4. Sunshine
Chapter 4
Sunshine
T he next day I was dragging. I sat in my office at the Cosmic Bonds Welcome Center, considering packing it all in and moving to Fiji. Or maybe some armpit town in the Midwest where no one knew my name.
I had a billion small tasks to do, and I didn’t want to do a single one of them.
I loved my job. It gave me the challenge of being creative and figuring out a compromise between the budget the clients set and what was actually possible. But some of the day-to-day tasks were so tedious it made me wish I had an assistant, even though our budget couldn’t afford it. And I didn’t actually need one.
When I got really behind, I asked one of my sisters or cousins to help, but it was a massive pain in the butt to bring them up to sped.
Despite each of us being particularly good at one area, we all helped out with the rest of the business.
I was really great with bursts of inspiration and handling the vendors. But the small tasks would catch up with me. I couldn’t force myself to just sit and do them, so I would put it off until the absolute last minute and then, in a flash of cold sweat and panic, I’d get through my to-do list at once.
My cousin Raina, who was the oldest of the family, called this my Last-Minute Meltdown and kept telling me to do small boring tasks daily so I didn’t build up so much stress at the end.
I’d tried. I bought planners and made a schedule. I put reminders into my phone. I downloaded an app to help me remember tasks. None of it worked for long.
Every workaround that my family came up with, from reminders to Excel spreadsheets, would work great until something had to be adjusted, and I would go back to manually changing information. No two invoices looked the same, and neither did the orders to venders because everything was done differently for each event.
Anxiety hit me, making my stomach roll. I had forgotten to send two invoices yesterday. When Raina asked me if I’d sent all my invoices yet, I’d have to tell her no. Like I had the last three times she’d asked.
She’d even reminded me, by email and verbally, to finish up those invoices. But at the end of an event, I was so busy I could barely remember to eat. Sitting down to add more lines to an invoice while I was trying to make three phone calls, visit four different locations, and coordinate between the client and service providers just made me feel like death.
I should have put a reminder in my phone to finish them yesterday, but I’d been busy with the florist, and then it had been the actual event. And then when I’d gone home, I’d totally crashed.
Yet another failing that my former pack had pointed out whenever they caught me up late. Rob would say I needed to act like an adult if I wanted to run a successful event business.
I tapped on my keyboard, and, of course, my computer wanted to update. Whenever I wanted to get into my spreadsheet, build an invoice, and then fling it at the client, my computer acted up.
I huffed, waiting for the updates.
“Knock, knock.” Talia poked her head in the door.
My stomach clenched. I wasn’t sure I was ready to talk to Talia today.
She was my best friend, but she was sometimes hard to be around. Mostly because of how she’d responded when I’d found out Becca was sleeping with Rob and Isaac. Instead of taking my side, Talia had decided there were no sides. It was a bad situation, she told me. Scent-matching wasn’t common, and Becca couldn’t help that she’d scent-matched the men I was dating.
The problem with that was, in my heart, I didn’t believe that Becca had actually scent-matched Rob, and then the rest of the pack. But, instead of comforting me while my life was imploding, Talia reminded me that Becca was having a hard time too, because she couldn’t tell me about her new love. Then Talia had complained about being in the middle of her two best friends.
So I’d stopped talking about it. It hurt, and I still felt like I was right, but I didn’t want to fight about it either. It felt too much like high school drama. We were all grown women, for crying out loud. It was supposed to be ‘betas before boys’, but somehow that didn’t count when there was a scent match.
“Hey.” I looked up from my computer, internally swearing at the piece of junk. If it hadn’t been updating, I’d have the excuse of work to avoid talking to her.
“I wanted to check on you.” Talia came into the office and set a plate of cookies on my desk, scooting some papers over to clear a space. My desk was always ground zero of a massive paper mess. “Ember let me in. She’s still glaring at me.”
Talia sounded put out and confused, her platinum blonde hair framing her face like an angel.
My cousin, Ember, was still pissed off that Talia talked to Becca on a regular basis. My entire family was, but Ember didn’t bother to hide her stink eye.
My life had turned into a soap opera. Minus the hunky men vying for my love and attention.
“Just tired.” I forced a smile. “Trying to finish my invoices.”
