Chapter 19
CHAPTER NINETEEN
NOA
Islept in my room instead of with one of my alphas.
Maybe they thought I was doing it to protect myself from them, but I was doing it so they’d be safe from me.
My skin is running hot, my core is constantly on, and my heat is closer now than ever.
The door next to mine haunts me. Taunts me to make it mine.
We had a ton of hard conversations, but it is so foreign that they finally know everything. Now, the only part left is to actually deal with my problems.
Silas and Thorne had early morning hockey practice, so it’s just me, Havoc, and Otis in the house. I prayed they were sleeping as I gave in to the urge to peek into the nest. The white door creaks as it opens, unlike the other doors, and it makes me jump as I take in the extremely bare room.
No other omega has been in here. Or if they had, the boys got rid of everything but the mattress and the frame. Not even a mattress topper is in this room. The walls are cream instead of white, like in my room, and I also prefer it. Not that this is mine. Because it’s not.
But I like the cream walls. The bed is almost the size of the room, maybe two king-size beds put together? There is a soft, white frame that appears almost as if it were made of pillows. It looks super fluffy, and I want to touch it so bad, but I keep my little behind right in this doorway.
I stare into the room a little longer, unable to move any further into the room, but I really want to. Otis barges in, pushing the door holding my weight all the way open, causing me to trip. I’m frozen now inside the nest, staring at him jumping on the bed.
I didn’t mind Otis on my bed, in the other room, but… no. Not in here.
Havoc follows in and gives Otis a hard stare, silently pointing to the door.
Otis instantly knows the command and is bouncing out of the room with a waggling tail.
I love how happy he always is. It’s infectious and almost distracts me from his being in here.
Now that Otis is out, I glance at Havoc to see he’s already staring at me.
I remain frozen, as if I’m waiting for a command. I wring my hands as he stares, and I have a million excuses why I’m in here, but none of them make it past my lips.
“I was just—”
“You can do whatever you want, Noa,” Havoc interrupts and looks around the room. “We’ll wash the mattress. Otis should know better.”
“Hmm,” I say, trying to step away from the room, but I can’t bring my body to part with it.
“The room could use some life.” He says after gazing about the room.
“Some color, maybe,” I mutter as he walks closer to me. His scent warms me, and I feel myself instantly relaxing as his eyes melt into mine. His wide frame swallows me, blocking the room, and I can finally move again.
I step back, and Havoc leads us to the kitchen, where Thorne left us a breakfast of cinnamon rolls and berry smoothies.
I have the best freaking alphas.
“What colors would you put in there?”
I laugh at his inability to be low-key about this, but I play into his question, anyway. “Well, I like bright colors.”
“Your nest before didn’t have color. You changed your mind?” My last nest, before it was destroyed, was decorated in browns and neutral colors. It was my first official nest, and I was afraid of putting bright colors and not liking it, but now… now I can afford to do whatever I want.
“What colors do you think I’d put in there?” I ask. Now that, well, now that I might have a nest, maybe I can finally have that shopping spree at the official nest store.
“Orange, pink, maybe even red.”
“Red?” I ask, surprised at the color choice.
“It’s the color of the guy’s jersey, so you’d probably want that in your nest too. To remind you of them.”
I smile, knowing he’s right. I guess I’m not as mysterious as I thought. “Yeah, I think that would be nice.”
“I… Can I give you something?”
“I’m not taking the nest.”
“No, I had this before,” he says and walks away from the counter and disappears. Otis’s big brown eyes stare at me, and I shrug at him.
He doesn’t have a clue as he just stares at me and wags his tail.
Havoc comes back with a cardboard box and sets it on the counter in front of me. “I didn’t have time to wrap it. Shit, I should have wrapped it. Wait.” He goes to take the box away from me, but I quickly wrap my arms around it and hold it tight.
“It’s perfect, please don’t.”
He smiles a bit and nods, and I slowly let go of the box and stand up out of my chair so I can see inside. I see a sliver of pink, and I try to dampen my excitement. My alpha got me a gift. I’ve… I’ve never received a gift from an alpha.
Ollie, Luke, and I do Christmas and birthdays, but a gift from an alpha, an alpha I love, that’s so different.
I slide my hand down as I gasp. I slowly lift the ceramic bowl plate from the box and see an entire set of plates and wide mugs, matching pinks, purples, and oranges, and my head snaps to Havoc.
“When did you have time to make this?”
“Last night.”
“You didn’t make this in one night,” I say, and he laughs and shakes his head no.
“The plates were something I was working on for the house, but the colors, that’s all you, Noa.”
I look around the house, the warm, rich colors and yellow lighting a complete contrast to the pastel plates in my hands.
“They don’t match the decor here…”
“They fit anywhere I am; where Silas or Thorne is, they’re perfect here, they’ll be perfect anywhere, any house, any state, country, doesn’t matter. Wherever you want to put these plates will belong.” He says and walks over to the cabinet. “Do you want them here?”
I nod slowly. I live here now, with them, my Pack. I don’t have anywhere else to put them. Havoc nods and opens it. Selecting half the dark green plates with one hand, he carries them walking past me. I scrunch my eyebrows as he walks to the trash can and sets them in the box next to it.
“What?” I ask, speechless.
“We donate, they are good plates, but we don’t need them.” He then sets my beautiful plates next to the sink, to wash them, I assume, and smiles at the half-empty cabinet. “Perfect.”
“Perfect?”
“Perfect.” He confirms, and my heart flutters as he sits back down next to me and pushes my plate back in front of me. “What do you have planned today?”
