Meadow seemed to accept the explanation. We briefly met up with her pack and let them know we were ready to leave. At Meadow’s insistence, they stayed, but Beckett did have a car service pick us up and get us safely back to the pack house.
My bestie bounced her knee the whole trip and practically leapt out of the car to reclaim Forest when the security babysitters met her at the door.
“I’ll make us some tea,” I offered.
“Please, that sounds great.” Meadow cuddled her baby, nuzzling her cheek on his head.
I disappeared to the guesthouse to quickly shower Hunter off my skin and change into pajamas before rejoining Meadow in the living room of the main house to curl up on the couch with our freshly brewed tea. She was instantly chill now that Forest was within reach again.
“Sapling, did you miss Mommy and Auntie?”
He smiled but didn’t offer much in the way of a verbal response. Meadow stretched out against me, Forest quickly falling asleep in her arms while I searched for something we could watch on TV that wouldn’t startle him awake randomly. I settled on a travel show of people finding houses in exotic locales. Meadow and I had watched a fair few of them during our roommate days, and half the fun was egregiously critiquing the taste of everyone involved, even though we’d never be able to afford the houses. Well…Meadow could now, but it was still fun regardless.
“Thanks for being the best,” Meadow said softly.
I wrapped an arm around her and Forest. “Ditto a thousand times over.”
“Besties for life?” She snuggled in deeper with a contented sigh.
“Obviously. You’d have to pry me out of here with a crowbar.”
Chapter 11
Parker
“As important as these things are, I can’t say I’m a fan of them,” I grumbled, adjusting my tie. Despite three showers so intense I was pretty sure I had scraped off several layers of skin, I still caught sight of sparkles whenever the light hit them.
It was in myears. Surely that shit was a health hazard?
“We’re celebrating!” Avery said, clapping a hand on my shoulder. He was already dressed and preening in every mirror he laid his eyes on.
We were a good-looking pack, I would be insane to deny that. Money had the potential to make everyone hotter, sadly.
I shook my head. Celebrating involved sweatpants, pizza, and a day where no one wanted you to do anything. At least, my version of celebrating did. I’d been to a million networking events as a kid because of my family, and while I despised these nights, they were a necessary evil when it came to business.
That remained true into my adult years. I would grant that nights like these were important, but big networking events took work and were not remotely restful to me.
“You celebrate waking up in the morning,” I grumbled as Avery practically skipped down the hallway.
“You say that like it’s a bad thing!” he yelled over his shoulder. “Now hurry up, we need to move.”
I glowered in his direction, but I followed him, glitter still winking at me whenever I moved, forcing me to think about the omega responsible.
As I was engaging in the ninth conversation on stock options, I considered throwing myself out the window. We were on an upper floor, so I could do some serious damage. If I got a concussion, no one would talk business at me, and the idea of that sweet relief was sorely tempting.
Business was a means to an end. Without my family’s company, I couldn’t have afforded any of the privileges I had received growing up. My family—and, subsequently, my pack—never wanted for anything, and I was thankful for that, even if it had meant sacrifices elsewhere growing up. My dads were always working, and my mother ran our home with an iron fist.
It was a good life…but not entirely what I wanted myself.
My dads had hardly been around. They were constantly at stupid parties like the one I was at, shmoozing and talking what equated to total bullshit with other overstuffed business men. They loved hearing themselves talk. The best I got out of my fathers for my own events was one parent out of five. I couldn’t remember the last time all of them had shown up for me. My mother was no better on that account; she was either with them, acting like the perfect omega, or focused on my sister, Magnolia. Maggie was their perfect angel, being trained to follow in my mother’s footsteps, I suppose in the same way I’d been expected to follow in my fathers’.
I wasn’t bitter about my upbringing. My parents were kind, loving people in their own way, but I simply wanted a different life.
Less fancy parties, more baseball games.
That was for later, though, once we had a family. For now, I had to suck it up, schmooze, and make a fuckload of money for our pack so we could settle down, focus on the important shit when the time was right, and not have to worry about anything for the rest of our days.
My phone buzzed in my pocket, and I excused myself to check the message. I regretted that almost as much. Logan’s mother was no better to deal with than the schmoozers.
