Page 73 of Puck My Life

“You’d do that?”

“Well, I mean I’m not normally this forward, but I’m seeing a distressed omega walking around looking at fabrics with hearts in her eyes and not an alpha to be seen, and I think to myself, ‘she looks like she’s in trouble. You should just reach out.’”

“You want to help?”

Why does that thought make me want to cry?

“Of course, I do; we omegas need to stick together. Let’s go have a coffee, we can chat, eat cake and make a plan.”

Before I can blink, I’ve got a bag with my groceries, my blanket, the pillow, and I’m following the woman across the road.

She buys me a massive piece of mud cake. It’s rich and decadent and makes my mouth tingle with the shock of the bitter and sweet before the flavour explodes on my tongue. I close my eyes and moan.

“Good?”

“It is so good.”

She reaches out and puts her hand on mine. “Honey, if your alphas are doing you wrong-”

“No, it’s not like that,” I protest.

And, for some reason, maybe because I don’t know her at all, the whole sordid story tumbles out. We drink two coffees each and end up ordering lunch as well.

She sits back. “You’re in love with your best friends, the boys you were foster brothers with?”

I wrinkle my nose. “It sounds so taboo when you say it like that. We never saw each other as siblings, just best friends. Maria never raised us to consider each other as siblings.”

She laughs. “You know the easiest thing to do would be just to tell them everything.”

I glare at her. “That would change everything.”

“What’s the worst thing that could happen?”

“They could hate me, laugh at me; it might ruin everything.” As soon as I say the words, I recognise how stupid I sound.

She nods her head knowingly, not even fighting the smile.

“Okay, okay. Even I hear that.”

“My vote is you march your cute little ass back to that home of yours and tell them everything. Trust me, it will be better if they hear it from you first.”

“What if they don’t want me?”

She leans forward, whispering. “What if they do?”

I sit back and nervously toy with my coffee cup.

“Trust an old omega. Do yourself a favour. If they say no, they aren’t interested, then you will be able to move out without looking back. But if they sayyes, you can have the heat of your dreams with alphas you love, and if things don’t work out, you will always have that memory.”

“There you are!”

I blink up at the alpha who puts a hand on the back of her chair. She twists around and smiles. It’s such a love-filled smile that I am immediately silenced by the feeling stretched between them.

“I missed you.”

“Oh, I missed you, too,” she murmurs, her cheeks turning pink with pleasure.

He picks up her hand and bends to kiss it.