Chapter 32
Avery
“We need to go after her!” I paced the kitchen, desperate to dash out the door, but the others kept stopping me.
“Avery,” Logan said firmly, “she needs space. She’s furious and hurting, and she’s ignoring our calls. Let her have a second to breathe.”
I was torn. On one hand, giving Clover time to calm down would probably be beneficial, but I was worried that if she spent too long stewing over how big an ass our pack mate had been, she might decide she was done with us for good.
“Maybe she’s secretly fine and waiting for us to storm after her?” I asked hopefully.
Logan grimaced. “She’s pissed. I can feel it as strongly as I can my own emotions, now that I know to sort through what’s mine versus hers.”
“Ugh, fine! Why the hell is Parker so against Clover?” I asked, exasperated as I continued my pacing.
Parker had left, too, but I wasn’t delusional enough to think it was to go after her.
He’d be off licking his wounds after we refused to hear him out.
He wanted what was best for us, but sometimes his actions made that really hard to believe.
“I don’t fucking know.” Hunter sighed and leaned on the counter, letting his face rest in his hands.
“Do you really believe for one second that Clover’s a gold digger?”
Hunter snorted. “Fuck, no. She just understands what she’s worth.”
“Even if she were, she wouldn’t have to dig. I’d give her my whole account without her asking.” Logan smiled, sad and wistful. “If anything, she’s undervaluing herself.”
“Can we please go after her?” I looked desperately between my pack mates. “We all know I’m terrible at waiting.”
“She probably went back to her place. She won’t be ready to see us if she’s ignoring our calls,” Logan reasoned.
Shaking my head, I ran a hand through my hair. “I don’t want her sitting around and feeling worse about the situation. She needs to understand that none of us agree with what Parker did.”
“I think we made it pretty clear we weren’t thrilled with his actions,” Hunter said.
“It’s already been like twenty minutes,” I said petulantly.
“Man, do you remember the last time you got pissy with Parker? How long did it take you to forgive him?” Hunter pointed out. “Clover probably needs twice that with how he behaved.”
“That was different. He thought the holographic car I wanted to buy was stupid!”
“You were trying to spend ten times the median household income on a car—just because it was shiny. You could’ve gotten any of our vehicles a holographic wrap for a few grand.”
“It would’ve been worth every penny. But”—I held up my hands in surrender—“I get your point.”
Logan sucked in a sharp breath. “Fuck, I hate how much she’s hurting.”
“How long should we give Clover to calm down? Won’t do us any good if we can’t have a reasonable conversation,” Hunter said.
I wasn’t usually jealous of anyone in my pack, but I was feeling a little twinge of it knowing Clover was bonded to Logan and not me.
It was only a matter of time, though. One could only resist my charms for so long. She’d forgive us eventually. She had to.
I wandered over to the fridge, opened it, and inspected our million varieties of soda. Frustrated, I closed the door without grabbing anything and turned to my pack mates. “Fuck it. I’m going to go see our girl. You guys can come with me or not, but I can’t wait.”
I didn’t give them a chance to respond before I was striding out the door.
“If she knees you in the nuts because she’s still angry, that’s your own fault.” Hunter sighed as they followed me to the garage, where we piled into the car.
“We could’ve walked. She lives in our neighborhood,” Logan pointed out.
“I’m not wasting time doing something as menial as walking when this baby can get me to our angel faster.” I stroked the dashboard, leaning forward to plant a kiss on the steering wheel.
Thankfully, with a little bit of speeding, I was pulling up outside our angel’s house in two minutes flat.
Poppies splashed bright colors all over the front yard.
I knocked several times, but no one answered. Huffing, I looked at my phone screen again to see if I’d somehow missed a response from Clover.
“Should we try calling her again?” Logan asked from behind me.
“It goes straight to voicemail,” I said.
“Did she block you?” Hunter asked as he pulled out his own phone to try calling her. He frowned when he got the same result.
Had she really blocked me? I could understand her blocking Parker—he was an ass—but there was no reason to block me. I was a perfect angel.
A very pissed-off little omega came to the door—only it wasn’t the angry omega I’d expected.
“You’re not welcome here.” She crossed her arms. The pure hatred in her eyes made me pause.
Fuck. What had Clover said to her?
