Chapter 47
Chapter Forty-Seven
brIELLE
O livia’s smiling when she opens her door. Her gaze takes me in and then the small pair of feet just behind mine. Her smile turns sly, a knowing glint in her eyes.
“Hey!” she says. “Let me just grab my purse, and we can head out.”
Camden giggles behind me, his forehead pressing into my back. When Olivia starts past me, Camden jumps out.
“Boo!” he says.
Olivia jumps, pretending to be spooked. Camden cackles and then hugs her.
“Hi Aunt Olivia! I get to spend today with Bri.” He starts down the porch. “Nana and Grammy are both busy and Emily has to work at Misty. She has trail rides today.”
“I hope you don’t mind,” I tell her. “I’ve packed activities and snacks for him in case it takes longer than I’m hoping.”
She smiles and shakes her head. “I think it’s great he’s doing this with you!”
I help Camden into the new seat that’s now taken up residence in my Land Rover—on the left side at his request. I hand him the trucks Ethan said were his favorites, and he grins.
“Thanks Mommy Bri,” he says.
He garbles the r in my name for the first time in weeks, making it sound like “ mommy be.”
My breath catches, and I freeze.
“Oh my God,” Olivia breathes. “I wish I’d gotten that on camera.”
Camden flushes red and ducks his head. “Sorry, Bri.”
“You’re fine, sweetie,” I offer, my voice way calmer than I feel. “You can call me that if you want, all right?”
He smiles, his dimple showing, and hugs me, pressing his cheek into my stomach.
“I’m so glad you live with us,” he whispers.
I run my hand through his hair, letting him hug me as long as he needs. After a minute, he pulls away and focuses on his trucks.
“To Jackson!” he says.
I climb into the driver seat and start down Olivia’s street.
Olivia waits until we’re out of town, speeding down the highway, to say anything.
“So the transition is going well?” she asks. She runs a hand down her belly and adjusts in her seat.
“Seems to be,” I offer.
Yesterday had been awkward at first when Camden had woken up to find both his dads gone. The call Caleb promised helped a lot, though. And today has been great. We’d made pancakes and then packed a bag of things for him to do while we sit through whatever nightmare pile of paperwork the Council’s going to potentially hand me today.
“You read the paper this week?” Olivia asks in a different tone.
I glance over at her and frown. “No,” I say carefully. “Should I avoid it?”
She nods. “Definitely. We should probably make sure Caleb doesn’t find a copy of it, either. He was fit to be tied with the article Jessica wrote about you and Ethan after the fireworks. And she was mostly nice about you in that one.”
“I spent four months being called a gold digging whore by Brett’s mistress,” I say after a minute. “Honestly, Jessica’s probably tame compared to that.”
Olivia grimaces. “Yeah, okay. It wasn’t quite that bad.”
“What’s a whore?” Camden asks. “And why does it dig for gold?”
Olivia covers her laugh with a cough. I glance back at Cam. He has that line between his eyes, his gaze focused on the road outside the car. He taps his truck against his leg. I fumble for some way to soft pedal the phrase but don’t manage to come up with anything that isn’t going to open another can of worms.
“I thought you found gold in rivers,” he says when I don’t say anything. “Grandpa Mark read a book to me last week about guys using pans with holes to find gold in water.”
“Gold digging is a mean term,” I say, trying to keep my voice light and calm. “And so is the other word.”
Camden frowns. I focus on the road again.
“Why would someone be mean to you, Mommy Bri? You’re so nice to everyone.”
Camden sounds genuinely worried.
I clear my throat. “There was someone I used to know that didn’t like me. She thought I was the reason her life was… not the way she wanted it to be.”
Camden purses his lips but doesn’t say anything else.
Camden circles me, his truck following a route around my thighs as he does. He mutters a race commentary under his breath. My phone pings with a message, and I dig it out of the bag I’d brought. When I see it’s Olivia, I set the packet of papers on the counter, keeping my hand over the most sensitive information.
Cake in hand. Just looking for some champagne glasses that don’t cost an arm and a leg. Everything good there?
Just waiting for a jerk of an Alpha to admit he didn’t have an appointment so I can get the paperwork turned in.
Ugh. Those ones are the worst. World doesn’t belong to you just because you grow a knot, you know?
I can’t help but smile just a bit.
If we finish before you, we’ll walk down to that bakery at the end of the street. I promised Cam a treat anyway.
Sounds good. Pray for me. About to attempt Walmart.
I grimace. Walmart is awful on a good day. Walmart after spending the last hour with me while I sorted through the three different check-in processes the Council required to get me into this specialty office? No, thank you.
