Chapter 22
Nadine has a lot of room in her frunk. But there’s no way we can move the couch in my poor baby.
Still, she brought my books with me when I moved—not that I could bring them all, but I needed to escape as quickly as possible.
With the bigger house, maybe I can ask Spencer and Paul to be my moral support to see if my old pack threw out all my stuff or… I don’t know…put it in storage?
No, they wouldn’t bother with that.
It probably all ended up in a dumpster somewhere; my clothes, my books…
everything that wouldn’t fit in my car was probably as easy for them to discard as I was.
I could have asked my family for help, but I was too ashamed of being kicked out to tell them more than the basics and let them know I would be in touch when I got back on my feet.
Besides, I didn’t want to risk them causing a scene, and honestly, none of them understand the concept of subtle.
Even Mom, who’s normally the image of a perfectly sweet and demure omega, gets loud and raucous when it comes to my brothers’ various sporting events.
While none of my brothers need to deal with assault charges—and I’m sure they would, considering how protective they still are—Carson especially doesn’t need any scandals right in the middle of football season.
Robert isn’t as well known since rugby isn’t as big in the States, but I’m worried that Ben would get the most flack since he has a career doing MMA.
Everybody wants to pick a fight with the big bad alpha, just so they can call foul when they get their asses handed to them.
I’m fairly certain my parents wanted me to go to law school so I could get those three out of jail when that sort of thing happens.
But it never called to me the way history does.
Not that I could ever make a good legal aid for any of my brothers, considering all the noogies and wet willies I suffered growing up.
How do you defend someone as being harmless when they used to hold you upside down until you relented to help them with their homework?
I love my family dearly, but they can be assholes.
It feels strange to be moving into a house again after all this time.
I had been living near the campus for work when Spencer and Paul asked me to join their pack, and we’ve been together for a couple of years now, all crammed into this apartment.
Still, they don’t make me feel like a burden.
Spencer even gave me his bed—though it’s full sized and fits me well enough, I often wonder how he slept on it without his legs hanging off the end.
Back then, I couldn’t understand how they would accept me so fast. After everything…
after Melody and my pack. I wasn’t good enough, wasn’t alpha enough for her.
I shouldn’t have been shocked. Jason, Dustin, Pete, and I all met at college, each pursuing an advanced teaching career.
It made sense, logically, but after graduation there was no real sense of camaraderie—still, I thought they were my friends.
I never would have agreed to form a pack with them, or look for an omega together, if we weren’t at least on amiable terms.
Then we found her…the attraction was there for everyone, or so I thought.
But after she had officially joined us, she stopped talking to me…
and everyone eventually stopped talking to me.
I felt like a ghost in my own home until our pack leader, Jason, finally told me I had to leave.
That I wasn’t working out with the pack dynamics and I was causing our omega distress.
But she wasn’t ours; she was never ours.
So, yeah, maybe I’m a little gun-shy about Spencer and Paul finding a mate and dropping my ass like a hot potato.
Maybe I’m not alpha enough, just like she said.
Fuck knows I don’t look like one, but Paul doesn’t seem interested in dating, and Spencer, he just wants someone to love him so badly.
So he can have the nest. It’s not like we have any prospects, anyway.
Hopefully, he’ll find a nice beta and then we can get rid of the damned thing.
Maybe she’ll turn it into a game room or a library or something we can all enjoy instead of a fluffy sex room.
Putting another box of books into Nadine’s frunk, I straighten up and bang my head on the underside of the hood.
Luckily, it wasn’t hard enough to knock the support pole loose and risk my own decapitation.
That was one of the excuses my mother gave to try to keep me from buying this “death trap of a car.” I don’t think it’s actually possible—unless I lie down on the ground and flop my head over the edge of the bumper, but I wasn’t going to argue with that woman.
She is tiny, but she’s fierce when she wants to be.
Even then, I think decapitation would be a stretch. Human heads are attached pretty well.
Where was I going with that train of thought?
Almost half of my books are loaded in now, as well as Spence’s new-in-box rice cooker and some of the dishes from the pantry.
It would be better if I could load the passenger and backseats up as well, but then where would the guys sit?
Spence comes down the stairs, carrying another box that he’s probably going to have to hold in his lap, while Paul has several clean towels folded in a stack.
We might be able to squeeze them in around the dishes, to keep things from rattling—and hope like hell we don’t get hit on the way over.
Killed by Pyrex shrapnel isn’t a way I want to go out.
Spence comes around and looks under the hood, trying to figure out if he can wedge anything else in, while Paul begins stacking towels as padding around the kitchen stuff.
We’ll need to rent a truck or something to move the bigger furniture, but several trips across town to the new place with Nadine means we can start living there now if we’re willing to sleep on the floor.
I am not overly happy about the situation, but Spence is so excited—and considering he’s been sleeping on the couch for so long, I can’t really deny him such a simple happiness.
Fifteen minutes later, we’re pulling up in front of the home we now own.
The water, gas, and electricity will need to be changed over to my name once the offices open up again after New Year’s, but for now we can start to move things in while Paul changes the door locks and passes out new keys.
Not that I think we have anything to worry about, but he says it’s always best to do before you move in.
It would have been nice if he’d mentioned that four car loads ago, before all of my books were here.
Now I feel like an idiot for not thinking of it myself.
Then again, who would want to steal worn-out books on the history of…
? I open the box I’ve just set down and peel back the flaps to see what’s inside.
The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire stares back at me from the top of the stack.
Dear god, I am a nerd.
Why am I even still carting these around?