Chapter 2
chapter
two
fourteen months later
Who the hell is responsible for designing women’s underwear?
Seriously.
I want names .
I squirm on my bike seat, plucking my panties into a more comfortable position and coasting around one last corner. The groceries in my basket rattle as I steer up the first driveway on the left, the bouquet of sunflowers on top quivering.
I skid to a stop, reaching for the bell attached to my yellow beach cruiser’s handlebars. It trills three times, cutting through the quiet spring Sunday.
My street is particularly sunny today. A sprinkler splashes two lawns down. A few birds tweet. And through the AirPod hooked into my right ear?
“Hold on, Em,” I interrupt, tapping the earbud to mute my best friend before calling out, “Betty! It’s me!”
Muttered curses and shuffling come as my answer. Smiling, I flip my kickstand down and snatch the Whole Foods bag from my white wicker basket.
The path to my neighbor’s front door is overgrown and uneven, but I’m here every few days, so I know exactly which cracks to avoid if I don’t want to end up on my ass. My panties ride up under my bike shorts again, and I huff a few four-letter words of my own.
“Betty! Get your old ass out here before my butt eats these shorts!”
“How about you eat my shorts?” my crotchety neighbor tosses back, appearing behind her screen door in a lime-green mu-mu. It matches the dye streaked through her short white hair. “Yelling at an old woman? What the fuck is wrong with your generation?”
I smirk to myself. Betty is a total bitch, but that happens to be my favorite thing about her. She shoots from the hip and never says thank you, no matter how many times I bring her groceries.
“Lovely to see you as always, Bets.” I smile, taking the liberty of pulling her screen door open and shoving the paper bag at her.
“Here. The plums you like were three for a dollar, so I got six. And I don’t want to hear any lip about the green smoothies in there.
Your doctor said you need vitamins, so suck it up, buttercup. ”
She takes the bag and looks down at the flowers on top with a snort. “We goin’ steady now, red?”
My smile cracks into a full grin. “Shut up. I’ll bring you your usual mid-week stuff after school on Wednesday.”
Betty waves her weathered hand in a dismissive gesture. “Yeah, yeah. If you’re lucky, I’ll still be alive. If you’re really lucky, I’ll answer the door.”
She slams it in my face a second later, leaving me to chuckle and shake my head all the way to my bike. When I click our call back on, Emma sighs, “I still don’t understand why you bring that mean woman her groceries twice a week.”
Her tone is so familiar, I can picture her nose scrunching as she says the words.
My bestie is beautiful in that annoyingly oblivious way pretty girls in high-school sitcoms usually are.
We met in college; I was getting my master’s in education, she was training to become an elementary school counselor. Which, come to think of it…
“Aren’t you supposed to be a kindergarten teacher? Shouldn’t you tell me to ‘be kind to my neighbor’ and all that Mr. Rogers crap?”
Emma scoffs as I turn my bike out of Betty’s drive and cross the street to my own. It’s much neater, surrounded by landscaping I take pride in and the patches of hydrangeas I baby like my children. Although nowhere near as much as my cat.
“Um, crap ?!” Emma protests. “Mr. Rogers was a visionary . And I’m sure he would be very proud of your altruism, but seriously? That lady has been totally rude to you since you moved there, and that was over a year ago!”
I’m well-aware. I moved into the bungalow right around the time Emma and her newly-bonded pack settled into their Florida residence last February.
Part of the reason I chose this place was its proximity to their hockey-season home. And I definitely felt their absence when they spent the summer at their mountain house.
They’ll go back when her alpha finishes his season. I try not to think about how quickly those three months will fly by… and how soon I’ll be alone here.
Again.
Fucking always .
But it’s fine. I happen to be great company.
“Betty and I have an understanding,” I reply, bending to lock my bike to my white picket fence. “We get each other.”
“Whatever you say,” Emma mumbles. “Hey, do you want to come over for dinner tonight? Zane’s making enchiladas!”
Even if her alpha weren’t a world-class chef, I’d always be down to go to her house. I love Emma’s sunshiney companionship—especially when the Sunday Scaries kick in and a new week in my empty house stretches out before me.
As if protesting that thought, my tabby, Munchies, meows as I breeze through my front door. The foyer of the cozy cottage is cramped and a little cluttered, but my big man manages to saunter around a pair of ruby rainboots and into my arms.