Good luck.
When I tuck my phone back into my purse, the Alpha that’s been harassing the poor receptionist for the last five minutes has his eyes on me. I drop my other hand to the paperwork, too. The guy’s a jerk as it is, and the last thing anyone needs is him trying to hunt me down later. The receptionist, to his credit, keeps his back straight and his chin up as he turns away from the man and focuses on me.
“Finished, Mrs. Ashford?” he asks.
I keep my flinch at the name internal.
Even if this doesn’t work, I need to do something about my last name. No way I want to spend the rest of my life being called Brett’s name.
With a slightly trembling hand, I pass him the paperwork. He flips through it, double checking I didn’t miss anything, and then nods.
“I’ll get it into the system.” He offers me a smile. “The process should, hopefully, be smooth sailing since you had the bloodwork results with you. Getting those is the part that takes the longest.”
He grabs a card and circles one of the four name and number pairings.
“This is the case worker that’s been assigned to your case,” he says. “He’ll send you an email update when everything’s been finalized in the system. That should be by this afternoon, but he might wait until everything batches over the weekend to officially send it to you.”
He pauses, and I offer a nod.
“And then he should call you once it’s been processed and the new information packet is available for pickup. Again, that should happen quickly. Probably by the end of next week barring anything wild happening.”
I grab Camden’s hand as he circles around me again. He drops his truck, looking up at me with a frown.
“Thank you so much,” I tell the man.
He nods.
“Bye,” Camden says as we leave the small waiting area. The man smiles and waves at him. Camden giggles. He looks up at me once we’re in the hallway. “He was really nice even though that guy was rude.”
I nod and beeline for the closest exit. “He was very polite. And you did a great job being patient through all of that. I have one more quick project, and then we’ll go get that treat. Want to help me with it?”
He nods and grins. “Always, Mommy Bri!”
“Perfect. Let’s go get it from my car.”
He skips instead of walks with me to the parking lot, bouncing a bit on his toes as I dig out the small box shoved under the passenger seat. I pull up the address of the thrift store and get it sorted in my phone’s map. It’s only a couple blocks away. We’re halfway down the block when he finally gets curious.
“What’s that?” he asks.
He holds out his truck, pretending to drive it through the air.
“It’s some things from when I was still married,” I tell him truthfully.
The last couple things I couldn’t part with when I moved here. The two watches I’d given him and the tickets to the movie we saw on our very first date nearly a decade ago now.
“What are we doing with them?” he asks. Not a moment later, he frowns and looks up at me. “You were married? Like Nana and Grandpa Scott?”
I nod and squeeze his hand. “I was.”
“But Papa says you’re an Omega.” He frowns, and that line forms between his eyebrows. He taps his truck against his leg in thought. “Betas get married. Omegas bond. That’s what Papa says.”
Nerves tighten my chest. He bounces in place while we wait for the light to change.
“Not all Omegas bond,” I manage to say around the lump in my throat. “Bonding isn’t something that can be taken back, so it’s never done without a lot of thought.”
Camden hums. “Like Daddy’s tattoos? He says he can’t get rid of them, either.”
I squeeze his hand and start across the road. “Just like that.”
“So why were you married?” he asks.
The thrift store is unassuming, a simple warehouse with a small sign labeling it. It’s more rundown than the Artisan Square, but there’s still a good amount of foot traffic along the front. I guide Camden around the side, following the signs for the donations drop-off.
“Well,” I say slowly, “he was a Beta, so I couldn’t bond with him. And I really loved him at the time, so it felt like the right decision to make.”
“Do you love Papa and Daddy?” he asks.
I swallow the lump in my throat and force my breathing steady. The employee walks up to us before I can figure out just exactly how much I want to admit to the four-year-old son of my scent matches. I give the employee the box, and he flips it open. His eyebrow ticks up and some of the color drains away from his face.
“Do you need a receipt, ma’am?” he asks cautiously.
I shake my head. “No, that’s all right.”
He tucks the box under an arm and nods. “Have a good day, ma’am.”
Camden waves as we leave. He’s quiet as we retrace our steps and start toward the little bakery. Olivia stands outside, a small drink in her hand and a new bag over her shoulder. She waves when she notices us heading toward her.
“Mommy Bri?” Camden asks once we’ve rejoined Olivia. “Do you love my dads?”
I twist my hand into my hair and breathe deeply. Olivia raises an eyebrow but doesn’t say anything. I pin her with a look. She smiles and shrugs.
As I open the door, I tell Camden, “I do, sweetie.”