Getting dressed feels like a return to reality after the bubble we've created in her apartment. My running clothes from yesterday are less than fresh, but they'll do until I get back to the house.
They smell like Lexie, which could set the alphas off, but I don't really give a shit. They're just going to have to deal with it and I'm not willing to give her up. If there was Lexie-scented shampoo, conditioner and soap, I'd give up my seventeen-in-one and soak myself in it at all times.
At the door, I pull her in for one more kiss, lingering longer than I should. "Thank you," I murmur against her lips.
"For what?"
"For giving this a chance. For giving me a chance."
Her smile is soft, genuine. "Thank you for making me want to."
The walk to my car where I left it near the park is brisk in the morning air. As I drive toward the pack house, I find myself replaying the last twenty-four hours in my mind.
Meeting Lexie at the park felt like chance, but maybe it was something more. Fate, if I believed in that kind of thing. Who knows? Maybe I do. The connection between us is undeniable.
But the pack complicates everything. Their strange behavior at dinner, their obvious discomfort with Lexie, the way they've been treating me since my presentation… It all adds up to a mess I'm not sure how to untangle.
But I know one thing.
My pack owes me some fucking answers.
Chapter
Twenty-Three
DMITRI
The clock on the wall ticks like a metronome, marking each second of this torturous wait. Twenty-six minutes since Darren's text. Twenty-six minutes of sitting in this living room with three other alphas, all of us pretending we're not counting the seconds.
I shift in my armchair, the leather creaking beneath me. The sound draws Jax's attention, his gray eyes flicking toward me before returning to the bourbon glass balanced on his knee. He hasn't taken a sip. Just holds it, turning it slowly between his fingers like it contains answers instead of alcohol.
"He'll be here," Aidan says for perhaps the dozenth time, pacing the length of our living room. His nervous energy fills the space, making it feel smaller than it is. "He said he would."
Zayn snorts from his position by the window. "Because Darren's been so reliable lately."
"Enough," Jax says, voice quiet but carrying the unmistakable weight of command. Not his alpha bark. He wouldn't use that for something so trivial, but the tone reminds us all who leads this pack.
The silence returns, heavier than before. We've been like this since Darren's text came through.
DARREN: Coming home. We need to talk.
Six words that sent us all into a tailspin of preparation and anxiety. Jax called an emergency pack meeting. Aidan had already stress-baked enough muffins to feed a small army since that's how he deals with things. Since Darren's been gone, it's gotten out of control and if he doesn't actually come back, this place will be more muffin than house.
Zayn disappeared for a bit and returned smelling of cigarettes, a habit he'd supposedly quit two years ago. Proof he's not as unaffected as he so desperately wants the world to think he is.
And I... I've been sitting here, watching, waiting, cataloging every micro-expression and scent shift from my packmates.
It's what I do. Observe. Analyze.
The sound of tires on gravel cuts through the silence. Car door slamming. Footsteps on the porch. We all tense, four pairs of eyes fixed on the front door.
The lock turns. The door swings open. And there he is.
Darren stands in the doorway, backlit by morning sun, looking simultaneously exhausted and... satisfied. His hair is disheveled and his clothes are wrinkled, but there's a looseness to his shoulders I haven't seen in weeks. Not since before the concussion. Before everything changed.
And the scent.Bozhe moi. Even from across the room, it hits me.
Pumpkin spice, layered over woodsmoke. Lexie's scent, intertwined with Darren's in a way that can only mean one thing. They've been intimate.Veryintimate.
