Chapter 29
Chapter Twenty-Nine
BILLIE
“Let’s go get those chocolates from your stockings,” Marley’s brother says, effortlessly herding all of the kids scattered around the large living room onto the back porch.
Brett presses a kiss to Marley’s temple and then follows the other men out of the room.
In a matter of minutes, it’s only Marley, Dani, Valeria, and me.
They move closer to me, each taking up a spot within touching distance of where I’ve buried myself into a corner of the large sectional, trying to keep out of the way of their very happy Christmas celebration.
I sigh and set the glass of wine on the side coffee table.
My voice is petulant, and I can’t even dredge up the effort to be embarrassed by that.
“Am I really that obvious?”
All three of them say, “Yes,” entirely in sync and then laugh.
Dani runs a hand over her growing belly before sighing.
“In transparency, we all have a betting pool about what happened.”
“You do not.”
Valeria only nods, giggling.
“It was Mark who started it,” she says. “You can blame him.”
I toss a pillow at Dani, but I manage the first smile in over a week. Marley takes in the entire scene, her eyes keen even as she smiles at me finally relaxing. She’s been nothing but supportive since I showed up in a crying mess on her doorstep late Wednesday night with nothing but my purse.
“I don’t know if I should ask what you all have guessed,” I admit, trying to delay the meltdown that will accompany me finally saying any of the events from the last two months in Nashville.
“Well, Brett already got half-credit,” Marley says. “His guess was that you bonded with Paxton. I then tried to tell him that that wouldn’t put you on a plane back out here, but he just shrugged and stuck to that guess.”
Valeria taps her collarbone right where the bonding bite sits on me. Despite everything, I blush. All three of them laugh.
“We also have something for you,” Dani says. She reaches under the coffee table, not hindered by her pregnancy at all at this point, only a couple months away from her due date, and grabs a gift bag with vintage reindeer on the sides.
I frown and look at the small collection of perfume they’ve already given me.
“It’s not from us,” Marley says in answer to my glance. “It came yesterday. Well, one of them came Monday, but the other one came yesterday. I wrapped them together.”
Nerves freeze me with my hand outstretched to take the small bag. Dani frowns, the corners of her eyes creasing with worry, but sets the bag in my palm anyway.
It’s like an out-of-body experience as I ease the tissue paper to the ground and grab the first item.
It’s a box, similar to something that would hold a necklace, but not quite as thin.
I recognize it instantly from the last few Christmases we’ve spent together.
A weight presses on my chest, and my heartbeat roars in my ears.
I ease the box open. A handmade wooden tag, designed to look like a boarding pass, sits nestled against velvet.
It lists Prague as the destination, the first two weeks of June the travel dates.
When I pick it up, all three women murmur words of excitement.
“That’s so pretty! I forgot Paxton does that for you every year.” Valeria says. “Oh! Prague! You’ve wanted to go there for years, right? That’s going to be so fun.”
A lump fills my throat, and I can’t manage to swallow around it. There’s a note in the case, carefully folded to disappear under the tag. There’s never been a note before. I hand the tag to Marley and then take the note, unfolding it with trembling hands.
Bee, I hope your Christmas is happy and filled with warmth. You deserve all the happiness in the world. I know you’ve always wanted to go explore the Byzantine cathedrals. The tickets are under your name. Take whoever you want. I know you’ll have a wonderful time.
Yours.
There’s no signature, not his name or his initials.
Just Yours. I turn the note over before they can read his writing and grab the second item, trying to keep from crying just yet.
The girls’ excitement has faded, each of them realizing I’m not responding similarly.
Marley sets the tag back in the box then hands it to Dani, her frown deepening as the minute stretches.
The second item is slightly larger, carefully wrapped in kraft paper and twine, sprigs of ruscus tucked into the knot. That lump grows larger.
“That one came Monday,” Marley says. “There wasn’t a note or anything with it.”
I nod, then slowly open it, revealing a first edition of Jane Eyre. There’s a note written on the back of the kraft paper, short and simple.
Found one. Hope you put it somewhere it makes you happy.
How in the world had she found one? These are so expensive. I look between the two gifts, the blatant wealth of them both stealing my breath.
“Oh, wow,” Dani whispers, awed. “That looks really cool.”
This time I do let the tears fall, not sure how to process either of their gifts when I haven’t responded to any of their texts. Marley frowns and wraps her arm around my shoulders.
“What happened, Billie?” she asks. “All jokes aside. You can tell us.”
I blow out a breath and give them the whole story, from the first moment I felt interest in Carys before Halloween to the night I flew back here last week.
If anyone can help me figure out what I’m supposed to do with all of it, it’s the women who’ve been my friends since Paxton bought me a ticket to a game of his for the very first time.
PAXTON
The Wilder house is more restrained than I expected.
Ares has been an incredibly successful assistant coach in the league for over twenty years, and that comes with a wealth similar to what we players accumulate over a much shorter amount of time.
Yet the house is only a moderate size, the neighborhood nice but not overly wealthy.
Rhett rings the doorbell tucked just to the left of the happy yellow front door. The door should feel audacious when mixed with the brown-red brick and dark brown trim and shutters. And yet… it works. It adds a punch of vibrancy to something many would call mundane.
I can’t help but think of Carys, the way she lights up every group she’s around, her smile infectious even when she’s nervous or sad. And then I want to throw up, all those nerves rising in my chest and twisting my stomach into a knot.
“Breathe, man,” Rhett murmurs, tucking his hand into the pocket of his dark jeans, his other arm casually holding the box of gifts he’d managed to put together in the last week.
“Easy for you to say right before we spend the holiday with your girlfriend.”
He just shrugs.
The desire to punch him rises so fast in me, my hands shake with it.
