Chapter 21 Beth
Beth
"Explain to me again why we're doing this here," Luna says. She kicks off her sandals, carefully side-stepping a massive pair of size-twelve work boots in the entryway. "I just bought a eucalyptus diffuser for my place. We could be having a spa experience."
"Because my apartment is huge," I say, leading them to the living room. "Especially since the guys are out tonight, doing alpha things. Also, I lit a new candle. Smell that? That's ambiance."
"It does smell good," Maren says.
She finds the wine opener on the table next to the glasses I set out and uncorks the rosé Luna brought. Luna unzips her tote bag, lifts out a fully assembled charcuterie board and sets it on the table.
"Is that a fig," I say.
"It's a date." Luna arranges the board, nudging a cluster of grapes a centimeter to the left.
"On the charcuterie board?" I ask.
"Dates are a legitimate charcuterie component these days." She straightens a row of crackers. "I looked it up."
Maren pours three glasses, hands one to Luna, another to me. Lifts hers. "To Harper."
We clink glasses.
The rosé goes down dangerously easy. Luna eats three dates and declares them a permanent charcuterie staple.
Maren connects my phone to the speaker, and for a few minutes we're just drinking and talking over each other about nothing—Maren's coworker who microwaves fish at eleven in the morning, Luna's upstairs neighbor who plays trumpet before sunrise, whether the dates are actually better than figs would've been.
Luna insists yes. Nobody agrees with her.
"Okay." Luna pulls a notebook from her bag with a floral cover. "Bachelorette. Harper wants—what did she say exactly?"
"'Wine and board games,'" Maren says.
"Right. So... do we ignore that completely?" Luna asks.
"We don't ignore it," I say. "We just... expand on it."
"Lakehouse." Maren swipes through her phone, turning it to show me a listing. "I found one on the east side. There's a deck, a hot tub, and it's available the Saturday after next."
"Hot tub is essential," Luna says, writing it down with a pen she's produced from the notebook's spine.
"Oh—and I'll handle food," Maren adds, setting her phone face-down and picking up her wine. "Grazing table, those brie bites Harper loves, my Black Forest cake—"
"Oh yes—you make the most killer cakes," I cut in.
Luna's phone buzzes. She glances at it, picks it up, types something. Sets it back down.
"Spa afternoon?" I suggest. "There's that place near Oakville."
"Yes! I was going to say that." Luna flips to a new page, her pen already moving. "They do group packages. Massages, facials, the whole thing."
"Wine tasting," Maren adds, ticking it off on her fingers.
"Obviously wine tasting."
"And matching pajamas," I say.
Luna's face lights up, her whole posture shifting forward. "Harper was serious about that?"
"She sent me a link to a set with tiny dachshunds on them," I say.
"I'm totally buying three pairs," Luna says.
Then Luna's phone buzzes again. And again.
She picks it up. Her thumbs move fast, then she sets it down with a smile.
"Derek?" Maren asks.
"Yeah, he wants to video call later." Luna tucks her hair behind her ear. "He's been so busy with a community center project, he barely has time, so when he does want to talk, I don't want to—"
"Of course," I say.
"Totally," Maren says.
We spend the next twenty minutes dividing up the rest. Luna fills two pages of the notebook with her neat handwriting and little checkboxes, and Maren screenshots three different cake designs she wants Harper's opinion on, then immediately decides Harper doesn't get an opinion because it's a surprise.
The bottle empties somewhere in the middle of a debate about whether lawn games count as board games, and Maren opens a second bottle without discussion.
But as Luna's doodling little flowers in the margin of the notebook and Maren demolishes the rest of the charcuterie board, I realize something: I'm sitting here with a mouthful of things I haven't told my best friends, and the longer I wait, the harder it's going to be to get them out.
"So I have a thing," I say. "Not bachelorette-related."
Luna looks up from her notebook. Maren stops eating.
"What kind of thing?" Luna asks.
I run my thumbnail along the edge of the table. Feel the seam where the laminate meets the wood. "Someone offered to buy Wildflower and Vine."
"What?" Luna and Maren say in unison.
"Right after the raffle at the stag and doe, I almost bumped into some beta in a suit. He handed me an envelope with an offer in it."
"That doesn't make any sense," Luna says.
"I know. I was like, who even is this guy?
" I pick at the table seam. "Random beta, expensive suit, hands me an envelope like we're in a spy movie.
But then I checked the letter again the next day.
I reverse-searched the seal on Google, and it turns out he's part of this big investment group.
They've been buying up real estate around Lakeview like hotcakes. "
"How much?" Maren asks.
"Enough to kill the debt on the shop in one check," I say. "And a little extra, enough to start fresh."
