Slow Hours #2
"You okay, Mack?" Her dark eyes flicker toward the house. "Do you want to talk about it?"
"Nothing to talk about. I’m right as rain." I flash her a grin. "Do you want some coffee? I can make a pot."
"Cut the shit." She gives me a look sharp enough to shave with. "Be honest. How are you really?"
I let my grin fall, not sure why she’s going full alpha on me. "Who pissed in your cornflakes?"
"Seriously?"
"What?"
"So that's the game we’re playing?" She crosses her arms, clearly annoyed, and I’m at a total loss.
"You've been out here all night while your pack alpha’s inside claiming an omega," she says harshly.
"One of your other mates is tied up in the garage.
And you're sitting on the porch by yourself watching old ladies walk their dogs.
" She shakes her head. "That can't be easy, hermano.
So don't 'right as rain' me. Talk to me. "
I look out at the yard for a minute, trying like hell not to think too much about it. Because, yes, the way Ren says it makes it sound bad, but there’s no sense dwelling on any of it.
"I'm good, Ren," I say, and I mostly mean it. "I am. I’m enjoying some fresh air."
She pushes out a heavy sigh, then she tips her head at the house. "And why aren't you in there? With Nico and Owen? Taking care of your omega too."
"I didn't want to scare her,” I say simply, because it’s the truth.
I wasn't happy when Nico first kicked me out, but now that I’ve had time to think about it, he was right to do so.
"She went through something rough, and the last thing she needs is a man my size losing his head and climbing on top of her.
" I turn my head to the yard, feeling the cool breeze across my face.
"I want to make sure she wants me too. I don’t want her to feel like she has to accept me only because she has a thing for the rest of my mates. "
Renata frowns. "Why wouldn’t she want you too?"
I shrug. "I don’t know." I shift, leaning forward and putting my elbows on my knees. "The other guys have a nice, warm energy with her. I can make her laugh, but I’m not sure she wants much more."
"Okay." Then she tilts her head, and I know that look. She's about to pick a lock she's got no business touching. "But that’s not the only reason, is it?"
"Here we go."
"I'm just asking." She holds up both hands. "All I know is that you really took your time claiming Owen. Are you sure you aren’t holding yourself back with Lyra on purpose?"
I glare at the she-alpha.
"Perhaps it has more to do with not wanting to bond with her. Letting someone see all the way into that head of yours for the first time in your life has got to be scary."
I roll my eyes, trying to keep it light. I've had a lot of practice keeping it light. "I'm not that guarded, Ren."
"Mack." She says my name flat. "You are the most guarded man I have ever met."
"It’s called rugged mystery." I wink, but Renata doesn’t even smile.
"You lived with this pack almost three years before you let Owen mate you.
" She keeps needling me. "Three years, Mack.
And I remember your face when that bond didn't take.
You were relieved. The whole world is aching to find a mate they can share a mental bond with, and you looked like a man who dodged a bullet. "
I wave a hand at her. "You're making something out of nothing."
"Maybe." She goes quiet for a second, and I can tell that she’s not quite done yet.
Lord give me strength.
"All I'm saying." Renata's voice goes soft, almost tender. "Kids who grow up in the system learn early to keep their distance. It's harder to lose what nobody's holding on to. And it doesn’t help the kind of life you were forced to live afterwards. That’s got to make anyone closed off."
The morning goes real quiet.
I swallow the bile in my throat, then say, "What would you know about coming up in the system?"
Renata reaches over and lays a hand flat on my shoulder, warming my skin from the cold.
"Nothing," she says gently. "I didn't mean it like that.
I only mean that I love you, you big idiot.
And I know your life hasn't been easy. Losing your mom so young, bouncing from foster home to foster home after, then doing whatever it took to survive.
" She squeezes me, lovingly. "I want you happy. That's all I’m trying to say."
I don't say anything for a bit. The sun's full up over the roofline now, warming the boards under my feet.
"I am happy," I tell her. And it lands as true as anything I've ever said. "Real happy, Ren. I promise."
Even if the she-alpha does have a point. She usually does.
That's the annoying thing about her.
"Good." She squeezes my shoulder once more, then lets go.
"Then hear me on this, because I'm only gonna say it once.
" She waits until I look at her. "An omega needs a bond with all her alphas, Mack, a real one. You can’t joke and laugh and keep her at arm’s length forever.
