Page 67 of Holly Jolly Heat
I was pulling out the cocoa powder when my phone buzzed.
A video call. From Callie Cross.
At 2:47 AM.
I almost didn't answer, but Callie didn't video call at random. If she was calling at three in the morning, something was wrong.
I accepted the call, and Callie's face filled my screen—pink hair in braids, glittery eye mask pushed up on her forehead, her streaming setup visible behind her.
"Michelle!" she said, way too bright for the hour. "I knew you'd be awake. You're always awake when you're spiraling."
"I'm not spiraling. I'm making hot chocolate."
"At three AM. While you're staying with your fated pack. That you've been avoiding talking to me about." She leaned closer to the camera. "Honey. You're spiraling."
I sighed, settling onto a kitchen stool with my phone propped against a canister. "How did you even know I'm here with them?"
"Because you've been offline for days, which never happens. And because I saw the stream clips of you defending Lucas. Twice." Her expression softened. "Michelle. You jumped on camera. In front of thousands of people. That's huge for you."
"He was being attacked. I couldn't just sit there."
"You could have. You should have, according to your own rules. But you didn't. Because he's your alpha and you couldn't stand watching him hurt." She smiled gently. "So. Want to tell me what's actually going on?"
And just like that, I broke.
"I met them," I said, my voice cracking slightly. "My fated pack. At Pike Place Market, six days ago. Three alphas, Lucas, aka. CozyLuke, Ro, who I'd been emailing with for six months, and Dex, their security guy. All three of them. At once. And I ran, Callie. I saw them and felt the bond and completely panicked and ran."
"Oh honey," Callie breathed. "That's…that's huge. Three alphas? That's so rare."
"Some people would disagree,” I mumbled, giving her a pointed look, to which she just raised an eyebrow. I sighed and added, “I know. And then I fled to my family home to figure out what to do, and I invited them here because I'm an idiot, and now they're staying in my mother's house and integrating with my family and appearing on streams and I can't—" I stopped, taking a breath. "I can't keep fighting this, Callie. My walls are crumbling. My professional boundaries are disappearing. Every instinct says surrender, and I'm terrified."
"Of what?"
"Of losing everything. My business, my reputation, my independence, myself. Of becoming someone who exists only in relation to pack. Of disappearing the way my mom did after Dad died." The words spilled out, raw and honest. "Of caring so much that losing them would destroy me."
Callie was quiet for a moment, and I watched her process.
"Okay," she said finally. "I'm going to tell you a story. And you're going to listen without interrupting, because you need to hear this."
"Callie—"
"No interrupting!" She pointed at the camera. "Michelle. Not too long ago, I was doing a networking event. Meeting people, making connections, you know the thing that good managers force, I mean, encourage their clients to do." She paused and winked at me. “Then, boom, I scent-matched with a whole pack in front of a room full of people who all seemed to have their fingers hovering over the record button at the exact right moment.”
I knew this story. Of course I did. I had freaking been there, had a front row seat to one of my good friends going into heat in front of a room full of content creators. Callie's scent-match had gone viral.
"I remember," I said quietly.
"But you didn't have to worry about professional complications,” I argued. “Lucas was already my client. The ethics are different."
"Are they though? Michelle, you've been managing Lucas for less than three months. But you've been emailing with Ro for six months. You were already building something before you ever scent-matched. The foundation was there."
"That doesn't make the optics better."
"Maybe not. But here's what I learned, the industry is changing. Slowly, yes. But it's changing. Six months ago, I was terrified of being seen as 'just an omega.' Now I'm known as the omega creator who proved pack bonds can enhance your brand, not destroy it. And before me was Kara, who basically gave the middle finger to the industry and has built her own thing." She leaned closer to the camera. "You know how many omega creators have messaged me thanking me for normalizing pack content? Especially nontrad pack content? Hundreds, Michelle. We're changing the conversation."
"I don't want to be a trailblazer. I just want to do my job."
"Too bad. You’re already a trailblazer. You’ve built a successful management company as an omega in an industry that's hostile to omegas. This is just the next phase."
