Don't think about Rosemarie's pack.
Don't think about the way she glows now.
Just don't think about how you may be a tad jealous because you never luck out…ever.
Elowen's face does something that is diplomatically not a smile.
"Anyway," I continue, "Rosemarie's sick. I already called it—she's pregnant. If she is, the café is going to be genuinely short-staffed because we can't run that place on two people during the morning rush. I've been thinking about asking Ruby since she's going to be around Oakridge Hollows until at least summer, and she's brilliant with beverages, but even with Ruby we might need to hire out. The problem is, Hazel wants to keep the main staff as Omegas—you know, to actually help out our own people, because half the businesses in this town won't hire an Omega past a reception desk." I rub my face with both hands. "I don't know if I have the energy to do interviews right now."
"I volunteer as tribute."
I lower my hands and look at her.
"Elowen."
"I'm serious."
"You don't need to work," I say it plainly, not cruelly. "You were born into a trust fund. You were literally showered in money on Chinese New Year, which—from what I understand of family lore—involved actual cash."
She laughs, the sound bright and genuine, and it does what Elowen's laugh always does, which is improve the immediate quality of whatever room it enters.
"First of all," she says, leaning one hip against the counter, "I'm half Chinese, and as of right now I look like the whitest woman in the postcode. We have to be genuinely grateful that my Scottish blood only delivered freckles and not the full ginger-hair package, because if it had, I promise you every person in this town and their auntie, uncle, and estranged cousin would be falling over themselves to ask where my parents are from and how they met."
"They already ask that."
"They do ask that," she agrees without any visible irritation, which is one of Elowen's many gifts. "But there's something charming about a Scottish bagpipe player meeting a Chinese clàrsach player on a cruise through Europe. That's genuinely the most perfect How I Met Your Mother story that has ever existed."
"How I Met Our Omega," I correct.
"Exactly." She crosses to me and offers her hand.
I take it, and she pulls with the deceptive strength of a woman who lifts and carries flower arrangements for a living and has developed forearms you wouldn't expect from her general aesthetic of softness. I get to my feet. She pats my shoulder in the way she does, which is the Elowen version of a long hug—efficient, warm, sufficient.
"Listen. I may be born into money. That doesn't mean I can't help my best friend. This week we're training two new florists,so I genuinely don't need to be at Bloom and Brier every hour—I can go in, check that they haven't cremated the roses, and come by the café in between. We're not going to be slammed until Easter, when everyone suddenly remembers they believe in God and needs centerpieces."
She's not wrong about Easter.
"Plus St. Patrick's Day is coming up," she adds, "and Oakridge Hollows goes about thirty percent more Irish than it has any geographic right to be for forty-eight hours, but after that it's dead until bunnies and chocolate."
I stare at her for a moment.
Elowen stares back with the patience of someone who has already decided the outcome of this conversation and is simply allowing me the dignity of arriving at it myself.
She's going to come in and be incredible and make everything better, and I'm going to let her and be embarrassed about needing help for a week before I get over it. We both know this is how it goes.
"Mila." Her voice goes quiet but steady—the register she uses when she means something, when the softness isn't decoration but foundation. "I know it's hard. What those Alphas did to you…leaving that debt, walking out like your years of loyalty meant nothing, that's not a small thing to carry. But you're not carrying it alone unless you choose to. You've got people in your corner." She squeezes my shoulder once. "Rely on me. Let people help. That's not weakness."
I look at her for a long moment.
She smells like peonies, means every word, and she showed up at midnight on a Tuesday because that's what Elowen does, and sometimes a person's kindness is so consistent it becomes its own form of overwhelming.
"I could use your help," I say. "Please."
Her whole face shifts into something warm and satisfied.
"Good. I'll be there bright and early. You finish your bar shift, take a power nap—yes, a real one, lying down, not ten minutes on a break room chair—and come in at eight instead of six. I know how to open. I've watched you do it enough times." She turns me by the shoulder toward the kitchen island. "Now sit down and eat before your food gets cold. I know you hate cold food."
She's right. I hate cold food with a conviction that is probably disproportionate to the actual stakes of the situation.
