Chapter Eighteen – Asher
When I finally make it back to the lake, I find Rourke sitting on the edge of the dock, alone, while Jess is laying on the blanket near the basket.
I didn’t have the easiest time lugging all these fishing rods and the bait tins back here by myself, but I made do; however the moment I spot Jess by herself, I know something’s wrong.
Something happened while I was away.
I make a beeline toward her, and I carefully set the rods and the tins down before I move to sit next to her. She doesn’t stir. Her eyes are open, and she stares at the sky like it holds the answers to the universe.
She looks… out of it, like she just received some not so good news.
I glance at Rourke. Though he’s a good fifty or sixty feet away, his back is to us, and still I can see how tense he is. Something had to have happened between them while I was away, but what?
“Is everything okay?” I ask her, breaking the silence and forcing her to lose her staring contest with the sky.
Just by the way she looks at me, I can tell something heavy is weighing on her, something she’d rather not discuss, but she has to know I won’t drop it. I can’t. I need to know she’s okay.
“Jess,” I whisper her name urgently. There’s only a foot or so of space between us, and it takes every ounce of willpower in me to not reach for her, to not grab her hand and squeeze it out of comfort.
“Did something happen with Rourke?” Though I don’t want to believe it, though a part of me trusts him even though he’s a stranger, it’s the only logical explanation for the switch in moods.
Everyone was happy when I left. Or at least, mostly happy. This feels like the total opposite.
“He’ll kick my ass from here to Sunday, but if he did something to make you feel uncomfortable, I’ll do my best to defend your honor—” Offering to get into a fight with an über for her. Now that’s crazy.
“He thinks we’re scent matches.”
I blink. “What?”
Jess props herself up and turns her head toward me, repeating what she said word for word, “He thinks we’re scent matches.
” The way she says it, I can’t tell if she’s confused or angry or something else.
There’s almost no emotion in her tone, which I find in and of itself startling.
It’s like she’s shut down, turned herself numb.
Like she doesn’t want to face it if it is true.
Hearing she might be scent matches with another alpha makes me feel… uneasy, mostly because after the whole talk with Mason, I’ve come to the conclusion I like her. I like her more than I should. If she’s Rourke’s scent match, what hope do I have?
But, the more I think on it, the more her choice of words resonate with me. He thinks. A strange thing to say when scent matches are in the picture. The whole thing about scent matches is you’re supposed to know.
“What do you think?” I ask her.
“I think… I think I—I don’t know.” She frowns. “I mean, I do feel something when he’s near me, but… I just thought that was because I’m unmatched. It’s not just attraction. It’s something I can’t really explain.”
I’ve read stories about people finding their scent matches.
The overwhelming desire, the desperate need to have them; I get none of that from her right now, which totally confuses me.
Rourke doesn’t seem like the kind of guy who’d pull something like this out of his ass, so all in all, I can genuinely say I don’t get it. I don’t get what’s happening.
“But we can’t be scent matches,” she whispers, and when she says it again, her voice wavers, “we can’t be.” She blinks rapidly, and my spirits sink when I see the tears forming in the corners of her eyes. She really is upset over this possibility.
“Hey,” I say, reaching for her. I take her hand in mine and give it a squeeze. Her hand is ridiculously soft, and thankfully she doesn’t pull away from me. “It’s okay. It’s nothing to freak out about if it is true. It might make things a little harder when your heat comes, but—”
She shakes her head once. “It’s not that.”
“Then what is it?”
She purses her lips and shakes her head again, and she pulls her hand away from mine. Just like that, I can see her walls being erected. She doesn’t want to talk about it, not yet. Maybe she will later, once everything has time to settle.
The only thing I want to do is make her feel better, but with Jess shutting down, my hands are tied. I’m not even mad another alpha might be her scent match. My anger is due to the fact she’s taking it so hard.
Guess I need to talk to Rourke.
I get up and wander to the dock. To think, I wanted to use today to spend time with Jess, to talk to her…
and to apologize for how I acted all those years ago.
It’s something that needs addressed. I can’t let it go on like this.
I need her to know how sorry I am for not being there for her when she needed me the most. If I could get a time machine and go back, I would change it all in a heartbeat.
When I reach Rourke, I gingerly sit down beside him and say, “So, Jess said you told her something pretty interesting while I was gone.”
He stares out at the calm surface of the lake. “Yeah, I did. I knew it was probably a bad idea, but I couldn’t keep it to myself.” He’s slow in turning his head to look at me. “I won’t let it affect the job, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
He doesn’t seem like the kind of alpha that would let his feelings interfere with a mission, and I recognize that. “I’m more worried about Jess and how she’s taking it. I don’t think normal omegas cry when they find their scent matches.”
Rourke grows alarmed. “She’s crying? Fuck.” He runs a hand along the side of his face. I don’t think I’ve ever seen the über so perturbed.
Jess wasn’t bawling her eyes out or anything; she just got misty eyed, but that’s enough for me. I say, “She seems pretty upset at the possibility. Are you sure you two are scent matches? I don’t think that’s normally how an omega reacts. Isn’t this something you guys should’ve known sooner?”
“I had a feeling the first moment I met her at the Omega Garden, but the way she acted threw me for a loop. Just like now. It’s almost like she knows it, deep down, but something’s missing on her end. I don’t know what.” He groans. “I feel like such an asshole. I shouldn’t have said anything.”