“I—” I hesitate. “I’m having lunch with my parents today.” They’ve been blowing up my phone for lunch since the night they showed up. I can’t ignore them much longer. Not unless I change my number, which wasn’t that hard the first time around, but I have friends now.
“Do you want me to come?”
“Do I really have a choice?” I chuckle, knowing the protectiveness of my alphas has no bounds.
“No," he laughs.“But I can sit at the table with you.”
“I’m sure you have work, so how about you just drop me off?”
“Can I trust them to keep you safe?”
“You can trust the Fallon Pack to behave in front of the public eye,” I say. This isn’t a conversation I want to have in company. Not with the Gray Pack. The person I turn into around my parents, it's-it’s shameful, and I couldn’t bear it if one of them were there to witness it.
“Okay,” he intones, and I raise my eyebrows in surprise.
“Okay?”
“Yeah, I’ll drop you off and pick you up.”
“And you’ll leave between those times?”
“No.” I laugh and throw my head back, knowing he’s completely serious. The worry rock in my stomach doesn’t go away. The embarrassment from the thought of him hearing our conversation makes me sick, and I push my plate away. I try to smile, try to make it seem like no big deal.
“Stay far enough away so they can’t see or hear you, Havoc,” I say, but more like plead. I’m not a demanding person, and I don’t know how to convey this to him so he understands. I watch his eyes. They hold mine as he waits to answer, and I swear I get some acid reflux in my throat.
“I promise, sweetheart.”
The brunch spot screams “spend $50 per meal” with black metal chairs and annoyingly cute pink-and-blue cushions. Breakfast and Buns is exactly the place my parents would frequent, which is why I’ve never been here.
They are already sitting with menus in front of them as I slide into the chair in front of them. My chair of punishment. Might as well be a timeout corner.
My mini skirt does nothing to gain approval, and I think that’s what made me wear it.
Seeing Havoc’s lip twitch when I came down in the cream-colored skirt with a tight waistband and pleated ruffles made me feel girly and beautiful, and when he absentmindedly bit his lip, I damn near asked him to take it off.
But that would make me run late, and despite this being my last meeting with my parents, I didn’t want to be late. That’s not who I am.
I wanted to think of them less and think of myself more.
“Noa, so glad you could join us,” my mother murmurs without even looking up at me.
I don’t bother answering, knowing the less I talk, the faster this will go. The moment I sit down, a salad is in front of me, as usual, and the almost white lettuce stares back at me.
It’s not even a good salad. It’s lacking all sorts of color and nutrients; it’s dry lettuce and boiled chicken that’s lacking seasoning. They held the dressing and removed the croutons, I’m sure.
I can’t believe I used to eat this. My eyes gaze around the restaurant as my parents put their menus down and place their orders. My dad orders a steak at breakfast, and my mother orders a salad. What do they order for me?
Another salad.
I grimace as I pick up my fork to pretend I’m eating it. Thorne has spoiled me, my new life has spoiled me, and I refuse to eat food that doesn’t taste good. My tongue goes dry at the thought of eating this, and I decide then that I’m not.
“So, has the Fallon Pack reached out?” My dad asks, and my face scrunches.
“You didn’t see my house? They more than reached out.” I say, slipping from my earlier mantra of getting through this brunch as fast as possible.
“You shouldn’t have made them mad, honey; you had to know this stint would have consequences.
” My mother eats her salad, one delicate bite at a time.
I gawk at her as the fork slides the dry salad into her mouth, waiting for any sort of reaction that the food is nasty.
Maybe some hope that she sees reality. That she sees how insane it is to force ourselves to eat such things when good food, beautifully made, densely nutritious food, is an option.
She doesn’t. Her face hardly moves from chewing as she bites, swallows, and goes for more.
I—I should have known better. I stare between the two of them, rendered speechless. It’s not that they don’t understand; it’s that they don’t care.
They never did.
“I’m glad you asked me to lunch,” I say, taking a deep breath, and just as I inhale, I’m hit with scents I never wished to smell again.
My mind short-circuits as the smells get stronger.
I had this speech running through my head about how I am no longer Noa Odette, that I will no longer be speaking to them, and how I wish I had never heard from them.
How I found love, true love, what it means to care for others, and to truly be happy.
But all that ceases as their scents burn my nose.
They’re here. They are at this restaurant. Jackson, Derrick, and Mayfield, all three of them. My eyes search for Havoc’s. He’s here somewhere in the shadows. I know it, but I can’t find him. He’s hidden well, and I regret asking him to sit at a distance.
“You brought them here?” I mutter, standing from my seat, causing a scene I know they’ll hate. Their eyes go wide as they set their forks down. I see the tick of a grumble in my father’s face, but I’m well past the age of caring. He can’t hurt me. None of them can. I won’t allow it.
I’m not the meek doll they once knew. I’m not alone, and I’m not weak.
“They are your Pack, honey—“
“No, they aren’t. You know that. You’ve always known that, and you don’t care.” I spit, and they lean back as if blown away by my back talk.
“Well, those men certainly are not your Pack. They won’t care for you in the way you need.”
“They absolutely will, and have; they are my scent matches, my mates, and I proudly belong to them.”
I can smell the Fallon Pack getting closer.
I know I’m losing time, and if they get their hands on me, they’ll overpower me physically.
I won’t make it easy; I’ll make the biggest scene the people here have ever seen.
My omega is scathing, pleading to find safety.
Grabbing my purse, I’m racing to the door as my parents call after me.
I see figures trying to approach me, but I don’t focus on figuring out if it’s the Fallon Pack.
I just run.