Page 36

Cullen

A nger.

I hadn’t felt rage like that in a long time, but when I got the call that Bethany had been bullied by her family, I was livid.

Jensen hadn’t explained much about what had happened, only that Bethany’s family knew she was pregnant and had treated her badly, and the two of them were coming home immediately. Jensen had told the team he had a family emergency and bailed on the game.

They had hopped on the first flight back, so it only took them a few hours to get home.

I had decided to let Sally cover the restaurant as I stalked around the entryway to the house, waiting on their arrival.

Joey was at the zoo with one of her school friends, so she wouldn’t be witness to my sheer rage over Bethany’s knucklehead family.

When Jensen’s car pulled up and they got out, there was no missing the redness in Bethany’s eyes. Her hair was scraped back into a messy bun, and she was wearing one of Jensen’s hoodies and a pair of jeans. His clothing was huge on her, making her look even more vulnerable and tiny.

She was upset.

That infuriated me. I wanted to punch whoever upset her.

“Explain,” I demanded before she was even fully in the door. My ire made me short and snappy.

“Hello to you too, Cullen. It’s nice to be home.” Her voice was full of sarcasm, but I was more concerned with figuring out what the fuck had happened.

The anger in her gaze made me pause. Shit, I was being an ass. Gently wrapping my arm around her, I pulled my girl into an embrace, kissing the top of her head. I needed to be looking after her, not thundering around the house like a grumpy bear.

Shit, maybe the nickname Bethany and Joey had been calling me held a little bit of truth.

“I’m sorry. I’m just worried about you. I didn’t mean to be cranky.”

She looked up at me, cocking an eyebrow. “I’ve come to accept that you guys are always cranky these days.”

Is that how she saw us? That wasn’t how I wanted her to see us.

“I’ve got dinner ready. Let’s sit, and we can discuss what happened,” Gideon said, gesturing toward the kitchen. His posture was tense, and I knew he was also secretly raging that someone had been nasty to our omega.

Bethany hummed in joy when she saw the tacos laid out and grabbed a plate with twice as much as any of us had.

She sat at the kitchen table and dove in.

I was happy to see her eating. The dark circles under her eyes and the stress tugging at her features made me uneasy.

Bethany was pregnant. She should be lounging around on soft surfaces, eating all the candy she wanted and relaxing.

“Why didn’t your family take the news well?” Gideon asked as he picked at his own food.

“Well, I’ve told you I don’t have the best relationship with my family. All our issues kind of came to a head.” She grimaced around a mouthful of taco.

“We thought they might be angry when they learned you were pregnant, but the scene that Jensen described sounds abhorrent,” I said with a frown.

Bethany nodded, slowly chewing and swallowing. “Yeah…I don’t know what I expected, but that was extreme, even for them.”

“We told you all about our messed-up history. I think it’s your turn.”

“You guys know that I got really close to Joey and wanted to help because I knew what it was like to be raised without a mother.”

We nodded. Her care and consideration for Joey was one of the first things that we’d loved about her. “Yeah, I remember you setting me straight about that a while ago…” Gideon smirked.

“My family is different from yours. You guys don’t push Joey to do anything she doesn’t want to do.

You are all capable alphas who can take care of yourselves.

My mother was the kind of omega who did everything for everyone.

My fathers never cooked, never cleaned, never did their own laundry.

Naturally, as the only female in the house, it all fell to me. ”

Gideon stilled. “You’ve mentioned your family to me before, but I think we all need to hear the entire story.” He glanced at us as we spoke. What did he mean, Bethany had told him things? What things?

Bethany took a deep breath. “I mean that none of them could cook. My fathers were a mess, and so before I was even thirteen years old, I was doing the laundry and making their meals. I thought it was the right thing to do, that I was helping after we lost Mom. Only…”

“They quickly started taking advantage?” I asked, crossing my arms.

“Yeah…” Bethany’s response was barely a whisper, as if she was still trying to come to terms with it herself.

“I’m starting to see that more and more now.

My dads. They love me, but they are so stuck in their ways that, when I told them I wanted to go to California for college, they refused to support me financially. ”

“Are you saying they offered to support you only if you stayed in Nebraska?” I asked.

She nodded at the same time as Gideon, who didn’t look at all happy.

“Not just the state, but I had to actually live at home. It was only recently that I realized it’s because, without me, the place is falling apart since they can’t function on their own.

My brothers can’t hold down a job, they can’t do a load of laundry, and they are, frankly, pathetic.

It’s probably my own fault for enabling them for so long.

I’ve always just rolled over and done what they wanted, but that changed at Thanksgiving. ”

She paused, taking another bite of her taco.

Anger simmered in my gut. Gideon had implied that she had basically been used as a free maid by her family for years, but hearing it from her own mouth made me furious.

