Chapter 26
TWENTY-SIX
Practice wasn’t as brutal as usual, and my body is thankful for it.
The guys and I trail outside, and the second the brisk air hits my skin, I sigh with relief.
Despite our sport being in an ice rink, I always overheat.
The bite of the snowy air causes me to reset, finally grounded as my feet hit the sidewalk.
The guys speak around me, but I tune them out.
If you don’t hear what people say, you can normally get away without responding.
Luckily, we’re a pretty big group, so it’s easy for me to blend in and not have to speak much.
But when Pack Pearson turns away to walk to the parking lot, the group dwindles, and the business of the conversation dies with it.
When I turn to look at the seating area right outside the arena, a flash of red hair catches my attention.
My heart pounds in surprise from seeing her, and my alpha practically beams out of my body, wagging his tail in excitement at the idea of her waiting outside practice for us.
For a moment, there’s no doubt in my mind that she came here to see me, to wait on me the same way Kit waits on us outside of our Alpha Xi meetings.
Then, I see the flash of blue hair beside her.
My heart pinches. Oh, I see.
“Oh, Opal is here, too!” Dax says with excitement as he waves at his omega. The embarrassment starts to seep in, so I quickly gather up any dignity I can and prepare my exit strategy.
“I’ll see you guys later.” Completely unaware if they actually heard me.
I turn in the other direction, ready to go home and spend the evening nursing this bruise I just let fall onto my ego.
I shouldn’t have assumed she’d be here for me, anyway.
The reality where that happens apparently only resides in my hopeful and delusional daydreams.
Before I can make it a reasonable distance, her voice calls out to me. I turn in that direction and find Opal watching me expectantly. She tilts her head and smiles before waving me over.
There’s only a tiny percentage of me that hesitates. My instinct is to go to her immediately, bask in her warmth for as long as she’ll let me, but I stay frozen in place. When I finally get the courage to walk over, my limbs feel stiff and unnatural.
“Hi,” I say as I walk up. Rory and her mates all watch on, oblivious to the strange war going on inside of me. Opal doesn’t pay them any attention, and instead just grins up at me with absolute trust in her eyes.
It sends me back to that moment in her room, when she was in so much pain and had no way to alleviate it. She trusted me to take care of her, and that same brightness in her eyes causes me to take a minute and let my shame from before subside.
“What are you guys up to?” I ask, surprisingly starting the conversation. Rory’s mate, Jett, gives me a perplexed look. Probably because I’ve only ever said ten words to him and six of them were just a second ago.
“We’re going out to get food,” Rory answers.
“Hotpot, specifically, because we’re surprisingly not banned after a little stunt Rory pulled a few months ago,” Dax says as he gives his omega a particularly teasing look.
My brow arches at that as Opal looks at her friend. “What did you do?” she asks.
Rory waves it off. “Let’s just say I almost started a riot with some kimchi.”
The rest of her mates let out a laugh. I just stare at them, confused by the vague summary.
“Well, you guys have fun,” Opal says, her grin full of humor. She has a glimmer in her eye as she admires her friend with her alphas, like she can’t help but take in the happiness that radiates off them. Like she enjoys the way it permeates the air.
Now that I really notice it, their joy does feel kind of contagious.
“Wait,” I say, pointing at Opal and then Rory as I process what she said. “I thought you were here to go with them.”
She shakes her head. “Actually, no. I didn’t know she was going to be here. I came to see you.”
My entire body freezes. She was here for us, my alpha whispers.
I can’t help the way my cheeks flush at the realization. It’s a weird reaction for me, because only a few people have ever been able to make me blush, and now I guess she’s one of them. The reality of her standing out here, waiting for me, makes something very foreign burn in my chest.
If she notices my reaction, she doesn’t call attention to it. She just smiles widely and asks, “Would you like to get dinner with me? In the dining hall?”
“I—” My voice cracks slightly, but I clear my throat to cover it up. “Yeah, that sounds like fun.”
I spend so much on my meal plan, and I never use it, so it’s like two birds with one stone. The other bird is spending time with Opal.
“How was your day?” I ask her after we say goodbye to our friends and head toward the dining hall.
She starts telling me about her teaching assignment and how one little boy had an incident on the playground but wouldn’t tell anyone what happened.
He had mulch all over him, even in his hair, and the teacher couldn’t figure out if someone had pushed him into the ground or if he was playing with it.
I’m fairly amused as Opal keeps putting out theories on what could have happened.
“The staff is calling it PlaygroundGate,” she says with a smile. “Gosh, he probably just fell and is too embarrassed to say so.”
She continues to talk about her day, and I relish her company.
I’ve had a few times the past few days where my alpha has practically demanded I go to her.
He is still unsettled from her sickness, his instincts telling me to go to any length I can to help her, but she seems back to normal now.
She’s bright and cheery in the winter sun, and I keep rubbing my chest to assure my alpha that she’s fine.
But he is insistent, apparently traumatized by the omega who was sick in our presence.
Now, how the hell do I tell him that she isn’t our omega to take care of? Our omega is at home, probably two hours into some kind of video game marathon and shoveling popcorn in his mouth by the handful.
Which, to be fair, does make him ease a little bit.
The image of the messy-haired omega does things to him that I haven’t fully paid attention to before now.
I always thought it was platonic, but the way it felt when he hugged me the other day and whispered in my ear was anything but.
I’ll have to make some time to see him later.
When we get to the dining hall, my body involuntarily stays close to Opal in the crowded space.
I hover over her as she gathers food on her plate.
