Page 116 of Pack Plus One

Just three words. My fingers hover over the screen, the cursor blinking in the empty reply field.

What could I possibly say? “Sorry I ran out on you after eavesdropping on your private conversation”? “I can’t be what you want, but I took your mug as a consolation prize”? “I still feel the phantom pressure of your teeth on my neck when I close my eyes”?

Zoe watches me with knowing eyes, sipping her wine. “You’re going back, aren’t you?”

“No.”

“Liar,” she says again, softer this time. “I know that look. That’s your ‘I’m going to make a terrible decision, but I’m trying to convince myself otherwise’ face.”

“I’m not going back,” I insist, though my voice lacks conviction even to my own ears. “I heard them, Zo. They want a normal omega. Someone who fits into their pack, who nests naturally, who lets them take care of her without fighting it every step of the way.”

“Did they actually say they want someone other than you?”

I hesitate. “Not explicitly, but?—”

“But nothing,” she interrupts. “You heard part of a conversation, assumed the worst because that’s your pattern, and ran before getting clarity. Now four grown men are texting you increasingly desperate messages, and you’re sitting here sniffing a stolen coffee mug instead of having an adult conversation.”

Put like that, it does sound rather childish.

“They’re going to realize I’m not what they want eventually,” I say, voicing my deepest fear. “They’ll try to change to accommodate me, and they’ll end up resenting me for it. Or I’ll try to change to fit what they need, and I’ll lose myself in the process. Either way, it doesn’t work.”

“Or,” Zoe counters, “you could talk to them like an adult and see if there’s a middle ground. Novel concept, I know.”

I open my camera instead, letting Zoe snap a picture of me in all my glory—mascara smudged from emotional movie-watching, hair a disaster from aggressive pillow-burrowing, Mason’s mug clutched to my chest like a security blanket.

“Send it to them,” Zoe says. “Either they run screaming, or?—”

“Or what? They see what a mess I am and decide I’m worth the trouble?” I stare at the photo—the vulnerability in my eyes, the way my fingers curl possessively around the stolen mug. It’s too revealing, too honest.

I delete it.

Open a new message instead. Type:I need time. Don’t come after me.

My thumb hovers over send.

Time to do what, exactly? Hide at Zoe’s eating ice cream and watching period dramas until my heart decides to be sensible? Pretend I don’t miss them already, that I’m not instinctively reaching for Caleb’s steady presence or for Liam’s quiet reassurance since I’m doubting myself?

I lock the phone and toss it aside without sending the message.

Zoe sighs, handing me a glass of wine. “You’re hopeless.”

I take a long swallow. “I know.”

“For what it’s worth,” she says after a moment, “they sound different from Eric. He never would have texted about how the house smells wrong without you. He would have said the house smells better.”

The truth of that statement hits me hard. Eric had never seen my independence as anything but a problem to be fixed. He’d viewed my ambition, my dreams of opening a bakery, and my stubbornness as obstacles to overcome rather than parts of me to embrace.

But they…they’d listened. Seemed genuinely interested in my dream. Liam had even sent over a detailed business proposal for cross-promoting our businesses, with footnotes about how we could adjust it to my preferences.

It’s small…but it was a gesture of support rather than an attempt to change me.

My phone buzzes again—a different tone this time. I reach for it automatically, expecting another text from the pack.

Instead, it’s a notification from my bakery’s security system.

I sit up straight, suddenly alert. “Someone’s at the bakery.”

Zoe frowns. “Why? It’s not even open yet.”