“I don’t mind a little grocery shopping.” He gives me that devilish grin again, full of unspoken promises for the future that make me shiver.
“Okay, then. Um, I’m just going to the big store down the road. I promise not to take up too much of your time.”
He scoffs at me. “Take all of my time. Please.”
My lips purse on a stifled laugh as I press the button on my liftgate for it to close automatically, then turn back to Jasper. “I’ll meet you there, then.”
“That you will.”
I watch his muscular body turn and walk toward a nice, new pickup truck parked further down the shopping center’s lot, noticing immediately that he favors his left leg. I rack my brain trying to remember if I ever heard about him being injured in his career, but I’d stopped following football when I moved into my apartment after college. It feels almost slaker-ish to look him up on my phone now.
I guess I’ll have all the time in the world now to ask him about his life.
Chapter Three
“Whatever you’re doing, bro, you need to stop and get to the grocery store,now.”
The second I’d started my truck, I called my pack brother.
Adley.She smells like orange blossoms, reminding me of where I grew up in Northridge.
She smells like home.
Sheismy home.
A thought nags at the back of my mind, asking if I came on too strong. If I were too pushy. But how could I be any other way? Adley is my destiny.Ourdestiny. And I could see in her eyes, in her reaction to me, that she knows it, too. So I push the thought away.
“I’m about to go into a video conference with a client. What’s going on?”
A disgruntled sigh tears from my lips. “Can’t you reschedule?”
“No. Now, tell me what’s going on.”
I sigh again, frustration coursing through my veins.
Adam Jones and I are the least likely pairing for pack brothers, personality-wise. The guy is seven years younger than me and has a business acumen like I’ve never seen before. He’s more rigid and focused than any of the professional football coaches I’ve ever played for in my eight-year career. And those guys were intense as fuck.
Adam was born in Crescent Lake, went away to university, tried life in the city, hated it and came back home to build his own app development empire. All at the tender age of twenty-five.
I met him a year ago when he moved back, and we both just knew. It was like finding the younger brother I never had and never knew I wanted.
So, now he has two older brothers to bug the shit out of him.
“Our Omega is here.”
A loud crash fills my truck’s speakers where my phone is connected, followed by a long silence.
I cringe. Tact, not my strong suit. Never has been. I like to get to the point as quickly and often as possible. Hence, the reason I’m following my future woman to the grocery store and then to her home.
“You couldn’t, like,easeme into that?”
He’s shouting now. That’s new.Oops.
“Sorry, bruh. I’m just excited, you know?”
“How do you know it’s her?”
“How could I not? She smells like the most divine thing I’ve ever encountered. She’s beautiful, too. She just moved here.”