French fries, a bratwurst, and some slices of cucumber.
It’s cool the way she assembles it on her plate, so it looks presentable even though it’s entirely random by a nutritionist’s standards.
When we swipe our cards and finally take a seat, I’m so hungry from burning calories in practice that I just dig in. It’s a bit dry, so I wash down each bite with water and keep going.
“Can I ask you a question?” Opal asks, dipping a slice of cucumber into honey mustard as she watches me.
“Yes, of course.”
“What the hell is on your plate?”
A laugh almost tumbles out of me. I look down at my grilled chicken and asparagus, wondering what looks wrong about it.
“My plate?” I say, amused. “Curly, your meal is the definition of random.”
She scoffs playfully. “At least it’s not bland and boring. I mean, grilled chicken, Thatcher? You could at least put some seasoning on it. Or have a few tater tots at least.”
I look down at my plate, seeing it in a whole new light. “I’m on a regimen.”
“That soup you made me was flavorful,” she comments. “So you must be selective when it comes to spice.”
I feel myself flush as I remember her positive reaction to the soup, how warm I felt when she ate it quickly and happily. “The soup was flavorful because I made it. This chicken is unseasoned because I did not.”
“That’s reasonable. Will you at least have a slice of cake with me?” she asks as she protrudes her lip slightly.
Oh, fuck. Kit pulls that same face, too, and just like him, I can’t seem to say no to it.
“Fine,” I relent. “But I will say, I normally have chocolate once a day. It’s my guilty pleasure. I need my mini chocolate bars, or I’ll turn into the Hulk.”
Opal smiles before segueing the conversation. “Anyway, I wanted to thank you. For taking care of me the other day. I really needed that and you came through for me.”
I’m surprised by the serious subject change. My alpha preens in my chest, happy to be acknowledged for our caretaking. It feels weird as I try to find the words to respond.
My brain settles on a shrug. “It’s normal, we all have days where we’re under the weather.”
“Yes, but I asked you not to ask any questions or to let me take pain meds, and you didn’t push, so thank you,” she says. “I know it’s weird… that I can’t take any kind of pain relief.”
“Are you allergic or something?” I ask absentmindedly.
“Yeah, or something.” There’s a hint of something in her response, but she switches topics again before I can respond. “How did you and Sam meet?”
“Oh,” I say, the particular memory resurfacing and causing a chuckle. “I figured you would already know the story from one of the guys.”
She shakes her head. “Unfortunately, you get the misfortune of telling me yourself.”
“It’s probably a good thing, actually. They always make it more amusing than it is.”
“Well, now I need to hear it.”
“Fine, fine,” I put my fork down and cross my arms. “Freshman year, we were both pledges for Alpha Xi. I don’t make friends very easily, but I knew the guys from hockey and they convinced me to join.
Sam was a bit of a loner, like I was. He was very serious, which completely contrasted with the way the frat was back then.
It was party central most of the time.” I shiver from remembering how lackluster it was to be in Alpha Xi before Sam was president.
“One day, they threw a kegger. The pledges were tasked with keeping beer available at all times. Around midnight, a bunch of the guys were drunk. Atlas had to personally cut off many of them before they got alcohol poisoning. Still, when the keg was empty, I was ordered to go down to get a new one. Sam overheard, followed me, and purposefully broke the lock on the basement door. With us inside.”
Opal’s eyes widen. “What?”
I let out a chuckle. “Yeah. I was pissed at the time, I asked him why the hell he would do that, and he said, ‘it’s better that we suffer a few hours down here rather than sending everyone upstairs to the hospital.’ I realized he was right.
The next keg could have very much been the tipping point.
I mean, there were like fifty kegs that night. ”
Her hand goes over her mouth, still taken aback. “So, you guys just waited until someone found you?”
I nod. “Luckily, it didn’t take as long as we thought.
But it gave us time to get to know each other.
We spoke about our pasts. He told me he hoped to make the fraternity better once the president graduated.
I was ready to help him with that because I was so sick of the parties and the douchebags running the place. ”
“Did you know you would be pack? Like Everett and Dax did?” she asks.
I nod with pride. “More than that. I knew he would be my prime.”
She gives me a teasing smirk. “Interesting, how instincts work like that.”
I trail over her face, all the freckles and smile lines. She’s really cute when she’s interested in a topic, the way her entire face brightens up. “Yeah. Interesting that.”
“It didn’t bother your alpha that you wouldn’t be the prime of your pack?”
I shake my head. “No. I mean, the only true alpha thing about me is my size.”
Opal snorts. “And your standoff-ish beginner personality.”
That takes me back. “My what?”
Her amusement isn’t deterred. “You know… how you grunt your way through a conversation when you don’t know the person you’re talking to?”
Oh, gosh. “I do that?”
Surprise flickers over her features. “You didn’t know?”
“I mean, I knew I was quiet, but I didn’t know I was so surly.”
She laughs. “Oh, the surliest. The most shy, surly alpha I’ve ever met. But it’s a part of your charm. Don’t worry about it too much.”
I find myself cracking a smile. “Well, if my friend tells me not to worry too much about it, then I guess I won’t.”
Opal gasps and puts her hand to her chest. “What’s this? Did you just call me your friend?”
“Oh shush, someone will hear you,” I say. “And I have a reputation to uphold, apparently.”
“It’s a winter miracle!” she singsongs, and her joy makes me grin openly, the surliness she spoke about crawling inside me to sleep. It feels nice, being open with someone, bantering. From the elation it grants me, I don’t think it’s something I should hide from anymore. Especially not around her.