Chapter Two
CARYS
The highway moves at a snail’s pace. The stop-and-go sets my motion sickness right on edge even with my eyes closed. I cast around for something to talk about to distract me from my growing nausea.
Unfortunately, the first question that pops into my mind isn’t one that I should be asking Timber. My mouth blurts it out anyway on a rushed whisper.
“What would you do if you matched again?”
The truck lurches, and then we’re going faster than before. The silence is charged between us. I know I’ve hit one of the few trip wires that Timber has. The last time I asked him, I’d been seventeen and insecure to high heaven. My first—and only—boyfriend had just designated as an Alpha, and I was worried he would break off our relationship since I was still just a Beta at the time.
I should know better than to ask Timber anything about Omegas and relationships by this point. I’d watched as my father helped pick up the pieces of Timber’s life after his scent-matched Omega ruined his life nearly a decade ago, after all. Timber hadlived with us for a while. My dad was terrified he would do something stupid that couldn’t be undone.
Timber hadn’t sugarcoated his answer, laying into me with a brutality I had only ever seen directed at opposing hockey players on the ice. I’d resent him more for it now except he’d been right. The boyfriend broke up with me only a few weeks later and started going out with one of the few Omegas that had designated in our senior class.
“There’s something about scent matching that drives you wild, Carys.” Timber sighs heavily. I chance a glance at him, swallowing down my nausea. His hands are white-knuckled where he holds the steering wheel. “It’s like nothing else matters in the world. Your match becomes everything to you, and it really feels like you’re nothing without them. It’s… crazy.”
His eyes go a bit unfocused, a bit haunted. He blows out a breath, and the moment is gone.
“So… first, I’d make sure that what I felt was really genuine or if it was just my Alpha side telling me the person was my match.”
The way he talks about his designation—like it’s an entirely different entity under his skin—feels absolutely foreign to my own experiences.
“But aren’t they the same thing? Your…” I try to find the right way to phrase the way the desires and needs of being an Omega feel in my body and my mind. I twist my hands into the simple brown and white gingham skirt I’m wearing. “Your instincts and your feelings?”
He sighs again, heavier than before, and then glances at me. His mouth tightens.
“Did you scent match with someone?” he asks without inflection.
I can’t help but blush. “No.” And then I look out the window, risking making my carsickness worse to avoid his gaze. “Ihaven’t even gone on a date since getting back from college this summer.”
I learned quickly my first year of college that I’m not built for the casual hook-ups that most of the girls in my Omega-specific sorority swore by. And, at least to myself, I’m able to admit I’m not resilient enough to handle the minefield that is dating. My heart’s too soft, too accepting. I make connections too fast to handle the push-and-pull dynamic of the start of meeting someone new.
Maybe that’s why I want a scent match so earnestly—something I know is real and honest without other subtexts going on behind the scenes.
“Really?” Now he sounds shocked again. Ugh. I should have just let us rot in the awkward silence of earlier. “Is a relationship not something you want?”
“I don’t know,” I say, honest with Timber like always. “I spent all of college on suppressants. I’m just trying to figure out how to… exist in my own body, I guess.”
That’s putting it mildly. I went from being able to move through classes and meetings and sorority events without a worry to needing to remember scent blocking lotion. Not to mention suddenly needing to use a vibrator nearly every night. Last month, I broke down and bought one of the toys that’s supposed to replicate knotting, too, though I haven’t been brave enough to try it.
“You took suppressants?”
I flinch and duck my head, picking at my skirt to keep me distracted.
“Don’t tell anyone, please,” I whisper. “I designated only a month before I was supposed to go to school in Colorado. I… was terrified, honestly. So I went on a low-grade suppressant and then had a booster medication to stop my heat from presenting.”
And it was really,reallyeffective. I’ve been off of the medications since June, and I still have no hint of when my heat might surface. The doctors said it would take between three and six months, but here we are at nearly the end of October and still nothing.
Timber doesn’t say anything as the traffic slowly clears. It’s not until we’re getting off the highway toward the practice arena that he breaks the silence.
“Do you remember what you told me before you presented? When you were still dating that dumb asshole from the football team?”
The memory is so strong, it could have happened yesterday. I furrow my eyebrows as I look over at him. He raises an eyebrow.
“That…”
I tuck a strand of hair behind my ear to delay my answer. It’s so embarrassing to say this in front of Timber, the guy who hates Omegas, hates relationships. I mean, he has completely valid reasons why. But still. It’s not like he’ll understand what it’s like to be a romantic at heart.
