9. Cole
Chapter 9
Cole
“Oh, stop pouting,” I say to Jonah, who’s lounging on the low nest bed with his arms crossed.
“I’m not pouting,” he snaps back, shaking his head. “You would be pouting too if you were the only one who hadn’t gotten to touch her.”
“So, which is it? You’re pouting or you’re not? You know you’ll have time with her. Be patient.”
He rolls his eyes. “Mack? Really? Of course she chose the pretty one first.”
“Well, she actually chose me first. But that’s besides the point. They’re going to be in there for a while and I need to check my phone to see if I’m being fined or god-fucking-forbid arrested.”
“Get her bathroom stuff when you’re down there. She might not like the stuff they have here,” he says, ignoring my career crisis.
I’ll give him credit. Out of all of us, he’s probably the most equipped to handle this heat, but it’s been a long ass day.
I nod at this big baby of an Alpha and push the button for the door to open as I make my way down to customer service.
When I get our luggage, I grab a few things for everyone and check my phone. I have about ten missed calls, but no voicemails, so I turn it off and toss it back in the bag.
I grab Shiloh’s stuff, pulling out all her medicine and hygiene products along with other things I think she may want.
It’s a bad idea. It’s not my business, but I glance at her phone, making sure no one is trying to get a hold of her.
What I see instead has my heart sinking. I don’t open the messages, but I see them on the main screen.
Ryan: Baby, you should come back.
Danny: The tour isn’t the same without our girl waiting on the bus.
Nick: Shiloh, answer our fucking messages.
Danny: Don’t talk to her like that. We want her back.
Danny: We’re sorry Shi, we’ll do better. We fucked up. Please just talk to us, or at least talk to me.
They’re clearly messages from the pack she’s running away from. Part of me wants to unlock her phone and delete the messages. Another part of me wants to call them and let them know that I fucked Shiloh the whole flight here and she’s not their girl anymore.
But I don’t know that for sure yet. Hell, this is all moving too fast. It’s nearly making my head spin.
Never in a million years would I imagine some Omega, on a random ass transcontinental flight, would have me this fucked up.
The three of us never agree on anything, but right now we all seem to suddenly agree on an Omega who seems to have a more complicated situation than I thought. What if we get her through heat and she realizes she wants to go back to her old pack?
What if this feeling I’m having is all a hormonal response and I feel differently post heat?
I huff out a breath of frustration and grab all of our shit and thank the woman at customer service. There’s nothing I can do about it right now. All I can do for the time being is take care of her like I promised.
When I offered to help her with her heat, it was partially selfish because I’m attracted to her and felt a connection, but now it’s even worse. I’ve brought Jonah and Mack into the mix. Jonah already has hearts in his fucking eyes. If we didn’t have to sequester our phones, he would probably be calling his mom, telling her he found the one .
Then, there’s my little brother who doesn’t let anyone in. Right now, he’s bare assed on the bathroom floor with her knotted and cuddled in blankets.
What if my act of kindness, this instinctual need to take care of her, is pulled away from me?
I push the button outside of our heat suite and the moderator buzzes me in. Jonah is still staring at the bathroom door, as I toss everything on a chair and glance over at the bathroom.
“They still aren’t out?”
“No,” Jonah says, clearly unhappy. I guess I can’t blame him. He grew up rather spoiled.
“Her exes were texting her,” I tell him, feeling like I can’t keep this secret to myself or I’ll explode.
He sits up quickly.
“What did they say?”
“That they want her back,” I reply with a shrug.
“No. Fuck that. They let her fly across the entire country by her-fucking-self. What kind of decent man does that? One of them should have at least escorted her home, no matter how the relationship ended. Did you delete the messages?” he asks, and I blink at him.
“Did I break into her phone and delete her private messages?” I repeat, and he rolls his eyes.
“Listen, man, sometimes you’ve gotta be devious to get what you want.”
I rub the bridge of my nose. “You and your family are something else.”
He shrugs. “I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for some very devious behavior. Now, what’re we going to do about it?”
“You don’t even know her.”
“So? She’s beautiful, she’s sweet, she likes you for some reason. I’m never going to find that again. If we want this pack to work, we need her.”
“You sound insane,” I tell him.
“Whatever. Like I give a shit. You think I’m going to go through her heat and not become obsessed?”
I take a deep breath and look at Jonah, and then over to the bathroom door. It doesn’t matter how crazy and fast this all is, he’s right.
I met Jonah at a bar, both of us looking like shit, and we bonded and became best friends. Jonah made me become a better man, a stronger man, and I couldn’t imagine creating a pack with anyone else. He was even understanding in knowing I had to make sure my brother was included, cause I worried if he didn’t have a pack he’d disappear completely, living like a hermit.
I’d never tell Jonah, because his ego is already so big, but he’s the best man I know. The thought of letting him down, of getting his hopes up and then taking away the one thing he’s ever wanted makes my heart race and my stomach sink to my ass.
How am I supposed to make sure we all get through this unscathed? Maybe a demon truly has taken me over, because for the first time in a long time I feel so out of control and I’m not sure how to make sure everything ends up alright.
“We give her the best heat we can manage, we take care of her, and then when she’s lucid, we offer to take care of her post heat. Maybe we can hold off on giving her back her phone a little longer, make her like us enough that she won’t even consider her ex pack?” I say, more so for my own benefit than Jonah’s. I have to make sure I don’t fuck this up. It’s clearer than ever we need an Omega, and that Shiloh is the only one who’s ever sparked this interest in all of us.
Jonah smiles, which makes him look a little unhinged.
“Now you’re talking.”
Suddenly the bathroom door clicks, Mack has a towel wrapped around his waist and Shiloh has a blanket wrapped around her, clutching it at her chin. She walks over to the bed and unceremoniously plops her head into Jonah’s lap.
