“It was just a joke.” Seth rolled his eyes.
“You’re so gross. It’s not a joke,” Hayden replied. “You need to go.”
“I need you to tell them that it was just a joke so I can walk,” he replied.
“Why are you asking me for a favor?” My eyebrows rose. But Seth ran on audacity.
“I didn’t think it would’ve hurt to try,” he admitted. He stared at my car. “When did you get a purple car? Did you sell Logan’s car to buy it?”
Wow, you paint a car purple and they can’t even tell? That was a really smart choice on my cousin’s part.
I ignored his question.
Seth’s shoulders slumped. “Logan already left, by the way. Not only did they expel him this morning, but security came and escorted him off campus. I drove him to the airport.” He frowned. “His doctorate program called him. It didn’t go well.”
“I know you’ll miss him, but again it’s not my job to finance your vacations, or to shield you from consequences,” I replied. They’d been besties since freshman orientation.
“I hope it was all worth it.” He stalked off like I’d betrayed them or done anything other than simply stand up for myself.
“Whendidyou get a purple car? It’s really cute,” Hayden added.
“It’s my ex’s car, the one that I was just accused of stealing. My cousins painted it purple. It's legally my car, I paid for it,” I replied.
“Alphas are so stupid sometimes.” Hayden rolled her eyes. “Speaking of alphas, those hockey boys from spring break, do you still keep in touch with them, or was it just avacationship?”
“I heard from them this morning.” Or rather, my morning. They’d finished their morning skate, had lunch, and were getting ready for a little pregame nappy-nap.
“You miss them,” Leigh teased.
“I do,” I admitted.
“Do they know you miss them?” Leigh’s eyebrows rose as she took another drink.
“Yeah? Not that it really does anything.” It was fun talking to them last night. After Ashton finished telling me stories, Steven got back on and we chatted for a while.
“Mmmm, yeah. It would be really hard to be in a long distance relationship with hockey players. Their schedules are crazy, not to mention unstable–playing for one team one day and then get traded mid-game and end up playing for somebody else and then you have to uproot your whole life,” Hayden replied.
“I mean, you could probably make it work. You know how busy you get during the academic year,” Leigh suggested, checking her phone. Probably seeing where the other two in our group were.
It could work. While I missed them, I’d felt a lot better about our video call.
However, there would be a severe lack of cuddles.
“I don’t even know if they like me, like me. We had a lot of fun,” I replied, and we had really great sex, “but that doesn’t mean that they’re willing to make the sacrifices for a relationship like that. Also, I just had a break up. Am I not supposed to give myself time to heal or whatever? I shouldn’t just be jumping into something so soon.”
I felt so confused. That’s what I should be doing, right? At the same time, there was part of me that simply wantedto blurt out last night that I really missed them. I wanted to confess that I really cared for them and ask if they still liked me?
Yes, they’d said that it didn’t matter that I was the wrong omega, but that didn’t mean they loved me.
“You’re an omega, if you’re feeling really strongly about an alpha after a short time, usually there’s a reason,” Leigh replied.
“What about research?” I asked. But I might have been thinking about what I could do in Washington State.
“Fieldwork in the summer, writing during the season?” Hayden suggested. “You might even be able to figure out conservation projects where they are.”
It could work. Those first couple of years would be pretty brutal though.
But then there might be provisions to do some of it online because I was an omega. I never fully took advantage of a lot of the different accommodations they offered to omegas, because I didn’t need them.