“Meadow, please,” Hunter pleaded, stepping forward. “We want to talk to Clover and make things right.”
“One of our pack mates was an asshole,” I said.
“An asshole? Is that all we’re calling it now? Not a complete, inconsiderate cunt?” she asked, eyebrows raised.
“I’m not even going to disagree with you there.” I shrugged. She was right—Parker had crossed a line into something nastier, and I wasn’t going to stand for it.
“How mad is she at us?” Hunter asked with a grimace, addressing Meadow.
Tears gathered in the corners of Meadow’s eyes. “She’s furious.”
“Meadow, darling, are you okay?” a deep, masculine voice called out. A moment later, a large, imposing alpha appeared beside her, resting a hand on her back. His gaze locked firmly on us.
It took a second for recognition to kick in, but Hendrix was impossible to miss. His face was plastered on billboards and he led Hunter’s biggest band.
“Hey, Hen,” Hunter greeted.
“Hey, guys…what are you doing here? Did I forget a work thing?”
“We’re friends of Clover’s. We need to talk to her,” I said.
Disbelief was written all over his face. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“Please. I don’t know what she’s told you, but we need to make things right,” I pleaded.
“You don’t deserve that after how you treated her!” Meadow growled, tears sliding down her cheeks. “She told me what you guys did, and you can all go fuck yourselves.”
Hendrix looked both concerned as hell for his mate and also like he wanted the ground to swallow him up. “She told you it was Parker who surprised her with the contract. Hunter and the others didn’t spring that on her.”
“Well, they didn’t fucking stop him either, did they?” Meadow buried her face against Hendrix’s chest, openly weeping. “They don’t deserve her.”
Hendrix cradled his mate and tossed us an apologetic look, mouthing hormones.
Oh, shit. Were they expecting another baby? How old was their current one? Eight? Nine months? The odds of being able to congratulate them right now without pissing off Meadow were probably slim to none.
I opened my mouth, then closed it again, struggling to find the right words.
Logan stepped closer. “Honestly, we don’t know how we’re going to fix things, but we need to talk to her. None of us agree with what Parker did. We all care about her—and the baby—deeply.”
“If you cared about her, she wouldn’t be in this situation,” Meadow pointed out.
“His heart is in the right place,” I said, “but he’s acting like a brainless idiot.
My pack mate stupidly keeps trying to protect us from things we don’t need protecting from.
He needs a therapist—and given how much money he has, he can afford a damn good one.
The problem is, he’s a stubborn asshole. ”
Hendrix snorted. “That sounds vaguely familiar.”
“Please.” I looked imploringly at Meadow. “If she’s not happy in five minutes, you can kick us out.”
Meadow fiercely wiped her eyes and twisted, still staying well within Hendrix’s arms. “She’s not here. She’s on her way to the airport.”
“The airport?” I asked in a small voice, my body freezing.
“Is she going back to Seattle?” Logan asked, his voice tight with worry.
Meadow nodded. “She said she plans to stay until the baby is born because she won’t stay where she’s not wanted, and she doesn’t want to risk running into any of you right now.”
“Let’s go!” I immediately shoved my pack mates toward the car. “We can still catch her. She hasn’t been gone that long.”
Nausea turned my stomach. If we’d waited, like the others had suggested, she could’ve been beyond reach before we even knew about it.
I was thankful for the LA traffic.
That was something I never thought I’d say.
“It’s gridlock,” Hunter complained from the passenger seat as I drove…or didn’t, given the lack of movement.
“Has to be an accident or something,” I whined, glancing at all the cars around me who were also at a standstill. We hadn’t made any progress in almost twenty minutes.
“If we’re not moving, then neither is Clover,” Logan said, though I was hardly reassured.
“How do we find her?”
“That’s the good thing about her sparkly princess car—it’s easy to recognize,” Hunter said.
“Her car was in Meadow’s driveaway. If she took a rideshare, there’s no way of knowing what car she’s in. Oh, fuck it.” I undid my seat belt. “I can’t sit and wait.”
“Where the fuck are you going?” Logan asked, already climbing out to take up my spot, in case we started moving.
“I’m going to go find our girl!”
“In the middle of a six-lane highway?” Hunter asked, looking at me like I had lost my mind. “You’re going to get run over!”
“I’ll risk it!” Anything for Clover. Staying put wasn’t an option for me.