He grins and pets her hair, and she just melts into his lap like she belongs there. They look perfect together and it has me wanting to make sure that we don’t mess this up. Jonah’s chest purrs as he strokes her hair, and she looks the most content I’ve seen her since the first time I saw her on the plane.
I nod my head toward the bathroom, making eye contact with my brother. We both head in there while Jonah keeps Shiloh distracted. The bathroom smells heavily like lemon and peppermint. I don’t mind the combination, and don’t feel any jealousy.
Brock was right, I’m so fucked.
“You good?” I ask him.
“Yeah,” he says, clearing his throat. “I see why you risked it all to get her home safe.”
“You think you would be interested in courting her?”
He rubs his chest, taking a deep inhale. “Yeah, I think I could.”
“Alright. Then that’s what we’ll do. I think things with her and her old pack are more complicated than I thought. So it’s important that we make this heat good for her.”
His brows furrow. “Why wouldn’t we?”
I look up at the ceiling. I’m on edge. “You’re right, I just…I’m not sure any of us have felt this before, not even Jonah.”
Mack looks at the door and then back at me. “You know he never slept with any of them?”
“What?” I say with furrowed brows.
Mack shrugs. “Mom said it would be better to just wait for the Omega of your dreams. Something about the rage of knowing your Alphas have been with an Omega before,” he says, referring to Jonah’s mom. We lost ours so long ago. As crazy as Jonah’s family can be, they accepted us as Jonah’s pack immediately. I don’t think I could have asked a more loving family albeit slightly crazy.
I blink at him. “You’re telling me Jonah’s never been with an Omega?” I ask in confusion. Jonah’s my best friend, and he’s also the one who set up all these previous dates.
“No, and neither have I. He clearly wanted an Omega near desperation, but he didn’t want to give any of them the wrong idea and he didn’t want to fuck it up with the Omega we wound up with. Him agreeing to her heat is a big deal, Cole. There’s no going back for him after this.”
Now I feel like the world’s biggest piece of shit.
“Should I tell her that I have?” I ask, and Mack shakes his head quickly.
“Are you dumb? Now is absolutely not the time to tell her you’ve been with another Omega. You keep that shit to yourself until it comes up. In fact, take it to your grave unless she explicitly asks.”
I scratch my chin and look at my brother. Him not being with an Omega is what I assumed, but the information about Jonah comes as a serious shock. The stress of the situation I’ve put everyone in starts weighing on me. This isn’t just helping an Omega in heat, these are stakes I didn’t realize.
Jonah is going to be obsessed the moment he’s inside of her. Hell, he already sounds like he is. Then there’s Mack, I’ve never seen him this interested in someone. What if this is just for her heat? What if in my efforts to be a good man I tear apart my pack with an Omega who doesn’t truly want to be ours?
I swallow thickly and Mack smacks my arm.
“Your temples look like they’re about to explode. You did what you thought was right, no, what is right. What we’re doing for her is good, and the right thing to do, Cole. We just have to see how things pan out. Everything happened fast. Just let yourself enjoy this, okay?”
“Her ex-pack sent her text messages saying they want her back,” I say to him regretfully.
His eyes search mine for a minute, and he shakes his head. “Omegas don’t travel across the country alone to get out of a good situation. We’ll just have to be better than them.”
“Jonah wanted to delete the texts.”
Mack looks like he’s considering the idea, and I smack his arm.
“What the fuck is wrong with you two?”
“I was just considering it. Damn. I’m all in on operation perfect heat. You don’t have to worry about me,” he says, though I can tell there are still some reservations to his statement.
It’s not that he doesn’t recognize that he’s interested in Shiloh or the giant step he just took with her physically. It’s the fact that Mack has no clue what he’s doing. This is new for him, and honestly for me, too.
This heat is going to be the blind leading the fucking blind.
“Just try not to think about it. Maybe if she doesn’t answer them during her heat, they’ll assume she isn’t interested in taking them back.”
“Alright.”
“You did the right thing, Cole,” he says, gripping my shoulder before walking back out to the nest.
I stare at myself in the mirror. I’m more disheveled than I realized, inside and out. It feels like today has been multiple days instead of one. I run the tap, splashing my face with cold water, hoping it helps reset my system.
It all hits me at that moment. I don’t have a job, and I’ve either solidified or destroyed my pack with this choice. It’s not as if we weren’t held together by tape and glue before, all living separate lives while being a semblance of a pack. I wasn’t interested in Jonah in any other way than a best friend and pack mate, and neither was Mack. Jonah tried to date, but wasn’t interested unless it was an Omega we all agreed on. I had one night stands, and Mack was a hermit.
Part of me felt like a selfish asshole, tying my best friend and younger brother to me. But I’d left Mack to fend for himself before, and I couldn’t do that again, I needed to protect him now, like I couldn’t when he was younger. I don’t know why I thought creating a pack would do that, maybe I was just being destructive.
“Fuck,” I complain to myself, splashing more water on my face.
The thing is, even knowing the consequences, I don’t think I would have made a different decision. Shiloh needed help, and I wanted to help her. I have no control over the situation besides how I react and how I treat her.
Something tells me Shiloh is overdue for being treated the way she deserves and between the three of us, we can make that happen.
It’s time to be the Alpha my father never was. It’s time to stop fearing that I’ll be anything like him.
I can make this Omega feel cared for. I’ll hold this pack together. The fact that we’re even here, safely at a facility, just proves I’m nothing like him. I’m a better man than him, a better Alpha.
Come hell or high water, I’m going to make sure this heat goes perfectly.
I take a deep breath and stare at my reflection that looks so much like the man I hate, and I find resolve. I’m stronger than I think I am.