“I heard you saw Becca last night.” Talia sat down in the chair opposite my desk. “Are you okay?”
I let out a gust of breath. “It hurt, but I’m okay.”
Talia frowned. “I’m sure that was awful. If I’d known they were going, I would have warned you.”
She had warned me in the past when Pack Beneventi was going to be attending certain functions. The problem was that, now Rob and Isaac were climbing the social ladder, there would be a higher chance of running into them. California was a big state, but not big enough, apparently.
I considered opening a browser to check into moving to the Midwest—somewhere far, far away from my exes—but of course my computer was still updating.
“Thanks. It was just a surprise.”
Talia cocked her head. “Becca said you were rude to her, which doesn’t sound like you.”
Hackles raised, I gritted my teeth. “Really? She called you right away to tell you I’d been mean to her, did she?”
Talia lifted her hands up. “I’m sorry. But you’re not usually rude, so I wanted to see how you were doing.”
“I was perfectly pleasant.” I couldn’t keep the defensiveness out of my tone. “But Julian was there, and Becca asked him if I was still chasing omegas.”
Talia frowned, her pretty face looking confused. Sometimes I wished she’d pick either me or Becca and stop trying to be a good friend to both of us.
I waited for Talia to tell me that was rude of Becca. But she didn’t say anything, and that was another little bitter twist in my heart.
I finished the story. “Julian brought up that she was the beta who’d been sleeping with the pack I was dating?—”
“—she scent-matched?—”
I held up my hand. “I don’t want to rehash everything. You asked me what happened. I’m telling you.”
Talia bit her lip. “That’s fair.”
“And I wasn’t rude. She was.”
“Okay.” Talia gave me another worried look. “I’m sorry you were hurt last night. I shouldn’t have brought it up.”
I held my tongue. I’d told her before she could be friends with Becca if she wanted, but that I didn’t want to talk about her.
It wasn’t Talia’s fault I had issues with being a beta. For once in my whole life, I wanted to be picked. To be special. I’d thought I was special with Pack Beneventi, but I wasn’t good enough when the time came to pick me over Becca.
The needy, insecure voice in my head whispered that if I had been the one to sleep with Becca’s boyfriends, both Talia and Becca would have shunned me. That I was the third wheel. Pretty, but not pretty enough. Good with people, but I didn’t have the allure that Becca had, or the charm Talia did.
I was the slightly awkward, weird beta girl with a big family.
I huffed, pushing the thoughts away. That was enough of a pity party. I was always tired after an event and emotionally worn out. I decided it was time to change the subject. “So, how’s the bakery?”
Talia was a baker and had been trying to expand her business. She was renting a small space on Main Street with a couple of other bakers. Spring break tourist season was currently upon us, so the foot traffic was bringing her extra revenue.
“Good, actually.” Talia pulled a thick piece of paper out of her purse. “What do you think about the menu?”
I looked over the menu and, for a little while, things went back to normal. We talked about the market for salted caramel, whether red velvet was still considered trendy, and what to do about this year’s holiday celebrations.
I thought Halloween cookies were going to be popular this year, but Talia thought it was going to be Christmas cookies again and wanted to do a Christmas in July event.
My phone chimed, and I looked at the bright screen. It was Julian.
Julian:
Babe
I’m on a twenty-four hour at the fire station and my useless alphas have the audacity to be busy.
Babe.
I’m bored.
Babe.
What are you doing?
Babe.
“Who’s blowing up your phone?” Talia grinned, leaning over her chair like she could see my phone from there. “All your relatives are here. I counted. Someone special in your life?”
I shook my head. “Julian’s on a twenty-four hour shift and bored.”
Firefighters had to work long shifts at the fire station. They needed to be ready the moment a call came in, which meant staying at the station house for twenty-four hours at a time.
They were allowed to sleep and relax during that time as well perform duties like exercise, study, and equipment checks.
“Uhh hmm.” Talia nodded. “Judging by how your face lit up, you’re not “just friends” as you keep telling me.”
I resisted the urge to text him back as two more “ babe ” messages came through. “Friends text each other when they’re bored.”
