Chapter 6
Lark
Cammie throws her bright green Goyard tote bag onto the booth’s seat before sliding in front of me.
She's dressed in pink wide-leg trousers, a green sequined belt that matches her bag, and a silky white blouse cut in a deep V that perfectly accentuates her tatas.
On anyone else the sequins before noon would be a cry for help. On Cammie they make sense.
“Tell me everything!”
Thank god she’s here. Margaritas are a team sport.
“Was there a look book? Did you get to go through alpha scent cards?”
I take a sip. Ice cold. Strong. Exactly how I ordered it.
“No look book. No scent cards.”
Cammie catches our waitress’s eyes and wordlessly signals for a drink of her own. “No look book or scent cards? How are you supposed to find the right alphas for your heat?”
I hold up my phone. “With this.”
“You actually talk to them?”
I laugh. “No, thank god. That would be worse. So much worse. There’s an app. We text.”
Our waitress brings Cammie’s drink and a basket of chips to our table. Cammie lifts the salty rim to her lips. “So good. Thank you, Estrella.”
“I made sure you had a strong one,” she says with a smile. “Your friend asked for a floater. We need to get you caught up.”
Cammie’s blue eyes widen. “Oh shit. A floater?” Estrella laughs as she walks away.
I take another sip of my drink. It burns so good. “I needed it.”
Cammie watches me before speaking. “So you have to text them?”
Another sip.
“Yep. All thirty of them.”
Cammie’s eyes nearly pop out of her head this time. “Thirty! Holy shit balls.”
“We, ‘get to know one another’.”
Cammie pours each of us some salsa in our individual bowls, then puts some green hot sauce in my bowl because she knows exactly how I like it.
“So who texts first? You or them?”
“Me.”
“Double shit balls.”
Yep. Not embarrassing enough already, so I also have to make the first move.
She lowers her drink and looks at me. Really looks.
"You can do this. You started a company from scratch.
Dealt with all your medical shit. Came out the other side of grief when your parents passed.
" She pauses to dip a chip. "You can text 'Hi' to a hot stranger whose whole job is to make you feel good.
Honestly that last part sounds like the easiest one. "
I stare at her.
"Too much?"
"Little bit."
"Still true though."
She’s right. I did build a company from scratch. Run a multi-national business before thirty. I know how to walk into a room and own it.
But this. This is different. This is my body.
And my body has never once done what I've told it to.
Not during heat. Not ever. I can negotiate a contract, manage a warehouse crisis at two in the morning, hold it together at my parents' funeral when I was twenty-three and had absolutely no business holding it together.
But the moment a heat starts I am not me anymore.
I'm just pain and need and want, and I can't think or plan or control a single thing.
The last time I was so far gone I couldn't even get to the phone.
I had to roll to the edge of my nest like some kind of wounded animal just to call for help.
That is what I'm trying to fix. That is what thirty strangers on an app are supposed to fix.
I do not want to be the one to make the first move.
I don’t want to do this at all.
I don’t want to need to do it.
What I want is to drown myself in heat suppressants and pretend my needy omega biology doesn’t exist. Except suppressants turn me into a crampy, bloated, nauseous mess. And they don’t even stop my heats from coming.
“Here’s what I would write,” Cammie mumbles around a mouthful of chips. She swallows then takes a drink of her margarita before continuing. “VEEP or Seinfeld?”
“What kind of question is that?”
“It’s the perfect question! If they answer Seinfeld, then you know they aren’t for you. Jerry Seinfeld was the center of that show. Not enough screen time for Elaine’s character, if you ask me.”
“And if they say VEEP?”
Cammie rolls her eyes. “Then obviously they like women. Smart, in-charge women. It was JLD’s best role. We both know it.”
It was.
We order a flight of tacos to share and continue brainstorming first text questions.
What’s your favorite pasta shape?
Beer or water?
What’s your opinion on public displays of scenting?
Have you ever cried after a knot?
Do you talk during or…?
“How about, ‘Have you serviced any other omegas this quarter?’”
“That’s insane. I’m not sending that!”
After two rounds of strong margaritas, three tacos each, and too many chips to count, I settle on my question.
Who’s your celebrity crush?
Safe. Neutral. Not knot-related.
I stare at the blinking cursor. My thumb hovers. Then I hit send. My heart does that stupid fast thing again.
Holy shit balls.