Chapter 33
Chapter Thirty-Three
Belle
This feels like the worst possible moment for my phone to start ringing.
I’m awkwardly contorting myself to keep my desk chair from completely falling apart as I try to carefully take it apart piece by piece. The comfy chair with its footrest and vibrating pad maximizes my comfort... and also makes the chair a beast to move all in one piece. I made that mistake when I moved into this apartment, and I vowed never to make it again.
I’m sure Mia is calling even though she only left my apartment this morning. I finally had to kick her out so she would go back to work and her own apartment.
Whatever is going on between Jason and her, she didn’t seem in a hurry to be anywhere else but with me. Interesting. I should stop putting her off soon and rip the bandage off on her telling me what happened after she caught a whiff of him.
I keep working at taking my beloved chair apart as the phone stops ringing.
A few moments later, the chimes start up again.
“Ugh!”
Well, now I’m worried there’s an emergency or something. I release the stray limbs of my chair, letting everything fall into a heap on the floor. Guess I’ll box this sucker up as-is and deal with the consequences later at this point.
I hurry over to where my phone is sitting on an otherwise empty bookshelf.
“Hello?” I answer frantically without bothering to check the Caller ID.
Mia isn’t the one calling.
“Finally!” Janice shrieks in place of a greeting.
Janice is a marketing pro who specializes in working with indie authors. She runs ads online for my books and organizes my social media accounts since those kinds of things aren’t in my wheelhouse. Sometimes she’ll text me updates on how a campaign is doing. Otherwise, we stick to quarterly video calls for her to propose new campaigns for my backlist or whatever I have releasing next.
She doesn’t usually call me.
“Sorry, I’ve been busy packing. Is everything okay?” I think she’s doing excited shrieking, but I can’t tell for sure.
“Okay? Everything is more than okay. We’ve never seen this much online traffic in one day before!” Janice rambles a few paragraphs worth of information that I don’t understand about online metrics before I have to stop her.
“Janice, wait a second. I’m not sure what you’re saying. Why is there so much traffic all of a sudden?” The only traffic I understand is driving during rush hour, and I avoid that at all costs.
Janice takes a deep breath and steadies herself, coming down a notch from the crazy train. “All of the new traffic is coming from your viral marketing campaign. I imagine you didn’t realize what a huge success it would turn out to be, otherwise you could have clued me in beforehand so we could capitalize on this even more, but–“
“Viral marketing campaign?” I repeat, interrupting her. I swear we’re speaking two different languages, Janice and I. “What viral marketing campaign?”
I don’t do marketing. That’s why I hired Janice.
“You don’t know?” Janice falls silent in shock.
I laugh, shaking my head even though she can’t see me. “No. I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“I thought this was planned,” she says, her voice softer and filled with awe. “The fact that you didn’t know makes this even juicier.”
If she doesn’t explain soon, I’m going to hang up on her. I have a lot of packing to do, and I honestly don’t care too much about the finer details of social media posting. As long as my books make it into the hands of my sweet readers, the other stuff is all background noise to me.
The stories are what I put my heart and soul into.
“I’m forwarding you a link to your email now. You should watch and then message me back with your thoughts on how to address the attention. People are going wild online for these guys. Everyone wants to know the story behind your mates now.”
My mates?
Before I can ask for more clarification, she hangs up. I swear I can still feel her palpable excitement in the room with me.
I quickly scroll through my phone to my email, where Janice’s message is already waiting. I click on the link to the popular video site and feel my jaw drop instantly.
Knox?
I’m not totally surprised to see him onscreen since the guys did explain once their lies came to light that part of Knox’s career is being an online art influencer of sorts. No, the part that surprises me is that he’s acting out a scene I recognize from one of my freaking books!
What the hell?
This is... Crazy. Incredible. Surreal.
And just when I think I can’t be any more speechless, the first clip cuts to a second one where Percy plays the role of the first male lead I ever wrote. After Percy, there’s a scene with Rhys playing the starring role. They’ve nailed the details, even down to wearing clothes I’ve described for each character.
I click on Knox’s profile, expecting to greedily check out the shirtless content I’m anticipating.
Instead, his feed seems to have recently been flooded with video after video of the alphas doing renditions of scenes from my books. The number of views seems astronomical based on my limited knowledge. I can’t believe they did all of this for me in the short time since I left.
Spending more time exploring the app, I quickly realize that many of the videos have gone insanely viral. No wonder Janice seemed so hyped. People are filming their reactions to the videos. Some people are even filming themselves lamenting their own love lives and wishing they had a pack as supportive as the author.
Me!!!
I’m the author!
That’s me!
By the time I make it back to my email to confirm for Janice that I’m also excited now that I understand what’s going on, I’m flooded with messages from news outlets hoping to interview the four of us. Me and the three alphas they believe I’m in a bonded pack with.
Funny that everyone seems to be reacting as if the bonds are already a done deal. I make a mental note to go back and check out the captions and comments from the guys. I have a sneaking suspicion that they’ve started that rumor up themselves.
But hopefully it won’t be an unfounded rumor for long.
I need to go to them.
Mia took me to pick up a rental car last night. I pick the keys up from my coffee table and make sure to nab my purse from the hook by the door. I won’t be making the same mistake from the bar ever again, that’s for sure.
