Page 12 of Such a Grumpy Omega (His Alpha Desires #9)

Everly

I walked out of the diner hollow. The only other time I’d felt like this was when our father died. It took me days before I was able to cry. I carried his coffin like a robot, devoid of emotion. For months after, I sometimes pinched myself to make sure I was still alive.

I made a quick phone call to tell my boss I was not coming back after lunch.

I didn’t really need the job anyway after the check from the house plus the inheritance we’d received.

Grandfather had taken care of generations of us so well.

And how did we thank him? By selling his house off to a sex club.

A sex club I so wanted to hate but couldn’t. Not only had being in that safe place changed me, but my alpha had as well.

I’d denied that Fraser was my mate and my alpha as much as I could, but this gaping hole in my heart solidified the fact.

I laughed a bit, though nothing was funny.

Imagine that. I’d finally found the alpha of my dreams then sabotaged all of it.

I wouldn’t be surprised if he never spoke to me again. What I’d done was barely forgivable.

I wondered, as I roamed the streets of the city, what my real agenda was in protesting the club so feverishly. Was I really so against it? No. Not anymore. I would love to live in the home I grew up in but paying off a lifetime debt in the process? Not really interested in that.

Something else was going on and I had to figure it out.

Was I just tied to my childhood home out of nostalgia?

Maybe it was my only tie to my father, since my sister barely spoke to me and my other father was long gone.

I stopped dead in my tracks as the realization smacked me in the face.

The truth was, the house needed renovations.

And I had moved out years ago. My father had lived there alone.

If I wasn’t interested in staying there all these years, why did I want so badly to do so now?

Because it was my last connection to my father. But he didn’t live there, and no amount of time in that house would bring him back. It wasn’t as though, if I moved in or gained access, his ghost would come visit me.

I just wanted my dad back. Maybe I was still in the stages of mourning, and this was part of it.

Goddess, I was a mess. I thought the missing him would slow down but, sometimes, I realized grief wasn’t endured in a straight line. Days when it seemed like your loved one died only hours ago and over time, days where you didn’t think about them at all.

Perhaps, it was time for me to let go.

No, fuck that. I wanted that house. I wanted to have Fraser mate me and for us to have a family and raise the pups in the same place where I was raised. A big backyard. Enough room for a huge family.

Fuck. The moment I thought I had figured things out, my mind found a new way to convince me I wanted the house.

By the time I got back to my apartment, I’d walked miles around the city, a feat in itself. My legs were exhausted but my mind was just getting started. I had numbers to crunch. I needed to figure out a way to get the house back.

I ordered Chinese takeout and glanced at my phone over a million times to see if Fraser had texted me.

He hadn’t. Not that I could blame him. I stopped my number crunching to put myself in his shoes.

His mate. His omega. Me. I singlehandedly embarked on a mission to protest all his business plans for expansion.

I’d thrown a wrench into his livelihood, in the way he made a living.

I’d sabotaged him financially and emotionally.

Not only was he angry with me, I had really hurt him.

He might not ever trust me again, and trust was the foundation of any relationship.

Who was I kidding? I’d ruined everything over a house.

Hours later, numbers crunched, I tossed the phone across the room. It was useless. Even selling my organs on the black market couldn’t help what Sadie had already put into motion. It was time to let go of the emotional hold I had on the house. Bid it goodbye and a part of my father in the process.

I hung my head and rested it in my palms. Fraser deserved an apology and a full explanation. It was the least I could do.

He would never forgive me and never take me as his omega after this, but he needed the truth. I retrieved my phone and saw it was a little past three in the morning, but he was probably up if he worked a shift at Cuffed.

A thought occurred to me. Maybe tonight, he had been upset with me and had played with someone else. My wolf clawed inside me at the idea of his hands on another omega. Of them going back to his house and…no. After what I’d done, that was absolutely none of my business.

When he answered the phone, there was a delay. “Alpha?”

Finally, he replied, his voice gravelly. “Hello? Everly, are you okay?”

“Physically yes. Could you come over? Tomorrow? Tomorrow, could you come over?”

I braced myself for the hell no.