It’s like magic.
The whole place comes alive.
“Sofia?”
“Darling?”
“SOFIA!”
“My baby’s home!” my mother calls from deep in the house.
“Sebastian!” I chide, but he just smacks a kiss to my forehead.
“I was one day away from coming to fetch you home, pack or no.”
I wince.
He doesn’t notice, but Devon does. Our eyes meet and lock. He raises an eyebrow. My cheeks heat again, and I lose the ability to speak, just like I always have around him.
“No pack,” I murmur to Sebastian after a long moment, who again, doesn’t hear me. Glancing at Devon is a mistake.
His eyes get even more intense. He just leans on the kitchen island, stroking my weiner dog and staring at me like he wants to…no, bad girl, we are not going back down fantasy road.
“Devon’s here?” I ask Sebastian, trying to play it cool. As far as I know, Seb never noticed my heartbreaking infatuation with his best friend.
He smiles. “Oh, yeah, his pack lives here now. I couldn’t bear to be parted from my best friend anymore!” he jokes.
I’m not hyperventilating. I’m not. I am in complete control. There’s just the tiny issue of sleeping under the same roof as all my teenage fantasies, but I’ve got this, don’t I?
I glance at Devon, and his lips curl slowly up in a smirk that makes my knees weak and my scent bloom into the air.
“Yeah, the pack is currently staying in your room,” Sebastian announces obliviously.
I suck in air, mortified, frantically thinking about all the hours and hours of carving our initials in hearts. I was a very alpha-obsessed young omega.
“Oh,” I mutter, feeling faint and turning away, but before I can think of anything, my mother slams into me, followed by my dads and my sisters.
“Our Sofia sofa is home!” Seb cries mockingly, jumping on and then, like the lunatics they are, they squeeze. And I really, really feel like I’m home, and I’ve never felt more broken or more hopeful.
Chapter 2
Sofia
Dad bustles around the kitchen, muttering grumpily, but every now and then throws out random recipe names with childlike enthusiasm. I get a pang of homesickness that I haven’t had in years. His green eyes shine with happiness, and his auburn hair is only just showing up the grey. Milton Sol bites his tongue in that way I’ve seen him do a million times and suddenly looks like he hasn’t aged at all.
I cover my mouth with my hand when I read the words on the frilly pink apron. “Hands off my buns.”
Mum pulls her stool up closer beside me as Dad hands us mugs. My siblings have been chased out, and it’s just my parents and me, and the nerves are starting to set in. Danger has disappeared with Devon, curled up like a floozy in his arms. Though, I mean, I would be, too, if he’d speak to me the way he spoke to Danger.
I look down at the mug and feel myself soften. The answer to my life’s woes came from this drink. Bad day at school, love woes, hurt, sick, scared, sad, lonely. The answer was always the same. Secret recipe cocoa.
“Of course,” Pops says, and the familiar, steady calm of his alpha presence settles me like nothing else can.
He’s aged; his face has more lines, his hair a touch more silver, but he’s still got that beautiful gentleness that has calmed many a fight between siblings. He’s wearing a cerulean blue jumper that matches the eyes I always thought held the answers to the universe.
Why didn’t I come home to visit? Would things have been different?
My mum hasn’t changed at all. She’s still beautiful with a thicker waist and thighs and an energy that has me wanting to hide behind her. We’ve got the same hazel eyes, and where her hair is brown, I inherited my red hair from Dad.