Even if I did wind up happier than I’ve ever been because of running away in the middle of a snowstorm.
I still don’t think I should make a habit of it.
Yanking the front door open, I’m stopped dead in my tracks.
“Snow Bunny,” Rhys breathes out my name like he’s been holding his breath since I left.
I launch myself at him, leaping into his arms so he has no choice but to catch me and hold me close so that I don’t fall on my ass.
“Two days without you is too long, so here we are,” Knox explains grumpily.
“We have a grand gesture for you, if you’re willing to let us show you,” Percy interjects, a hopeful high note to his voice.
“The videos?” I ask.
They shake their heads sheepishly. I don’t doubt that all three men must have swallowed their pride to act out my sweet, cheesy scenes for all of the internet to critique.
“I saw them.” I squeeze Rhys tighter for a moment before letting go slowly, sliding down the length of his body until I can stand on my own two feet again. I take a step back to see all three of them clearly. “And I love every single one. Almost as much as I love the three of you.”
All three stare at me slack-jawed. My heart rate increases when they don’t immediately say it back, but I know how I feel, and I’m determined to express myself. I double down on my confession by looking at them each in turn.
“I love you, Rhys.” The first of the alphas that I met.
“I love you, Percy.” The mystery man who’s been editing my books all this time.
“And I love you, Knox.” The grumpy artist who was a little harder to win over than the others, but worth every second of effort.
Before this pack, I would have thought falling in love in less than a week would be impossible. Now, I know better. When you spend days in close quarters, you get to know a person at breakneck speed. I knew more about these alphas in one day than I learned about Jason in the weeks we were dating.
I fell hard and fast even before we made it through my heat together. The way they handled my heat just confirmed what I already knew. They’re perfect for me. They feel like home. They feel like mine .
Knox regains his wits first. He eases forward and grabs my hands. “We were so scared you might not know how much we... We love you, too. I love you so much, Belle.” He gathers me up in his arms and squeezes me tight.
Rhys has to put in some serious effort to pry me away after a minute so he can have his turn.
“Fine,” Knox mutters as he steps back to let Rhys grab hold of me.
“I love you, Snow Bunny.” He gives me a quick squeeze before pursing his lips down at me. “You’re looking a bit thin. We need to get some of my cooking in you, pronto.”
Yikes.
But I feel lucky to love these alphas, flaws and all. Even if it means developing an iron stomach so that I can eat Rhys’s questionable cooking for the rest of my life.
Rhys has a slightly easier time handing me over to Percy. Percy doesn’t immediately squeeze me like the other two, he takes his time running his hands over my arms and sides, making sure I’m real. When he’s satisfied I’m not a hallucination, he wraps his arms snugly around me.
“I love you, Belle, as an omega and as an author. Your new book is incredible.”
“You already read it?” I ask, shocked.
He shrugs sheepishly, pulling back to look at me with a boyish grin. “I still need to give the book an actual edit, but I did a first read the second your email hit my inbox. I wanted to devour your words as fast as possible.”
“Wow,” I whisper breathlessly.
He’s so supportive. There’s something special about knowing I can be with a man who supports my work so enthusiastically.
“And I’m not the only one who’s been reading your work since you left the house,” he adds with a wiggle of his eyebrows.
My mouth falls open as I look past him at Rhys and Knox. Both of them smile nervously back, their cheeks tinged with near-matching shades of pink. They must not have expected Percy to rat them out right away. I like knowing they found a way to feel close to me in my absence.
I like even better that they didn’t let me stay away long before coming after me.
“So, what happens now?” I ask, genuinely unsure. If my bed were bigger, I would suggest showing them my bedroom in the hopes of seducing them. But I’m pretty sure my bed frame wouldn’t hold all of us even if we found a way to fit together on the mattress.
“I have some ideas,” Rhys smirks until Knox elbows him to shut up. I don’t mind Rhys’s ideas, but I think it’s funny how worked up he gets Knox sometimes with his unfiltered mouth.
Percy steps back so I can see all three guys equally. Their expressions are so happy, and that makes me feel so warm and fuzzy inside. As much as I hated the brief time away from them, I’m glad that it’s helped me better see the way they look at me.
There’s no doubting now that whatever our forever looks like... we’re going to face everything together from now on. I’ll never try to get space away from them again.
“Can we take you home, Belle?” Knox asks finally as if that’s not a given.
I grin and step aside so that I can gesture for them to get a better look inside my apartment, right at the boxes lining the living room wall, just waiting to be shipped over to their new home. I shrug and giggle as I answer, “ Duh , I already packed!”
Percy chuckles as Rhys and Knox both rush past me to grab boxes. We step out of the way as they carry my things out. Hopefull,y they’ve thought this through and brought more than just the one truck because all of my stuff won’t fit at once otherwise.
“Happy to have you back, Belle,” Percy says as he puts his arm over my shoulder and tugs me close again.
I look up at him with stars in my eyes and remind him, “You never lost me. I never really left.”
His smile widens, and I know in that moment that everything is destined to be okay. We’ll move past the white lies they once told and my brief stint of amnesia because these alphas are more than just a scent-match. They’re my whole world.