“What changed at Thanksgiving?” Gideon asked with a frown. “From what I understood, that has been your fucked-up normal for a while…”

She smiled at him ruefully. “The problem is, I didn’t go home.

There was no way I was going to let Joey down after she’d asked me to help with the festival.

So I called my fathers and told them that I wouldn’t be coming home for Thanksgiving.

Apparently they didn’t believe me. One of my brothers, Hayden, is dating an omega, and he’s trying to impress her by pretending he’s a respectable, capable adult.

Turns out, they assumed I was going to come home anyway and was only joking about staying here.

When this omega came for Thanksgiving and they didn’t even have a meal to serve, apparently it was humiliating, and my brother got angry.

That’s why I went to visit them this weekend—to make up for Thanksgiving.

But the moment I got in the house, they started throwing accusations at me and blaming me for their inability to do anything. ”

She went to stand, but Gideon shook his head. “Lime soda?” he asked, knowing immediately what she was getting up for.

“Oh, thank you.” She sat back down, picking at her tacos. “Anyway, I didn’t plan to tell them about the pregnancy. I just wanted to get the weekend over with and get back here. Only, when one of my brothers was rummaging through my bags, he found my prenatal vitamins.”

“Your grown-ass brothers were going through your bags?” I asked. The more she told me about her family, the more baffled I became. How did these idiots even survive?

“Yep, and my fathers saw nothing wrong with that. Whenever I get on any of my brothers to get a job, do some housework, or do the bare minimum, my fathers would remind me that they struggled when my mother died and I needed to show a bit more grace with them.” She laughed bitterly.

“You were the only daughter and the only other omega in the family. Didn’t they think it would be hard on you?” I asked, exasperated. She didn’t respond, but she didn’t need to. Clearly, her family hadn’t been thinking about her at all.

“And is that what led to the scene that I walked in on?” Jensen asked. He turned to us with a frown. “The way they were talking to her was fucking disgusting.”

“I didn’t expect them to take it well, but I didn’t expect them to be cruel,” she whispered.

She didn’t deserve that. The idea of us ever treating Joey like that made me feel sick to my stomach.

“I’m so sorry that happened,” I said, reaching out and taking her hand that wasn’t holding a taco.

“I think, as terrible as it was, it needed to happen. It’s time they learn to stand on their own feet. They expect me to be back for Christmas, but I don’t think that’ll be happening.”

“No way in hell,” Gideon agreed, handing her the soda. “From what you’ve told us, they would have you on your feet the entire holiday, working like a dog, when you should be resting.”

“That was pretty normal for the holidays,” she admitted.

“They started talking badly about our unborn child, and I just lost it. My fathers gave my brothers so much financial support over the years. They’ve paid for cars, they’ve paid for apartments, they’ve bent over backward for them, while I have been slaving away out here in California to get an education so I can make something of myself, when all they expect of me is to become a housewife. ”

I can’t imagine how much it would have hurt, watching her brothers be handed everything while she had to work nonstop.

“Well, that’s not going to be your normal anymore,” I said firmly.

“I agree,” Gideon said. “This year, we will get food from the restaurant because it’s open on Christmas.”

Bethany’s eyes darted to me as she cocked her head questioningly. “I thought everything closed on Christmas.”

“Usually, but a few years after opening the restaurant, I noticed not all my staff had family to go home to, so we started doing a sort of family Christmas Day at the restaurant, where anyone who didn’t have family could come and have a good meal on Christmas.

Just spend some time there. Over the years, it’s evolved and now we cook for a lot of the homeless population in the city.

My staff only work if they want to, and they get paid triple time. ”

“That’s really sweet…” Bethany smiled.

“The only thing you have to worry about on Christmas Day is having fun with Joey, eating a bunch of food, and keeping your feet up,” Jensen said as she took a sip of her soda.

“No cooking, no cleaning, no work. It is a holiday, and you’re going to rest.” Gideon’s tone was firm.

A sigh escaped her chest. “Joey is really lucky to have fathers like you, you know that?”

Something about her words made my chest burn with pride. We were doing our best for our daughter, but we were never certain if it was enough. But to hear Bethany, who had been through the exact same situation as Joey, praising us made me feel ten-feet tall.

“She’s also really lucky to have you,” Jensen said.

“Not many women would yell at me when I became a surly ass because they wanted to help my child,” Gideon pointed out.

Jensen leaned over, dragging her chair toward him so he could wrap his arms around her and kiss the top of her head.

“They’re so mad at me,” she whispered sadly. The broken tone of her voice hurt me to hear. Her dads and brothers were idiots, clearly failing to see the amazing woman in their lives.

Well, we were going to appreciate her and love her and spoil her like she goddamned deserved to be. We hadn’t really said out loud what our situation was, and I knew that had infuriated Gideon to no extent, but we were together.

The house felt warmer with her around, and we were all happier.

“You deserve so much better,” I assured her.