Chapter 19 Summer
SUMMER
Giancarlo was a crotchety old man with thick black spectacles and bushy Bigfoot eyebrows.
Not eyebrows like Bigfoot. Eyebrows that could be confused for Bigfoot.
They were very distracting. Starlight Grove was town number five on his grand tour to share his craft.
I started to get a sneaking suspicion his Italian accent was not real when he said “Bellissimo” for the fifteenth time.
I sighed and took another gulp of my mimosa.
The community center was not air-conditioned so we needed to hydrate very quickly.
“Summer, what are you going to make?” Ivy asked.
She had already used a wire to cut her clay into three separate blocks, no doubt planning something for each of her packmates.
Giancarlo spent a lot of time talking about the wind in his hair in Sicily, and the only guidance he offered about pottery was that we should experience the clay.
“I dunno.” I aimlessly kneaded my gray lump. “We’re meant to be doing bowls, right?”
“Maybe you should tell us who left the hickey on your neck instead,” Olive suggested.
“Lucien. I sent him into rut last night,” I replied without missing a beat.
Tools clattered from Ivy’s hands, Olive started laughing, and Lucy nearly fell off her chair.
Once she righted herself, she picked up a wooden modeling tool and whacked me with it.
“How dare you,” she chided me. “For not telling us the minute we got here! Why do I know more about riding Vespas in the hills of Piedmont than you and Lucien !”
“By the way, do you think Giancarlo knows that Piedmont is nowhere near Sicily?” Ivy giggled.
Lucy clicked her fingers. “We have to focus!” She began furiously shaping two small balls of clay and pressed them into my hands. “This can be you. And this is Lucien. Now show us what happened.”
I looked down at the misshapen figures that I suppose could be human if you squinted or were blind. The mimosa in my belly told me to place one on top of the other horizontally. “Pretty much like this.” I shrugged.
Lucy pressed her palms into her eyes. “Why is she doing this to me?” she bemoaned to no one in particular.
Olive speedily whipped up two more little figures. “Here’s Jae and Mercer,” she said brightly. “You should update us on everyone.”
“Yes, what happened after the Fourth?” Ivy removed my figurine from beneath the Lucien figurine and started using a scoring tool to give me some very luscious hair, which I appreciated.
I very quickly gave them a sanitized version of my new arrangement with the brothers.
“The most exciting time in a relationship is the honeymoon period, right? That first three months where it’s just sex and more sex before it fizzles out.
So this will just be the fun part. I really think I’ve cracked the code on this pack thing, you guys,” I nodded, satisfied.
Ivy’s encouraging smile was offset by some very concerned brows. She was definitely the worrywart of our group, but it really wasn’t necessary here. “What about courtship, though?” she asked.
“What do you mean?”
“Don’t you want to go on dates and be spoiled?
” Ivy placed my figurine in the middle of the guys, bouncing me between them like I was a football.
I could understand where she was coming from since her pack had gone to great lengths to give her a perfect courtship.
But she was looking to settle down. I was only just getting started with my dreams.
“I spoil myself plenty. Do I need to remind you how many sneakers I own? Nothing about that says restraint .” I plucked myself out of her hand.
“And that’s not what this is meant to be.
Courtship would lead to attachment.” To illustrate my point, I squished the four of us together into an abomination.
“That’s a no-no,” I said, carefully peeling my mini-me off the others.
Olive very kindly helped separate the guys with a sculpting knife. “Do you know why they’re not a pack?” she asked, patting them back into shape.
“They’ve lived really separate lives.” I shrugged. It was more than that. I could sense that the jagged, heartbroken edges of how their family pack broke apart deeply affected them. It didn’t feel like my place to push it to the surface.
“But they get along well?”
“Sure. They’re enjoying their little reunion, but they all have work commitments after this.
” Mini-Lucien’s nose really suffered from being squashed together, and I focused on getting it back to that perfect, sloping angle.
Jae’s smile wasn’t quite right. A little higher on one side.
There we go. I gave Mercer exaggerated angry brows and giggled to myself.
My friends were staring at me when I looked up from my handiwork.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
They still looked like they needed more convincing. “Look, I know you guys are really happy with your packs. But it’s just not for me right now.”
They knew I had dated a pack during college but not much else. The relationship fizzled because we were going separate ways after graduation. It had never been very serious, which is why the fragile, bruise-like way I felt was so confusing.
It had been hard to maintain a close relationship with my family living several hours away, but I made calls and visits a priority.
My pack never held me back from that, but they never understood it, either.
Again, Summer? Babe, you’re supposed to enjoy college!
I found myself sharing less and less, just to avoid those uninterested, half-hearted replies.
After the relationship was over and my head was clear, I realized I didn’t want to lose who I was to a pack.
For many omegas, their packs were their entire life.
Whether it was gradually or by choice. Even my friends went through it during the early stages of their relationships, although to my great relief, it hadn’t stuck.
My family, my friends, and now my bakery—they were all a part of who I was. I didn’t want to find myself in the position of choosing who I was meant to care about more.
“Bellas!” A nosy presence loomed over our table. “Dio mio, what on earth is happening here?”
“Nothing, Giancarlo,” Lucy said in her singsong voice.
“Yeah, we’re having a great time,” Ivy said, nodding way too enthusiastically.
Giancarlo inflated like a hot air balloon. “As you should. After all, you are here with me,” he said expansively before sweeping away.
“Okay, that’s it,” Olive griped. “Who the hell is this guy?” She pulled out her phone and fell deep into online sleuthing. “Oh my god. There’s a Google review from his ex-wife that says his name is Gene Cooper, he’s from Wisconsin, and he owes her ten thousand dollars in unpaid alimony!”
We fell into fits of laughter, and Ivy swiped the phone from Olive’s hand. “How could Stanley approve this?” she said, her distress growing over this flagrant disregard for rules and decorum.
I scanned the unsuspecting townspeople manhandling clay around us. “Should we tell anyone else?”
“No, no. Let them live out their dreams of one day making pottery in the Tuscan countryside,” Lucy giggled.
Olive held up her attempt at a pouring jug. “At least we have some nice mementos of our time with Gene.”
“How am I supposed to explain to the guys that I went to a pottery class and returned with effigies of us?” I asked, all three of the Beaufort brothers rolling in my palm. Attempting to sculpt them accurately rather than making them cute and cartoonish had really upped the creepiness factor.
Lucy fluttered her lashes way too many times to be innocent. “If they find it charming, then you will know they are in love with you.”