Everything he tells me, he sounds sincere. It makes it impossible to be upset with him. It’s like I want both Jess and Rourke to feel better, odd as it is.
“No, if it’s true,” I tell him, “you have every right to address it. I think, maybe, she’s just scared. Do you know her parents died ten years ago?”
“Yeah, it’s why her aunt is her guardian.”
“That’s just the tip of the iceberg. She was in the car when it happened. She barely survived. Had to have multiple surgeries, was even in a coma for a little while. Then, when she finally woke up, she had to do physical therapy and all that.”
I remember her being the talk of the grapevine all those years ago; everyone knew her business. Everyone knew what happened. It instantly made her different from everyone else, and as kids, we were all dumb and mean when she finally came back.
She wasn’t the same. I don’t know that I was expecting her to be the same as she was, but the girl that came back to school after months and months wasn’t anywhere near the girl she used to be.
Frail, skinny, with a hollow look on her face.
She never smiled, hardly spoke unless the teacher spoke to her first, and she always kept to herself.
“She changed, obviously,” I go on. “But we were all stupid kids. We were in the same class. We were close friends before the accident. When she came back… it wasn’t good. We weren’t overly welcoming. I stayed away from her.”
“You mentioned that before, but what does this have to do with her being upset now?”
I sigh. “She hasn’t had an easy life. Her aunt sounds like a total you-know-what.
To someone who’s been lost in that kind of misery, I can imagine when there’s a light at the end of the tunnel, it might feel too overwhelming to process.
Maybe she’s not responding how a typical omega would because she’s not a typical omega.
She’s spent the last ten years shutting everyone out, doing what she could to protect herself. ”
Rourke studies me. “You might be right. So, where do we go from here?”
“I don’t know.” I glance over my shoulder at Jess, who is once again laying on the blanket. “I know she doesn’t want a pack before her heat, but… maybe we can show her that being in a pack’s not so bad, that we can wait until she’s ready, however long that is.”
The other alpha picks out one word to focus on: “We?”
Crap. I didn’t even realize I said that, that I lumped us together. It came so naturally to me.
Now it’s my turn to feel uneasy. “Um, yeah. I mean, she and I have some baggage we need to address, but… I don’t want to go back to the way things used to be. I missed her, and I don’t want to let her go again.”
“Sounds to me like you’re suggesting we court her together, but that would be crazy,” Rourke remarks with a twinkle in his eyes. “Alphas don’t court an omega together unless they’re a pack.”
He’s right. What I’m suggesting is totally crazy—but based on the tone of his voice when he said it, he’s not outright denying the possibility.
“This pack you may or may not be suggesting,” he goes on, “would your brother be a part of it too?”
“I don’t think he’s ready to admit it out loud, but yeah, he would be.”
This whole conversation took a strange turn. An über like Rourke shouldn’t ever contemplate something like this. I mean, he’s clearly a lone wolf, and if Jess is his scent match, he could theoretically feel an innate need to have her all to himself.
And to have two übers in one pack together? I don’t know that I’ve ever seen another pack like that before.
Rourke shakes his head as he says, “I knew something was going on with you guys and Jess the moment I arrived. Damn, things got complicated real fast, huh?” He gets to his feet, and I stand with him. “Let’s focus on getting through her heat first, then we can discuss what comes after.”
He’s not saying no. I can only take that as a win, considering everything.
“Now,” he says, rubbing his hands together, “let’s see those fishing rods.”
I bring him to where I deposited the rods and the bait boxes, and as we approach, Jess sits up, no longer teary-eyed. Her bored mask is on as she clearly seeks to hide her true emotions.
“Are you guys really going to fish? How boring,” she mutters.
“Have you ever fished before?” Rourke asks her.
“No.” Her reply is accompanied with a roll of her eyes in a very dramatic fashion.
“Exactly,” he says. “Get up, grab a rod with us, and try it out. You can’t bash it till you try it.”
Jess’s snarky reply is, “I don’t need to eat a worm to know I won’t like it. Same goes for fishing. You two have fun.”
I join Rourke’s team and say, “Nope. I brought three rods. We’re going to see who can catch the biggest fish. Get up. We’ll let you have the first pick of the rods.”
She pouts, but as she glances between me and Rourke, it soon becomes clear to her we won’t let up until she agrees to join us and do a little fishing, at least. We aren’t asking for her to join any fishing competitions or anything, just to give it a shot.
In the end, Jess gets up and takes one of the rods.
I help her pick out a suitable bait and attach it to the end of the line while Rourke does his own.
After I do mine, we’re ready to go. The three of us head back out onto the dock and together, Rourke and I teach Jess everything she needs to know about fishing.
How to cast, how to reel it in, what to do when you feel that first tentative nibble on the end of the line. How certain fish like different baits.
It’s all pretty normal, if you ignore the whole scent match thing.
The three of us just hanging out like we’ve done it a thousand times before.
It’s actually kind of nice. After a while, even Jess is getting into it, saying she’s going to catch the biggest fish in this lake and show us how it’s really done.
I can see us doing this a lot. I can even picture my brother with us, when he’s not too lost in his own feelings. It’s nice. It’s something I wouldn’t trade for anything.
If this is a window to what our life could be like together, I’ll gladly take it.