Chapter 55
ACE
Istare at the texts littering my screen. I’m well acquainted with Renfro’s incessant need to chat and talk shit, but now he’s found himself with double the audience. Somehow, it’s made him twice as needy?
Jesus.
Renfro and Brennan are in this group chat, which I’m now somehow part of. I guess that’s what happens when you find yourself stumbling into a pack environment, even though I’m supposed to be doing the exact opposite.
Agreeing to follow Renfro here was one thing. Agreeing to step off the ledge and goddamn free fall into dangerous territory where Wren is concerned is another.
Renfro:
This is Wren’s class schedule. She needs to be on campus by ten a.m.
She’ll want to go early to meet the girls to study. She’ll also insist that she doesn’t need to be dropped off near the library.
That’s a lie.
Her lecture hall is about fifty yards from the main entrance.
Brennan:
Her location sharing is turned on.
Me:
Okay.
Renfro:
Sometimes the class runs a little late, but she should be finished by eleven-thirty.
If you see some scrawny prick with a skateboard, you can glare at him.
Usually does the trick.
He’ll trip over his stupid little grungy jeans to leave her alone real fast.
Brennan:
Please refrain from publicly threatening students on campus. Jesus.
Me:
Got it.
Renfro:
Are you sure? Murphy said this morning’s gym session was optional.
I can totally sneak out.
It’s not too late.
Brennan:
Your Scottish ass is staying right where it is.
The last headache I need is for the entire fucking Wolves squad to be hanging around campus.
Renfro:
This is my sad puppy face.
Brennan:
Deal with it.
Are you sure you’re fine to stick with her, Palamo?
Unlike Renfro, I can find a reason to not be in the office without too much suspicion.
Renfro:
Howling in agony.
You trust Palamo over me? Your superstar foreign import?
Just stab me next time, it’ll be quicker.
Me:
Fuck off and quit crying. You know I’ll run rings around you even on my slowest day.
I’ve got it.
I’ll call if anything happens. Now you can both quit worrying, okay?
As I swipe out of the group chat, I’m left rubbing my brow. Christ almighty. They’re both doubting me in my ability to do this, to take care of Wren. Like they think I’m entirely incapable of safeguarding her.
If only they fucking knew.
I’ve been feeling the urge to take care of my scent match for years. For longer than either of them has fucking known her name.
Puffing my cheeks out, I slip my phone into my pocket and drag one hand back and forth over my hair. All of this makes me constantly swirl between thoughts of Wren Murphy and Connor fucking Renfro.
We probably, undoubtedly, need to talk about what happened. But between that night and both being back to training and preparing for this weekend’s game, it’s not exactly like we’ve had ample opportunity for a sit-down and spill our guts.
We kissed. He sucked me off. He trusted me enough to share Wren without knowing who she is to me.
Yet, I can’t help shaking this lingering hangover of doubt.
The ever-present pit in the base of my stomach that says I’m going to fuck things up for them all, so I should just do what I always do, and keep to myself.
I should really stay away, far away. And probably invest in some industrial-strength noise-canceling headphones and peach-scented lube.
If I have to be in this house while she’s in heat, squirreled away in her nest being knotted by the two of them over and over for days on end, I’m gonna run the risk of rubbing myself raw while beating off twenty times a day.
“Oh… hey... I didn’t realize you’d be here.”
At the sound of Wren’s soothing voice, my head whips up. I’ve been purposely lingering in the kitchen, waiting for her to emerge after getting ready for college. One hint of her scent, and I’m tempted to absently rub my sternum, the place where she burrows in without knowing she does so.
“I made you a coffee.” Turning to point at the thermos cup beside me, I reach for my own, plus my bag.
Wren gives me a look, as if I’m some peculiar three-headed monster emerged from the deep.
“Coffee?”
“Yup. Let’s go.”
“Oh—ummm—I can order myself a ride,” she mumbles and waves her phone with the app already open.
With a shake of my head, I swipe her coffee and press it into her free hand. I know she’s already eaten breakfast with Brennan and Renfro this morning, but she likes having a to-go coffee when leaving the house. Also, I really want to steal her phone, but I can’t exactly do that.
So, I grunt and jerk my head in the direction of the front door, spinning the keys around my finger. “You think those protective assholes would let you call yourself a ride to get to campus?” I silently add myself to that list, too. There’s no fucking way.
“What are you doing?” She eyes the glimpse of metal, now clenched in my fist.
“We’re both going to the library.” I dig my cap out from the side pocket of my bag, stuffing it on my head backward.
Her big blue eyes go comically wide as what I’ve just told her sinks in.
“N—no.”
“Yep.”
“Ace…”
For fuck’s sake. My pulse starts doing that thing whenever I’m around her scent for too long in one go, where it starts racing and I feel a little woozy. But I shake it off.
“I’m going with you.” The words come out sounding more threatening than I intend them to, but there’s no taking them back now.
