My stomach is hurting from laughing so much.
“Okay, I’m hungry,” she declares after our fifth round of zombie killing.
“All that murder will do that to a person,” I tease playfully as we take our crazy pile of tickets to the prize area.
“All this together please,” I tell the attendee.
She takes the pile and feeds it through the reader. “Five thousand,” she informs us, sounding surprised. “What prizes would you like?”
I turn to Lulu, who’s eyeing up a couple of stuffies hanging on the wall. “You choose,” I tell her.
“Really?” She smiles. “Are you sure? These are mostly your tickets.”
“Go for it.” I nod my head towards the prizes.
She lets out an excited noise before trying to decide. “The big pink elephant,” she says.
“Good choice,” the attendee replies. “You still have two thousand points left.”
“Okay...” she says, looking at the choices. Then her eyes land on something, and they go wide. “That.” She points to a ferret stuffie.
When she’s handed the cute stuffy, she turns to me. “Ally loves ferrets.”
“She does?” My brows furrow together. “Really?”
“Oh yeah. She’s always wanted one. But her parents never let her because one of her dads is afraid of them.” She laughs. “So we used to go down to the pet store and play with the ones there every weekend. She grew really attached to one and was devastated when it was sold.”
“Damn, that’s kind of depressing.”
“Yeah,” she sighs. “But maybe this will make up for it. It’s not the real thing, but it’s pretty cute.”
“It is.” I laugh, petting the fake ferret.
We take our winnings and head over to one of the booths, ordering a pizza.
“How are you doing with all these changes?” I ask her as we wait for our food to arrive.
“I’m good.” She smiles. “It’s been a bit of an adjustment, but I like it.” She shrugs, playing with the wrapper from the straw. “It happened so fast, I didn’t really get the chance to think about what all this meant until we were already on the road. But any time there’s a bit of doubt in my mind, someone seems to knowexactly what to do to make it go away.” She chews on her lip, looking down as she smiles. “Being part of a pack is a lot better than I thought it would be.”
“Did you not want a pack?” I ask, even though she had one with Gavin and Brady before meeting us.
“It’s not that. I just... I grew up being taught that the pack mentality was a sin. Two lovers only. Only one male and one female. And they had to be Betas. Everything else was the devil's work.” She snorts, shaking her head. “After getting away from all of that, it was clear that the only evil going on in this world were people like them and the teachings they follow.” She shrugs, and my heart hurts for her.
“I’m glad you got away from that.” I read her story on the internet, but you never know how much of it is true or false. I won’t ask her anything she doesn’t willingly offer up. It’s not my life. Not my right.
“Thanks,” she says with a laugh. “Me too. It took a long time to get where I’m at, but I’m happy with how my life turned out. Could it have been better? Sure. Would I go back and change things if I could, maybe? But I don’t think about that much. I try to live in the now, enjoy what life has to offer while it’s at my finger tips. Change used to scare me because I was so used to the unknown being bad or scary and I just wanted to stay still, in some place safe and comfortable. But after meeting Brady and Gavin, they showed me just how much I was missing. That if I wanted to live life, I really needed to live it. It’s the same mentality I have about these changes. It’s scary, but it’s also exciting.”
“It is.” I nod. “And I’m glad you think so.”
“Tell me about yourself,” she asks when the pizza gets dropped off. “Who is Nate Wilder?”
“Me?” I wave her off. “I’m boring. You don’t wanna hear about me.”
“If I didn’t want to, I wouldn’t have asked.” She narrows her eyes. “Now spill.”
She and Ally are a lot more alike than they realize. I think that’s why I like Lulu so much. “Well, I’m twenty-nine, almost thirty. I’ve been working in this industry since my early twenties. Interned for Dynamite Wave Records for a few years before getting the job as Ally’s manager. Grew up in a tiny town, a few over from the one you and Ally grew up in, actually.”
“Really?” Her eyes widen. “Have we ever met before?”