Making that girl wait around for you to feel safe enough to show her the real you, is just cruel to her. You need to mate her. Soon."
"I wasn't planning on making her wait," I lie, and I can tell from the look on her face that Renata knows it too.
I was absolutely planning on taking things slow.
"Yeah, okay." Renata pushes off the railing, then she toes the duffel toward me with her boot. "Take the clothes. I guessed on the sizes, but Lyra’s gonna need her own things. She can't spend her whole life in Owen's shirts."
I nod, but the truth is I like Lyra in our clothes. She makes them smell like heaven.
Renata heads down the steps, then turns at the bottom, walking backward toward that rattletrap car.
"Love you, Mack." She points at me. "Go inside. Don't make that girl wonder why one of her alphas won't touch her."
"Love you too, Ren."
She folds herself into the car, cranks it to life on the second try, and rattles off down the block in a cloud of blue smoke, leaving me alone on the porch with a pink pair of Converse and a whole lot to think about.
I watch her car disappear into the distance, then I push up out of the chair. I roll the stiffness out of my shoulders, and take one more slow look up and down the street. Miss Ellie's long gone. A truck rolls past two houses down, some fella off to an early shift. Ordinary. Quiet.
Nothing out here but a regular Friday morning.
I scoop up the duffel and the little pink shoes then turn to head inside.
My hand is on the doorknob when I catch it in the corner of my eye. That same black SUV, easing up the street, very slowly.
I go still, watching it roll past the house at that same lazy crawl, like whoever's behind the glass has all the time in the world and nowhere in particular to be.
I don't move until it takes the corner at the end of the street and slides out of sight.
Then I stand there a second longer, staring at the empty spot where it turned, that easy morning gone sour in my gut.
I make a note to mention it to Nico tonight. Probably nothing. Rich folks get lost out here sometimes, take a wrong turn off the main road. But it's the second time, and I've lived too many years on instinct to pretend I didn't clock it.
I shake it off, pull the door open the rest of the way, and Lyra's scent hits me the second I crack it. But it's gentled overnight.
It’s not the thick, drowning wall of sex and slick that made me run for the door. It's softer now, warm and sweet, but somehow settled. It almost smells like all of us mixed together. Like she’s already folding into our pack.
I stand in the doorway and breathe it all in for a minute. Thankfully, my body stays put.
Good.
Warm early light comes through the front windows and slants across the card table, the couch, Owen's books stacked crooked on the end table. From down the hall, past the primary door, I catch the low familiar rasp of Nico snoring. It sounds like everyone is still asleep.
I set the duffel down by the couch, then head toward the kitchen.
Time to go see about my mate.
I cross the kitchen and ease the garage door open.
Adrian's right where we left him. Down on the concrete, back against the workbench, wrists still lashed to the leg of it. But the second the light from the kitchen falls across him, his head comes up, and I can see it in his face before he says a word.
He's back to normal.
The wild thing that was riding him yesterday is gone. His blue-gray eyes are clear and tired and full of a misery I know too well.
"Mack." His voice cracks. "God, Mack, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry, I don't—I didn't—"
"Hey. Hey now." I rush to his side, and drop to my knees beside him, and that's when I see it.
The massive workbench loaded down with all of Adrian and Nico’s tools, has been dragged a good foot and a half off the wall. There are gouges in the concrete where the legs scraped the floor.
I let out a low whistle.
"Damn, brother." I get my hands on the ropes at his wrists. "You moved the whole bench. You know how much that thing weighs?"
"Mack, please—" He's not hearing me. The apologies keep pouring out of him. "I don't know what happened. I don't know what came over me, I've never, I couldn't stop it—"
"I know." I work the first knot loose. "I know you couldn't."
"I needed her." His breath hitches. "That's all there was. I needed to get to Lyra, and I didn't care who I hurt." His voice gets thick with emotion. "You. Nico. Even Owen." His voice fills with shame. "What kind of alpha does that?"
The rope gives, and his hands come free. He drops them into his lap and looks at them like they belong to somebody else.
I take his face in both hands.
"Look at me, baby." I tip his head up. "You listen. You didn't hurt anybody. We're all fine. Everybody's fine, you hear me?"
His chin trembles, and a tear breaks loose, running down his sweet face and curving around my thumb.