"Enough to completely clear the loan I took for the flower shop," I say. "With enough left over to start fresh."
"Beth." Maren grabs my wrist. "Why didn't you tell us?"
"Because I don't know what to do with it." The words scrape out.
Maren opens a new bottle and refills all three glasses. Executive decision. Nobody argues.
"But what would you even do if you sold?" Luna asks, swirling her wine. "You love the shop."
"I do." I stare down at my lap. "But the money... it changes everything. Suddenly, the map is wide open. I could go anywhere, do anything, and—"
"Whoa, whoa." Luna sets her glass down. "What do you mean, anywhere? Why wouldn't you stay here?"
I pick at the seam again. "You know I've had a lot of thoughts about being here. Since Grant."
"But the wedding," Maren says quietly. "Us?"
"I haven't decided anything yet." I look between them. "But if I do sell, what would I do here? Lakeview's not exactly known for its booming job market."
Neither of them says anything for a second.
"In any case, obviously I would stay until after Harper's wedding," I say.
Luna gives a slow, heavy nod, while Maren just stares at me over the rim of her glass, taking a long, deliberate sip of wine.
"Look," Maren sighs, setting her glass down. "We're adults. We all have to do what's best for us. If you leave, I'll be absolutely devastated, but I'll understand. Just... don't do anything hasty, okay? You have a lot of options."
Luna doesn't say anything, which from Luna is louder than a whole speech. She reaches over and squeezes my hand.
I take a breath.
"It's just that—I moved here for Grant," I say. "The shop, the apartment, the town... I chose all of it because he was here. And then he dumped me, and now he's walking around town with his new omega, and I'm just... still here. In the life I built around someone who replaced me."
Luna squeezes my hand tighter.
"But I guess even that isn't so simple anymore." I push off the couch, suddenly too restless to sit, and start pacing the rug. "Because there's something else. Arguably more important than a buyout."
Luna draws her legs up onto the couch, tucking her feet beneath her, settling in. "I'm ready."
Maren pulls a throw pillow into her lap. "Hit us."
So I tell them. All of it.
The fact that I'm scent-matched to Mason, Knox, and Arthur. The three of them, together. And that I'm diagnosed an omega stress haze, and the only way to recover is feel truly safe, home. A feeling that, so far, I've only found with them.
I say it fast, the way you rip off a bandage, and then I sit back down on the couch and wait.
Luna detonates.
"WHAAAT?" She's on her feet, wine sloshing dangerously close to the rim of her glass. "Beth. Beth. What the hell???"
Maren blinks. Exhales. "Well," she says carefully. "That's a lot of information for one evening."
"Right?" I say.
"No, not right," Luna says, replacing me as the pacer. "You can't just—you can't just drop the flower shop and the maybe-leaving and the scent-matched-to-my-fake-pack thing on us in the same five minutes and then say right like we're talking about the weather, Beth."
Maren reaches over and calmly moves Luna's wine glass before she knocks it over.
"She has a point," Maren says.
Luna stops pacing. She plants her hands on her hips, staring at me like I've grown a second head. "What do the alphas even have to say about all of that?"
"I—" I start, but the words die in my throat as a heavy thump echoes from somewhere down the hall.
All three of us freeze.
"What was that?" Luna asks.
"Maybe the pipes settling?" I say, though hesitantly, trying to wave it off.
But then comes a second noise. Scraaaatch. Clack.
Luna’s eyes go wide. Maren slowly lowers her hand from the wine bottle. We all stare down the hallway.
"Beth," Luna whispers, her voice suddenly an octave higher. "Is one of your alphas still home?"
"No." I shake my head, my heart doing a weird little stutter-step. "They all left hours ago."
We sit in absolute, breathless silence for ten agonizing seconds. I'm just about to convince myself it was a weird draft or a tree branch when it happens again.
Thump-thump. It’s a bizarre, muffled noise.
Luna and Maren look at each other, then they both look at me. Maren gestures vaguely toward the hallway.
I stare at her, utterly betrayed. "Are you kidding me? This is exactly how the girl in the horror movie dies. She leaves the safety of the group to investigate the creepy noise."
"Don't worry, we're your backup," Luna says, taking exactly zero steps forward.
I slowly, reluctantly stand up. I tiptoe out of the living room, wincing at every creak of the floorboards. I track the faint sounds, pausing every few feet to strain my ears until I finally pinpoint the source.
It’s coming from Arthur’s bedroom.
I press my hand flat against the cool wood of his door and exhale a shaky breath.
If I am going to be a horror movie cliché, I decide, I might as well be the fiercely courageous final girl who rushes into danger.
I take a deep, bracing breath, turn the knob, and push the door wide open.
"...Huh?"