I sniffle a bit before turning my head toward her. “I don’t talk about it much.”
“You should. It helps the healing process.”
I nod softly. “I talk about it when Amber wants to talk. But…”
Her hand falls to my knee. “Does Amber ask about her much?”
“She’s been full of questions lately, especially with her Omega status emerging early. She wonders if her mother was the same way. What her mother’s scent was. When her mother’s first heat was.”
“Pretty normal questions. I remember having those same ones when I emerged early.”
My mind is bouncing in so many different directions. There’s so much I wish to tell her. But I have to get something off my chest.
Lia needs to know where I stand with her.
I take a chance and place my hand on top of hers. “I want you to know that I feel a connection brewing with you.”
She searches my face. “Yeah?”
I nod as I gaze into her beautiful eyes. “Yeah. I just—I don’t want you to think I’m not interested in you. I am. I’m justmore deliberate with the connections I make, especially with Amber going through what she’s going through right now. It’s a vulnerable time for her, and I don’t want to rock that boat anymore than it’s already been rocked.”
She smiles softly at me, and I feel like I’ve won the lottery. “I like deliberate.”
I gaze down at her for a while before I pull myself out of my trance. I need to lighten the mood. We are supposed to be hanging out and getting to know one another, not having a cry-fest over things in the past that we can’t change.
“We should eat before the food gets cold. Cheese grits are never good when cold,” I say.
Her hand moves away from my knee, and I almost regret ever mentioning the food. But she’s hungry, and she needs to eat. We sit in silence for a while, nothing but the scraping of silverware against plates to keep us company.
Until she finally opens up a little bit.
“My ARS almost killed me,” she says softly.
My chest tightens painfully as I snap my attention to her. “Seriously?”
She nods slowly, still looking down at her food. “I mean, I’m still here. Obviously. But it was rough going for a while. Did a stint in the hospital. Not sure I’ll ever dig myself out of that medical debt.”
I don’t even know where to start with my questions. “You don’t have health insurance?”
She scoffs. “What freelancer does?”
My food is long forgotten about, even as she still picks at hers. “Is that why you haven’t put away any money for your own bakery yet? You’re still paying all that off?”
Her shoulders sink a little bit, like something akin to defeat. “My credit score is about all I have now. I’ll need a good one if I’m ever going to secure a loan to open a bakery of my own.”
I take a chance and reach out, tucking a rogue strand of hair behind her ear so that I can see her a bit more clearly. Her hair curtains off her face when she bows her head like that.
I crook my finger beneath her chin and lift those gorgeous eyes to mine. “I can’t understand why a pack would let you go. What happened?”
She swallows thickly. “Nothing bad. We were just young and stupid, you know?”
“Want to talk about it, Alley Cat?”
She sighs and removes her chin from my grasp, and I don’t stop her. She opened up this conversation, but I don’t want to push. She takes a few more bites of her food and I follow her lead, focusing on my own since it’s already getting lukewarm.
But eventually, she speaks again. “They didn’t do anything wrong, if that’s what you’re asking. It’s not like they tossed me out on my butt or whatever. We just… my heat cycle was already erratic to begin with, you know? It slammed into me during one of my deliveries, and I did my best to get home. But I had to pull over on the side of the road and… well…”
“The rest is history?”
