Pack Down Bad

Chapter 1

Chapter One

Belle

My grip on my phone is so tight that my fingers are turning almost the same shade of pink as my manicured nails. Jason should have been here ten minutes ago. I pretend to read the screen for a little longer before smiling across the table at my best friend, Mia.

“He’s almost here,” I reassure her. He hasn’t texted, so I might be lying.

“I’m not going anywhere.” She shrugs one shoulder, content to wait patiently while sipping her lychee martini. I think the cute beta bartender she’s been checking out has something to do with her patience. She signals to him that she’ll have another drink.

Tonight, I’m introducing my new boyfriend, Jason, to Mia for the first time.

Mia has been my best friend since we were in diapers, our moms spending hours in the park bonding while we learned to play together. And once we designated as omegas, we trauma-bonded through our parents lecturing us on everything about knots and heats. She’s also the most bluntly honest person I know. She’ll tell me the truth about what she thinks of Jason without sugarcoating anything.

Of course, I’m totally confident that she’ll love Jason. He’s super charismatic and has all these great stories from being a pilot. What’s not to like?

“This place is really packed tonight,” Mia says before sucking down the last of her drink. Within seconds, the bartender is sliding another in front of her. She leans forward over the bar to watch his butt as he walks away.

“Shameless,” I tease her, playfully slapping her arm. I take a quick look around the bar and realize she’s right, the place is more full than usual. I didn’t notice when we walked in... I was distracted texting Jason. He should have gotten back into town within the last couple of hours, but hasn’t texted me. Usually, he checks in once his plane lands.

He’ll be here, though. He never flakes. His dependability is one of the things that drew me to him.

“Tonight isn’t karaoke night, is it?” Mia groans at the prospect. Listening to drunk people attempt to sing songs they barely know the lyrics to is the bane of our existence. Especially when I’m completely sober.

The bartender, light on his feet, has already made it back our way and chuckles. “Not tonight,” he reassures her, pausing in front of us. “Every Tuesday at this time, we do beta happy hour. Half-priced drinks for all betas for another hour, then things usually slow down again.”

“When is omega happy hour?” Mia tosses her dark hair in a sassy way that I’ve hopelessly tried practicing in the mirror before. Mia pulls off the balance between mysterious and haughty impressively well.

The bartender laughs again, already ensnared by her mystique. “Omega happy hour happens all night every weekend. When’s the last time you saw an omega have to buy her own drink on a Friday night?”

“Touché.” Mia raises her fresh martini and takes a sip. She’s still holding eye contact with the bartender over the edge of her glass until someone else waves to get his attention further down the bar.

“I’ll be back,” he tells her, tapping the bar. He’s a goner.

I wait until he’s out of earshot. “I don’t know how you do that.”

“Do what?” She widens her warm, brown eyes to feign innocence.

“Captivate strangers within a couple of sentences.” I shake my head even as I smile wider. I’m envious of her social skills, but I know I have plenty of my own strengths, too.

“Belle, your hair is hot pink. You’re the one that everyone is looking at when we walk into a room.”

I duck my head as I push a few strands of hair behind my ear. I didn’t dye my hair bright pink to get attention, I just liked the color and wanted to do something fun with my hair.

While Mia’s vibe is sexy banter, mine is more... girl next door who spends her free time going for hikes in search of the perfect hammock spots so that she can lose track of time while reading a fairytale-esque romance novel.

What can I say?

I’m named after a fictional princess, and I love a happy ending. Bonus points if the happy ending involves sharing a toe-curling orgasm at the end of the story.

“So,” Mia changes the subject, “How far away did Jason say he was?”

Crap.

“I forget. Let me check.” I angle my body away so that she can’t see my phone as I squint at the screen.

Sixteen minutes late and counting. Still no message from him. My heart somersaults in my chest as I realize he might be about to ghost me for the first time. My sweet, stable, pilot boyfriend is going to ghost me the day he’s supposed to undergo bestie approval at my favorite bar.

I had this exact nightmare once. The reality is way more terrifying than a bad dream.

“Everything okay?” Mia nudges me with her elbow.

I laugh nervously, a high-pitched guffaw that distinctly says no, everything is not okay.

Seventeen minutes. Maybe something terrible happened to Jason, and I don’t know yet because things are way too new for me to be his emergency contact. He’s in a coma somewhere, waking up and immediately asking the doctor for the time because he has a very important first meeting to get to.

“Is your friend okay?”

Oh great, the bartender is watching me with concerned eyes, too. So glad that Mia and the cute bartender could bond so that when I go into a full-blown panic attack out of embarrassment and pass out on this barstool, she has someone to help carry my limp body out.

Things could be worse. I’ll take sweat stains in the armpits of my sweater over something like… an unexpected heat spike in public. Still, this situation is becoming completely mortifying.

“Everything is great, except... “ Why am I still lying? I’m not doing a great job, she already knows something is up. “Traffic. There’s traffic.”

There, that isn’t a lie. Technically, traffic always exists. Just sometimes worse than others. Maybe tonight is a bad traffic night. How would she know otherwise?

“Really?” Mia arches her eyebrows. I feel like the world is moving in slow motion as she slides her phone out of her jeans pocket and quickly navigates to her map app. “None of the streets on my map look red. Which direction is he coming from? The airport?”

I resist the urge to swat the phone out of her hand like a cat. Look at her bringing logic into a conversation where it doesn’t belong.

Nineteen minutes. Once we hit twenty minutes, I really should just assume he’s dead. That’s easier to live with than the idea of him ghosting me after I told him how much this introduction means to me. Mia is practically my sister. Now, I have to admit to her that my sweet and stable boyfriend is actually my rude and unpredictable ex -boyfriend.

At least we’re already at a bar. I can drink my woes away.

Mia looks up at me, waiting for me to answer so that she can sleuth out the nonexistent traffic. My mouth hopelessly opens and shuts like a goldfish as I summon the courage to lay my dead relationship at her feet.

“The thing is–”

“Oh!” Her eyes light up as her gaze slides past me. “Is that him?”

Oh, thank god.

My whole mood brightens as I swivel on my stool and look in the same direction as her. Jason runs his hand over his head to brush off a layer of snow as his gaze frantically searches the room. His coat is covered, too. The snow must have picked up quite a bit since the light dusting that was coming down when Mia and I arrived early.

“No wonder there was traffic. Looks like we’re in for one heck of a snowstorm tonight. I’m sure you wouldn’t be too upset about being snowed in with your beau, though, huh?” Mia’s attempt to tease me falls short as I continue to watch Jason.

His gaze finally lands on us where we’re sitting at the bar. The corners of his lips tip up into a soft smile when he sees me. As he walks toward us, his gaze slides to Mia beside me, and his steps falter.

“Oh no,” Mia mutters under her breath.

I tear my eyes away from Jason to look over my shoulder at my best friend. Her mouth is open wide with shock, the skin around her eyes wrinkled with worry. She can’t seem to tear her gaze away from Jason’s direction. My tight grip on my phone might as well be a grip around my heart as my chest squeezes painfully.

I watch with horror as Mia’s nostrils flare and she inhales deeply. Her eyelids flutter closed, and the muscles of her face relax into omega bliss. There’s only one scent that can otherwise override an omega’s good judgment...

Did my best friend just find her scent-match?