I’m reduced to speaking through gritted teeth and borderline monosyllabic answers.
Great. So, I do the next best thing and start prowling toward the door.
We need to get moving, mainly because if we stand here any longer, she’s going to be late to meet her housemates.
“Besides… I’m the only one around, and they would kill me if I let you go off alone,” I add, as if that’s the only reason.
It’s the only reason she needs to know about.
Wren trails after me, the picture of confusion. “You’re driving me to college? Why?”
“I have the day off.” With a shrug, I usher her out the front door and lock it behind us, then my long strides carry me to the passenger side of my truck before she can get halfway there.
“I don’t need you to babysit me.” Wren arches one eyebrow when I open her door for her.
My keys jangle when I continue to spin them around my finger, and my blood races like the goddamn wind.
“We’re doing this, end of story. Renfro will freak out if he thinks you’re going to be alone.
” There’s no way I’m going to tell her about the frequent buzzing I can feel in my pocket that tells me one, or maybe both, of those pricks are incessantly texting for updates on our little Omega’s well-being.
Their Omega?
Our Omega?
My Omega?
A shiver races across my skin.
“Just get in. You don’t want to end up being late for your ten a.m.”
“How do you know my class schedule?” Her voice pitches a little higher.
I raise an eyebrow.
Wren huffs at my lack of willingness to be forthcoming—although she’s only ever known this side of me, so it should come as no big surprise—and slides into the seat.
Still eyeing me warily, she buckles in. “You can’t come to the library with me,” her voice calls out after I shut the door.
The words might be muffled, but I feel her eyes penetrating into me through the windshield as I cross in front of the hood.
Once I slide behind the wheel, key in the ignition, the engine rumbles to life. “And why can’t I come to the library with you?” I ask.
When I put the truck in reverse, reaching one arm behind her headrest, her glare is there to meet me as I twist around in my seat to look behind us.
“Because… it’s the library…”
We seemingly both realize the word dangling in the air between us, and now a faint hint of her peach scent fills the small space.
The library.
That stern look of hers morphs in an instant, pink flooding the apples of her cheeks at the mere mention of that particular location on campus.
Wren snaps her eyes forward, proceeding to go about inhaling her coffee like it’s lifeblood.
I don’t blame her, because nothing good can come of us pausing on that particular thought. Nothing good at all.
As we set off in the direction of campus, it’s a simple equation.
No need to get into lingering thoughts of my best friend’s little sister.
Certainly not the fact that I had my mouth on her pussy, or that I now know what it’s like to have my scent match falling apart on my tongue, to intimately remember that taste as she drowned me in peach slick and scent.
Or crossing into new territory with Renfro.
Jesus.
“Are all of you Alpha rugby players as obstinate as each other?” she huffs.
I flex my hold on the wheel. “Thought you were close with your brother? You should know the answer to that.”
After we drive in silence for a few minutes, some stupid pop song I don’t know the name of—but it’s everywhere these days—plays faintly through the radio. Wren starts to fidget in her seat until eventually she lets out a sigh and fiddles with the sleeve of Renfro’s hoodie she’s wearing.
“This is horribly vulnerable to admit… especially to you… and I know this is very generous of you and all…” Her lips twist, and she won’t look at me, but she presses on.
“But I know you don’t want to be part of this pack, Ace.
So we can forget about everything. I can even talk to Theo and Connor about you finding your own place so that you don’t have to be around all this. ”
My stomach churns with dread.
She doesn’t want me?
All I can do is silently focus on the road, while a boulder wedges itself in my throat. Refusing to commit to a response is going to become my refuge.
“I don’t want to do anything to damage what you have with Finch. You’re my brother’s best friend for crying out loud,” she whispers.
The silence hanging between us is deafening.
My throat tries to work down a swallow, to try and dislodge that giant fucking lump there.
And all I can think to myself is that she’s right.
Wren Murphy isn’t for me… but she still doesn’t know the truth, and I’m just torturing myself indefinitely here.
I keep promising myself I’ll just hang on, I’ll just hold out for another week, then she’ll recognize me, then it’ll finally be out in the open.
Yet, we’ve been in the closest goddamn proximity I could ever imagine, and she still doesn’t see me for who I am.
That turns my unease into a pit of despair, filling my stomach.
Wren lets out a little sigh, the type of noise I hate with every fiber of my being, because it means she’s already slammed the imaginary door closed. Presumably, this is her way of letting me down gently, or some shit.
As we turn into the street leading to campus, she stares out the window at the late-winter scene drifting by. “I want you to know, I’m happy about you and Connor working through some things,” she adds.
And my knuckles continue to blanch as my death grip on the steering wheel intensifies, as my scent match remains oblivious to our one-sided connection.
“You’ve gotta know…” She speaks softer than a delicate summer breeze, but it doesn’t do anything to disguise how brutally those words level a sucker punch straight to my gut. “I won’t come between you and my brother… and I won’t come between the two of you either.”