Instead, I scowl and tighten my hold on the bottle of wine I’d grabbed Monday before the game after overnighting a package to California in the hopes it got to her in time for Christmas.
A rush of nerves flood under my chest, and I swallow the nasty retort sitting on the tip of my tongue, turning my focus back to the vibrant door.
It’s Ares who opens it, his eyes guarded but not overtly hostile.
“Dad! I can get it!” Carys calls from deeper in the modest house. Ares glances over his shoulder.
“What? You don’t trust me with your boyfriend?” he asks, humor lacing his voice.
Humor. I’ve never heard this man be anything near humorous the two and a half months I’ve been part of the Scorpions.
I cast a sideways glance at my brother, but he’s just as surprised as me.
So it’s not something Ares does often at all, apparently.
Carys squeaks something I can’t quite understand, and then Ares laughs in truth.
“Merry Christmas,” Ares says, turning back to us and standing away from the entrance, letting us both into the house.
Carys rushes into the entryway, her cheeks flushed a dark pink.
Mascara lengthens her lashes, framing in her bright green eyes, and a dark red lipstick draws my eyes straight to her mouth.
Her hair is pulled back, half of it pulled into a ponytail while the rest cascades in loose waves down her back.
Her orchid scent slowly weaves its way toward us, and I can’t help the cypress scent that responds from my own body.
I swallow and drop my gaze, nerves and guilt twisting through me.
Her unease joins them a minute later, and I nearly scream from all of the undercurrents running between the four of us.
Ares focuses on his daughter, and her unease grows more incessant in my blood.
There’s a long, unspoken conversation between them, the kind learned over years of trying to be subtle in large groups.
Carys twists her hands in to the skirt of her deep purple sweater dress. Ares nods, then turns to me.
“I can take that,” he offers, holding his hand out for the wine. I hand it over woodenly. “Rhett, you mind helping me?”
The question isn’t at all subtle, and for some reason, I have the desire to laugh at everyone’s audacity in making sure Carys and I are alone in a room for the first time since…
I swallow and shove back the half-clear memories I have of that afternoon.
Her shoulders relax as it must hit her end of the bond.
“Merry Christmas,” she says, breaking the silence, infinitely braver than me.
When I murmur the same greeting, she blows out a breath. Her eyes search mine, her teeth biting into her lip. Her orchids weave around me again, stronger than before. Her cheeks flush as she looks away, straightening a photo on the table just inside the door.
“Sorry,” she whispers. “I… It’s just…” Her throat moves with a heavy swallow, and her scent gets stronger again, and distress edging it.
I instinctually move closer to her, carefully grabbing her elbow to soothe the rush of anxiety I can feel from her.
It takes me a minute to realize what must be happening with her, something I’ve not actually seen.
Most Omegas don’t risk the long-term effects of suppressors, so it’s not all that common.
“You’re touch-sensitive?” It comes out as a question rather than a statement. Her nostrils flare as my scent rushes around us, trying to soothe her, responding to her on that primal level I’ve not really felt before. Not like this, at least.
She only nods, her eyes wide, that anxiety growing larger though slightly different than before.
“I don’t want it to influence whatever this conversation’s about to be,” she admits, messing with another picture. “Sorry it called out to you like that.”
I shake my head.
“No, it’s all right. It won’t influence any more than the bond might,” I admit.
She gives a small smile, then pulls her hands behind her back, turning to focus entirely on me. My own nerves rise, but I shove them back down. One of us clogging the bond with worry is plenty.
“I’m sorry.” It seems the best place to start.
She swallows but doesn’t nod, doesn’t accept the apology. “When did you realize we were matched?”
Saying it for the second time isn’t any easier. “The day you met Billie. You whispered something, and I caught a faint trail of your scent.”
“And you never said anything because you love Billie,” she says it without any inflection at all, just stating a fact. There’s not even anything from her side of the bond. I nod. She bites her lip again. “Have you talked about building a pack? Was that ever on the table before this happened?”
She gestures between the two of us.
“No, it wasn’t. It never… we didn’t develop like that.
I don’t know if it’s something she would be open to now.
” Her scent gains an edge to it again. I shove my hands into the pockets of my jeans to keep from reaching for her.
She takes a half-step closer. I sigh. “She said she needed time to process everything. I’ve not heard anything from her since she left last Tuesday. ”
I trip over the words, my voice catching. Cypress churns around me, soured by my despair. Carys takes another small step, carefully grabbing my wrist in a delicate hold. Calming me, like she’s the Alpha and I’m the Omega on the verge of a breakdown.
“It feels weird deciding anything when she’s not here to have a say in it all,” she admits after a minute, when my scent has dissipated.
“But she’s not responded to any of my texts.
And… and if the last six weeks with Rhett have shown me anything, it’s that me being touch-sensitive isn’t going to get much better.
I was on suppressors for nearly four full years.
The current research suggests that my side effects are probably permanent. ”
Four years of suppressors. Jesus Christ.
“Yeah, they might be,” I agree.
“It probably means I don’t have the luxury to sit down with her first,” she says.
The fact that I agree doesn’t make the unease lessen. I take a deep breath and set the hard line. Hopefully it’s one Billie doesn’t hold against me. “I can’t sleep with you. Not until I talk with her. But… but everything else, if you need it, I’ll give it to you.”
Her cheeks flush. “That’s not—” She swallows. “I mean… Oh my God, this is so embarrassing.”
I pull my hand from my pocket and circle her wrist, reversing our holds. She settles at once, her eyes blowing out. I say, “I don’t know how to… Friendship like this, I mean. Where the lines are blurry. I’m not really sure how to navigate it. Is this okay with you? This level?”
She nods. I swallow.
“Okay. We’ll figure it out one day at a time, then. But if Billie chooses to not expand into a pack—”
“Then we won’t expand it,” Carys says in firm agreement.