“Sure, I can come. Around six?”
“Yep,” Emma chirps. “And maaaaaybeeee…”
I brace, squeezing my eyes shut. Knowing exactly what she’s about to say.
“…you could finally bring those alphas of yours over here with you?!”
I open my mouth to give her my usual answer, but Emma interrupts, “Let me guess: They can’t come because they have practice? Or a workout? Or some sort of event? Or?—”
“Em,” I try. “Come on. It’s not like I’m?—”
“Hiding them?!” she exclaims. “Because it sort of seems like you are ! You never bring them to parties or post pictures of them online or invite me over when they’re home. I mean, seriously, we’ve been back here since October and I still haven’t even met your pack.”
My pack .
Ha.
Haha.
If you don’t laugh, you’ll go clinically insane, right?
“You know how it is, Em,” I drawl, going for blasé. “Pro athletes and all.”
Emma snaps, “Actually, I do know how it is since I’m bonded to a pro athlete and related to another. The funny thing is, Gunnar and Theo always seem to make it home eventually . And baseball isn’t even in season yet… is it?”
Behind her, someone mutters an aside. Likely one of her alphas, confirming that baseball season won’t officially start for another month.
Damn it .
Of all the things I hate about the deal I struck with the devils, lying to Emma is officially the fucking worst.
Instead of an outright untruth, I decide to go with a string of leading questions.
“If there was something fishy going on, would they let me run all of their charitable trusts? And would they have bought me this house? What about all the Christmas shopping you and I did together—do you really think I’d go to the trouble of finding gifts for three grown men if I didn’t absolutely have to ? ”
Yes, yes, and I never did receive a thank-you note for those socks .
I practically hear my best friend biting her lower lip. “Bridge… if something is wrong…”
Nope . I have to block out her kind offers to help. Because, lately? They’ve gotten a bit too tempting.
Luckily, I know Emma’s one true weakness: confrontation. I cut her off, presenting a forceful ultimatum, “Look, babe, they can’t make it tonight, so it’s just me for dinner. Take it or leave it.”
She grumbles, “Fine. But I’m making margaritas and wearing sweatpants, so don’t get cute.”
“Thank God.”
The call clicks off. Guilt presses out from my middle while silence collapses around me like a vacuum seal.
My smile slowly fades as I look around my brightly-colored living space. The hot-pink sofa, the bubblegum bookshelves. My butter-yellow cabinets and citrus-orange barstools.
I carefully chose all of it. To be happy, upbeat. A way to keep the shadows in the corners from creeping up on me.
But, mostly, to prove that I’m fine .
If only to myself.
My left hand snags on my bike shorts. Or, rather, my engagement ring does.
The engagement ring, really—because it isn’t my engagement ring. No one actually proposed. And I most definitely did not accept that pack of assholes as my actual fiancés.
Still.
Desperate times. Delulu measures.
I hold my hand up, scowling at the huge emerald-cut diamond in its white-gold band. The damn thing is so plain. Maybe even a little boring … if it weren’t the size of a small planet.
Designed to be seen from outer space. Of course.
I’d bet my whole hand that was Dante’s idea.
It’s so like him to pee all over things that don’t belong to him. Even stuff he doesn’t want. I don’t think it matters much, as long as it’s his and everyone else is too scared to touch it.
Which… okay, I admit, is sort of how I wound up in this ridiculous mess. I figured, with alphas like these guys, even if our relationship was fake, Bradley would kindly fuck all the way off.
And it worked. Aside from the whole bone-deep loneliness thing.
But like I said.
I’m all good .
Who cares that I haven’t heard from any of them in weeks? And so what if I get a pit in my stomach toward the end of every month, wondering if they’re still going to hold up their end of our arrangement and pay my mortgage?
They’re probably busy. Dealing with Colt’s inconvenient injuries and the new wave of bad press they’ve caused.
I tried to mitigate it all as best I could—but there’s not much a girl can do for her fake fiancés when they refuse to talk to her .
Jesse used to call every Sunday night. He’d check in, make sure I “had everything I needed.” Sometimes, he’d share a funny story from the road or grumble a few good-natured complaints about the guys.
A couple times, he even offered to escort me to certain events. I always turned him down, knowing my sanity depended on the careful lines I drew that day in my sister’s living room.
Because I might have had a nightgown on, then—but I’d be damned if I ever faced those fuckers without proper armor again.