Talia smoothed her hands over her bakery menu. “I say go for it. He wouldn’t be spending time with you if he wasn’t interested. You’re gorgeous, smart, and successful. What more could he want?”
I smiled. “Thanks.”
“I’ll get out of your hair. Keep me posted.” She left in a flurry of motion.
I opened the chat. I’d missed two more “babes” and two actual sentences in the short time I’d been focused on Talia, so I tapped a response.
Sunshine:
Julian. How are you bored?
Don’t you have a fire hose to lift or wind sprints to run?
I hit send and realized my mistake.
Almost immediately he replied.
Julian:
You can lift my hose any time you want
I rolled my eyes, and then sent an eye rolling emoji for good measure. Julian could be hyper, and we had the same weird sense of humor. Days of silence followed by one of us being dramatic over text message was nothing new. I turned back to my computer as it gave a beep when it finally finished its updates. Then my phone pinged again.
Julian:
For real though what are you doing?
Something sexy?
I almost made a joke about him going into heat early, but I knew his heat schedule already. He wasn’t due for another two months. Julian flirted over text without ever being graphic, but in person he mostly kept it platonic.
Sunshine:
Only if you think invoicing is sexy
I would rather chew broken glass
Julian:
:(
Anything you do is sexy, but sadness for hated tasks
How many invoices do you have?
I opened my browser just as Ember stuck her head into my office. Her red hair was down today, and she looked like the chaos gremlin of mischief that she was. She grinned. “Hey, favorite cousin.”
“Your leftovers are in the breakroom fridge.”
Ember loved Logan’s cooking as much as I did, and I made sure to steal her a plate when I did events.
“Raina is on a tear today. Something about her computer systems being down.” Ember gestured down the hall to the rest of our offices. “I’d finish your invoices if I was you.”
“I’m trying.” I waved at my computer. “It just took twenty minutes to update.”
“Do McCullen’s now,” Ember said. “I’ll buy you time to get the rest done by tonight.”
“I owe you.” Relief rushed over me. I didn’t want to know what Ember was going to do to distract Raina, but I would take the stay of execution.
“Get Logan to make me more of that Sex in a Pan?—”
“—that’s not what it’s called,” I started. “It’s a Pudding Bar Cake.”
“—and we’re even.” Ember left before I could argue with her about the name of her favorite dessert.
Feeling a bit less stressed, I went back to my text messages.
Sunshine:
Apparently, Ember will buy me time to finish the *cough cough* five invoices I have left if Logan makes more Sex in a Pan.
Julian sent me some laughing emojis.
Julian:
That’s too obvious, even for me
I can make that happen, tell Ember the goods will be delivered tomorrow
In the meantime, if you want to do your invoices let’s body double and I’ll do my checklists for Wednesday
Sunshine:
We have a deal
Sometimes having someone work at the same time helped me hate it less. Julian called it body doubling, and I saw the term floating around the Internet a couple of times.
I filled out my stupid, boring, horrible invoices while Julian made occasional comments about the safety checks. I snickered to myself as he cracked jokes about how the fire hose was still fine, the water tank was still where they left it, and so on.
I got my invoices finished with a rush of relief, and even managed to finish up other boring tasks before it was time to go home.
When I got back to my cottage, I messaged Julian to see if he was free for me to call so we could play video games. He was done with his work tasks, so we both signed in online to play Race to Win . I sucked at the game, but Julian loved it, and it was an easy way to turn off my brain. The players raced around a variety of tracks from normal racetracks to the moon.
I could hear the voices of other firefighters in the background, some of them joining our game, and for a while I forgot about my worries.
Right in the middle of a race, an alarm sounded, and Julian’s voice changed from excited to calm and controlled. “We got a call, got to go.”
“Text me when you get back safely,” I said, before exiting the game and hanging up.
It was impossible to sleep that night. I tossed and turned, wondering if Julian was okay. How Luca and Logan could stand it. My phone vibrated, and I rolled over, grabbing for it.
Julian:
Back safe, gonna crash now
Sunshine:
Okay good
Sleep well.
I stared at my ceiling in the dark. We were friends, but the worry and stress I felt didn’t feel like that was all we were.
No matter how many times I told myself it would end with my heart shattered in a million pieces, I couldn’t help wanting more.