. I wasn't okay. I was slowly losing my mind watching her walk around with Milo and Nova's bites on her neck while my own teeth ached with the need to mark her. The biological imperative to claim her had been building since that first heat, but now, seeing her claimed by two of my packmates while I remained on the outside, it was becoming unbearable.
The door opened without a knock, only pack didn't need permission, and her scent hit me before I even turned around. Spun sugar and chili pepper, but underneath that, the warmhoney of Milo's claim and the whiskey-leather notes of Nova's mark. My hands clenched involuntarily.
"You missed dinner," Callie said, moving into my space with that casual confidence that had destroyed me from day one. She wore one of Ghost's hoodies, the black fabric drowning her small frame, her pink hair still damp from a shower. "And your workout stream. Your viewers are starting conspiracy theories."
"Let them." The words came out rougher than intended, my usual sunshine persona nowhere to be found.
She studied me with those brown eyes that saw too much, past the careful muscle display and dimpled smiles to the insecurity underneath. "This is about the bites."
"It's not—" I started to deflect, to play it off with my usual golden retriever energy, but she cut me off.
"Blitz." Just my streaming name, but the way she said it made me stop. "Eli. Talk to me."
