Page 27

Chapter

Nineteen

ZAYN

W e fucked up.

I stare at the empty chair where Darren usually sits during our team meetings, the silence in the room thick enough to choke on.

Eight hours since he stormed out of The Terrace.

Eight hours of unanswered calls and texts.

Eight hours of growing certainty that we've managed to royally screw up the one thing he asked of us.

Be normal. For one fucking dinner.

Jax paces the length of our living room, phone pressed to his ear. It's his fifth attempt to reach Darren in the last hour alone. Each call goes straight to voicemail, and each time, Jax's expression grows more grim. The bourbon scent that usually surrounds him has sharpened with anxiety.

"Still nothing," he says, tossing his phone onto the couch with more force than necessary. "Where the hell could he be?"

"Maybe he went to a hotel," Aidan suggests, perched on the edge of the armchair like he might bolt at any second. The kid hasn't stopped fidgeting since we got back. "Or he could be at the practice facility. Sometimes he goes there to clear his head."

"At three in the morning?" I snort, running a hand through my hair. It's probably a disaster by now, but for once, I don't care.

Dmitri sits silently in the corner, his massive frame somehow making the oversized chair look small. He hasn't said much since we got back, but the storm brewing behind those ice-blue eyes is unmistakable. The big guy doesn't anger easily, but when he does, it's like watching a glacier crack.

"We should go look for him," Aidan says, standing abruptly. "Split up, check his usual spots. He could be hurt, or?—"

"He's not hurt," I cut in, sharper than intended. "He's pissed. And the last thing he wants right now is us tracking him down like he's some lost puppy."

Aidan's face falls, but I don't have the energy to soften the blow.

The rookie's crush on Darren was obvious before, but after tonight, after scenting Lexie and realizing what she is to us, it's painfully transparent.

The way he keeps glancing at Darren's empty chair, the nervous energy radiating off him.

It would be pathetic if I wasn't wrestling with my own mess of emotions.

"Zayn's right," Jax says, though it clearly pains him to admit it. "Darren needs space. We give him that, at least for tonight."

"But what if?—"

"He's a grown man, McKinney," I interrupt again. "Not some fragile little flower who needs rescuing. Or have you forgotten that he spent twenty-seven years as a beta who could take care of himself?"

The words come out harsher than I intended, but I can't take them back. I'm chastising myself more than him at this point.

I've been a dick. It's kind of what I do. But in my attempts to get Darren to accept the reality we're all living in, I know now that I went too far. Pushed too hard.

Maybe pushed him away for good, along with our scent match, and the one-two sucker punch of that realization is hard to swallow.

Aidan flinches like I've slapped him. "That's not what I meant."

"Isn't it?" I challenge, leaning forward. "Because from where I'm sitting, we've all been treating him differently since he presented. Like he's made of glass. Like he needs our protection whether he wants it or not."

"You're the one who's done nothing but harass him since he presented!" Aidan protests.

"Yeah, and you're just as bad as me," I counter. "At least I've never let him win. At least I'm honest about it."

"That's enough," Jax cuts in, his captain voice slicing through the brewing storm of alpha instinct and conflict. "Fighting among ourselves isn't helping anything."

I lean back, crossing my arms over my chest. He's right, of course. Jax is always right. The perfect captain, the perfect alpha, the perfect everything. It's fucking exhausting sometimes.

"We need to talk about what happened tonight," Dmitri says, breaking his silence. "About this woman. Lexie."

And there it is, the petite elephant in the room we've been dancing around for the past eight hours. Lexie Goodwin. The beta with the pumpkin spice scent that hit us all like a freight train the moment we walked into that private dining room.

Our scent match.

The statistical impossibility that somehow became our reality tonight.

A woman who smells like home and comfort and everything right, who happens to be the same woman Darren found on his own.

The same woman who now probably wants nothing to do with any of us after our spectacular display of social ineptitude.

"What about her?" Aidan asks, a defensive edge to his voice.

"We need to decide what to tell Darren," Dmitri says simply. "About what she is to us."

The room falls silent again, the weight of the decision pressing down on all of us.

What do we tell him? That the woman he's clearly falling for is our scent match?

That biology has played yet another trickshot, binding us all to the same person?

That we might have just driven away the one woman in the world designed to complete our pack?

The missing piece none of us even realized existed until now?

Except Darren. Somehow, he knew. Even through the blockers, he knew what she was to us.

"We tell him everything," Aidan says firmly. "As soon as he comes home. He deserves to know."

I laugh, the sound harsh and humorless. "Great plan, rookie. 'Hey Darren, remember that woman you really like? The one who just walked out because we all acted like complete assholes and will probably never speak to us again? Turns out she's our scent match! Surprise!'"

Aidan's cheeks flush with anger. “He needs to know. Maybe if he understands why we were acting so strange…”

"You think that's going to make it better?

" I shake my head in disbelief. “You think learning that his packmates are all biologically wired to want the same woman he's interested in is going to make him feel better about tonight?

It'll just piss him off even more, unless we can track her down first to apologize ourselves and fix this.”

"It's the truth," Aidan insists.

"The truth isn't always helpful," I counter. "Sometimes it just makes things worse."

"So what, we lie to him? Hide it?" Aidan's voice rises with each question. "That's your solution?"

"My solution is to not make this night any more of a disaster than it already is." I stand, unable to contain the restless energy building inside me. "At least not until we have a way to fix it."

Aidan opens his mouth to argue, but Jax raises a hand, silencing him. "Zayn has a point," he says reluctantly. "Timing matters here."

"So we say nothing?" Dmitri asks, his expression unreadable.

Jax sighs. "Not nothing. Just... not yet. We need to give Darren some space right now."

"And what about her?" I ask, the question that's been nagging at me since she walked out. "She already has trust issues with packs. After tonight, she probably wants nothing to do with us. And we don't even know where to find her to begin to apologize, assuming she's willing to hear us out."

The thought sends an unexpected pang through my chest. I barely know this woman, spoke maybe ten words to her all night, yet the idea of never seeing her again feels like agony. It's unsettling, this pull toward someone I've just met. Unwelcome, even.

I don't do attachment. Never have. My relationships, if you can call them that, are carefully managed affairs. They're brief, intense, and always on my terms. No complications, no expectations, no messy feelings to interfere with hockey or pack dynamics.

But Lexie... she's different. And not just because of her scent, though God knows that pumpkin spice aroma hit me like a drug the moment I walked into that room. There's something about her, a warmth, an authenticity that cut through my usual defenses before I even realized what was happening.

And now she's gone, driven away by our collective idiocy.

"We need to make it right," Aidan says, determination hardening his features. "With both of them."

"That, we can agree on, rook," I mutter.

"How exactly do you propose we do that?" Dmitri asks.

"We apologize," Aidan says, like it's the simplest thing in the world. "We explain that we were caught off guard, that we didn't mean to make her feel unwelcome."

"Without mentioning the scent match," Jax adds quickly, seeing the protest forming on Aidan's lips. "At least not yet."

"But first, we have to track her down," I remind them. "Easier said than done, because Darren's sure as hell not giving us her number anytime soon."

A hush falls over the room. Jax is the first to break it.

"You could always take his phone again," Aidan taunts. "That worked out so well the last time."

I clench my jaw, instinct driving me to tell him off, but he's right. I fucked up and I know it.

"One step at a time," Jax says. "When Darren comes to us, when he's ready, we go from there."

It's not a great plan. Not a plan at all, really, but fuck if I have a better one.

My strategy for dealing with things lately clearly hasn't been working. And I'm not quite egotistical enough to think it's going to work any better with Lexie than it has with our omega.