“But he was getting over his anxiety, I promise. For your sake.” Anamaria grabs my hands and squeezes.
“You say that, but how? Why?”
“Some time last year, he realized how much you wanted a pack. That having us around helped for a while, but once Bebe, Caity, and I moved out, it was just the three of you—and you weren’t really a pack, just an approximation of one.” Rising, Anamaria pulls one rose of each color from the vase and holds them out. “He’s not here to open his heart and keep facing his dread, but he’d be delighted others appreciate you.”
Such surety in her voice, though I’m not quite so convinced. Not this fast, one fell swoop andpoof.
I’d lived through the end of Max’s last heat, when he lashed out at the mere hint that I might be interested in Nathan. Or was Max’s omega behind the challenge?
“You’ve given me much to think about.” I tuck the roses back into the arrangement, leaving it almost as it was.
Rather than pushing, Anamaria ushers me back into the kitchen where we drink reheated coffee and eat slightly cold toast over the counters. She and Corin carry the conversation, discussing her progress toward licensure and joining an established practice or setting up her own.
Just as well, for amid all the new information, all the revelations circling my brain, one core question stands out.
Max’s fear of alphas had long trails back to his childhood, but he’d been willing to explore packing up when we first met. He hadn’t seemed particularly nervy around alphas when we’d first started dating in college. He even went on several casual group dates involving alphas. When Dan and I started getting serious, I asked him and Max to go out together, hoping to be part of a pack of four or five. To me, they seemed to me to have a lot in common, both facing difficulties adapting to their designations. The first date went okay enough that they arranged a second.
There was no third.
By the time Max and I graduated, he talked only about what the two of us might do together. He wasn’t interested in alphas except for his heats—and he worried about losing me.
What changed things?
Easy to spot the likely cause. After that second date with Max, Dan demanded I choose between them. Although Max laid down no ultimatums, he made it clear he would never pack up with Dan.
Neither ever explained why.
Dan is due at the midday meeting with Corin and Anamaria and whoever else.
But before I meet him in their company, I want to get him alone and extract some straight answers. He owes me—and Max—that much.
Chapter 17
A Double-Edged Gift
DAN
Perhaps I had preconceptions about Johanna and Max’s company being noisy and hyperactive, with wide open spaces and people brainstorming all over the place—in other words, resembling my fractured memories of Max in college and every time I’d seen him interviewed for a documentary or news story. If so, any such notions dissolve when I walk through the door.
The remodeled warehouse sits in a mixed-use neighborhood. Outside the air is redolent with oils and corn, suggesting staff at a nearby restaurant are busy preparing tortillas. Not a hint of the smell penetrates the indoors except what accompanies me and even that quickly dissolves under the steady whirr of air purifiers.
The clean air settles something in my inner alpha. No matter how much I—and he by extension—enjoy fragrances, he’s always scanning them for hints of alphas and omegas to watch out for as potential sources of danger and confrontation or treasures to protect whether or not they want it.
The air purification works so well, neither he nor I can identify the designation of the young white man at the front desk, with his blue-streaked, waist-length braids and ample piercings, nor of the three apparently unconnected salespeople occupying half of the available seating. The overhead light is soft and warm, the area decorated in peaceful shades of blue and green. Little noise from outside penetrates the walls, perhaps due to added insulation, and soft industrial carpet swallows most footsteps.
Everything’s calming.
Maybe this meeting won’t be as bad as feared.
How many times did I consider rescinding my acceptance? Too many to count yet, here I am. My children would laugh to see me in the three-piece gray suit that’s hung in my closet for years and gets little use, though it still fits. Mostly. The waistband might be a bit snugger now, but otherwise, it’s fine. The tie, striped in pale pink on gray nearly strangles me, though I tied it loose. My shoes pinch.
I hope Max left me nothing. If anything, I owedhim, even though the last time we interacted in person and were in any kind of competition—not really—he won, and I lost.
I can’t resist touching the breast pocket of my coat. I tucked Max’s last note there for luck, and because I suspect Johanna may want to see it. Despite opening and rereading it regularly, the paper remains stiff under the cloth.
The receptionist nods at my name, then asks me to take a seat as he makes a call.
I wait. I’m here to pay a debt.
