Nelly #3
Lia smiles softly. "I think you've found your pack and you're thinking your family won. But they didn't. They're not here, girlie. It's just you and your renovation business trying to figure out life. What if they can help you figure it out?"
"What if they take everything from me?"
"Is that something you think they'd actually do? Or is that a fear your family implanted in you?"
I think of Beau and how he's helped me through the years.
I think of Levi and the business he owns, and how much knowledge he could bring to the table.
Hell, I even think of Nash and the times he's fined me, but never once arrested me or interrupted any of my projects that annoyed my temporary neighbors.
"I don't think they'd take it from me, no," I say with a sniffle. "But I know they'd want input."
"Of course," Lia says with a giggle as she leads me to the couch. "They're Alphas. They'll always have opinions. But my bakery wouldn't exist without mine. Their input is what made Milk & Honey Pastries what it is today, and it's better than anything I could have ever expected."
I flop onto the couch and groan. "I don't know what's wrong with me."
"Nothing, Nelly. Nothing's wrong with you. You're scared and battling memories. That's a hard place to be."
I look over at her. "I ran from them."
"And?"
I give her a sad smile. "I miss them. Is that weird?"
She reaches out and smooths some hair off my forehead. "You're newly bonded. I'm surprised you're not champing at the bit to get out of this place and go find them. I can only imagine they're running around town trying to find you."
"You think so?"
She smiles. "I know so. My Alphas would do the same if I ran from them."
"At least you can admit that's what you did." I lay my head back and gaze up at the ceiling. "I don't know what's wrong with me, Lia. Part of me wants to go back to them and part of me wants to keep running and I don't know how to reconcile the two."
"At least we have finally gotten to the actual issue."
My brow furrows as I look back over at her. "What?"
She just shrugs. "Is it really the idea of being with them that scares you? Or is it this fear of being controlled by a pack?"
Her question burns straight through me. I stare at her for a while and all of a sudden, I wonder if she'd like a friend. Is this how you make friends? I don't know, I was shit at it in high school and I never wanted to deal with the consequences of making friends, anyway.
I feel like Lia would be a nice friend.
Lia reaches for my hand. "Look. I can tell you that my pack worries about me constantly.
Relentlessly. Sometimes I'm bombarded with too many questions so they can have all of the context about my day they need to settle their own worries.
But they certainly don't control a thing I do. They know better than that."
"Yeah?" I ask with way too much hope in my voice.
"Yeah," she says with a nod. "And if you're struggling with your loss of self, or worrying about losing everything you've built, the first thing you need to do is talk with them about it.
If they know what you're afraid of, they know how to reassure you.
Alphas can't read your mind. They can only feel your emotions. "
I absentmindedly rub at my chest again. "Right, right."
Then Lia sits up abruptly. "You know what you need?"
"To not be crazy?"
She laughs as she stands. "A girls' night."
I blink. "A girls' night?"
"Yep," she says as she fishes her cell phone out of her bra, of all things. "I'm going to call Tansy and Lo. I'm sure they're free for the night, and I know Lo's been itching for a girls' night for a while."
"I… don't think I know them."
"You know Ford?"
"Yeah?"
"Lo is his Omega. She's got her whole pack, like me. Tansy isn't taken yet, but she runs The Gilded Lily."
"Ohhh," I say as realization dawns. "Okay, I mean, I've never had a girls' night before. But that sounds—"
Lia gasps. "You've never what?"
I blink. "Had… a… girls' night?"
She tosses her hands into the air. "How have you never had a girls' night!? That's, like, a quintessential Omega experience. You never had them in high school?"
I push myself off the couch. "I was too embarrassed of my family to make friends growing up."
"You've let your family control you for way too long," Lia says as she holds her phone to her ear. "We change that tonight."
She's a headstrong little thing, this Lia.
I like her.
"Tansy!" she says the second the call connects. "Girls' night. Vineyard. Go abduct Lo and get her over here. We've got a new friend who's never had a girls' night."
"Never!?" the woman on the other end of the line squeals.
Lia giggles as she holds the phone out from her ear. "We're doing the works tonight. Come prepared to sleep over. And call Lo. Get her in the car with you, one way or another."
A sleepover?
I've never experienced a sleepover before.
But as Lia hangs up the phone and rubs her hands together, something tells me this is the start of a new era in my life.
One where I'm not the self-ousted Omega of my whole hometown.