A strange warmth fills me, and I pull my knees to my chest, resting my chin on them. “Maybe you’re right. Do you at least like it there?”
“Hate it with a passion.”
“I don’t think you do anything without passion.”
Derrick’s voice is soft when he answers me.“Life’s too short for half measures.”
We’re both quiet, but it’s not uncomfortable. In a way, this feels like we’re starting over. Like we’re back to before the lies.
It’s easier for me to accept the designation lie than I thought it would be. When I look at it objectively, his choice makes sense. I would have cut him out of my life and been alone if I knew he was an Alpha. Sure, I was friends with Marlie, but our friendship wasn’t like things were with Sax.
I won’t say I forgive him for it yet, but at least now I can understand why he did it.
“Grant told me about how y’all split responsibilities for me.”
His sharp exhale has me picturing him rubbing the back of his neck and squeezing his eyes shut.“You were not a responsibility.”
“You know what I mean.”
“I do. It wasn’t a conscious decision. It evolved over time, as pack dynamics tend to. It felt natural to us.”
Pack dynamics. When the guys speak about all of this, they talk as if we are already a pack. It’s not that I think it’s presumptuous, even though it is. It’s more that I never pictured myself in a pack.
But I never pictured myself with an Alpha either, and now I’m scent matched to two of them.
“For what it’s worth, I am sorry that we kept you in the dark, but I don’t regret it, nor do I regret lying to you about my designation. As we grew up, there were things I couldn’t, can’t, be for you. Even if I had never met Grant or Ivan, I’m not able to be everything you need.”
That assumption annoys the shit out of me. “Bold of you to presume you know what I need.”
“I know better than you do, honey. You’re the one who is so terrified of getting FOS that you haven’t done any other research into being an Omega beyond what you learn at school. You’re so focused on not getting sick that you’ve forgotten how to be an Omega. You don’t have a nest, for fuck’s sake.”
I wince. “I don’t need a nest.”
I’ve had one nest. Shortly after I presented, Calvin took me shopping for the things I’d need. Omegas do better with Alpha input on their nests, but I was a kid. I didn’t have an Alpha.
What I did have was my older brother, who took me and dealt with my teenage frustration and got me set up with the perfect little nest.
And then he died and I couldn’t look at that nest anymore. It held too many memories. It still smelled like his grassy green tea pheromones.
I’ve never built another.
“Just because you don’t want one doesn’t mean you don’t need one. You’re suppressing your Omega tendencies. Every time you called me, delirious with heat, you’d beg me to mail you shirts of mine. You want to nest, but you’re burying that instinct down. Just like I know that you want Ivan or Grant to hold you while you sleep tonight, but you won’t ask, because you’ve convinced yourself that if you don’t embrace being an Omega, you won’t get FOS.”
“I don’t…” The words get stuck in my throat.
I do deny myself my Omega instincts. It’s so second nature to me that sometimes I forget this isn’t how it’s supposed to be.
“It’s easier this way.”
“Bullshit.”
I doubt an argument between us was what the producers had in mind when they set up the call, but tough shit. This is who Derrick and I are.
“How would you know, Derrick? You haven’t exactly embraced being an Alpha.”
“How do you know I haven’t?”
“You lied and convinced me you were a Beta.”
