“No.”
She does not elaborate immediately. She drums her fingers on the glass. Watches the technician at the back of the counter doing whatever it is the technician is doing with the screen protector on the new device. Decides, in the small visible way she decides things she would rather not, to give us the rest of it.
“If you want my honest opinion. My family was not, ah. Particularly enthusiastic about me playing hockey. When I was little, sure, they were fine with it. Cute, even. Their little tomboy out on the rink. The whole package was charming for them as long as I was nine years old. The moment my designation was confirmed Omega, however, that affection went out the windowin a hurry. Omegas do not play hockey, Iris. Omegas do not skate against boys, Iris. Omegas do not stay on the ice past sixteen, Iris.” She tips the fan up another inch. “So it kind of became a rebellion thing, if I am honest. The longer I stayed in the sport, the less they were willing to fund any part of it. Including, eventually, basic things like a phone.”
The boutique’s expensive perfumed air feels, suddenly, several degrees colder than the thermostat is responsible for.
Rémi does not move, but his eyes have gone fractionally darker. Jude’s jaw has done its smallest motion. I do not, because I am the man with the running mouth in this trio, let any of it show on my face. I simply lift one hand and tuck a damp pink strand behind her ear, casually, like a man brushing lint off a sweater, and watch her cheeks colour in real time.
Noted. The blood of every adult in the O’Shea family postcode is, professionally speaking, on my list.
“Miss?” The technician returns. “You are all set. Screen protector applied. Case you selected has been fitted, and — I do not say this often — the latest model in pink. This is actually the only one we had in this color in the entire city.”
Iris turns, slowly, and her entire face does the thing.
The thing where her eyes go enormous and storm-grey and the corners of her mouth lift in a slow, undisguised wonder that she has not yet learned how to put a wall up around. She accepts the phone from the technician with both hands as though it were a small bird. She brings it level with her face. She looks at the pink case. She looks at the screen. She looks at the soft rose-gold ring on the back of the device, which I one-hundred-percent suggested to the associate while she was three feet down the counter studying a stand of charging cables and refusing to participate in this part of the transaction.
She does not realize, in this moment, that I would build her a temple for that face.
“Thank you,” she breathes, to the air around me in general. “Oh my God. Thank you. This is — thank you.”
She looks up at me, suddenly fierce.
“You three are getting put in this phone first. As contacts. Before anyone else. Before
Rémi’s millimeter smile makes its appearance. Jude’s mouth lifts at one corner. My own face, I cannot speak for, but I imagine it is the face of a man who has accepted he is, with no further discussion, very much in trouble.
“I will put us in for you,” I tell her, holding out my hand. “While we go get ice cream.”
“Ice creaaaammmm?”
The way it comes out of her, breathlessly, two octaves higher than her normal speaking voice, is going to ruin entire weekends of mine.
“Ice cream,” I confirm, and offer my other hand, palm up, casual as anything.
She smirks. She tries very, very hard not to look as excited as she clearly is. She loses. She slides her hand into mine, small and cool and faintly damp from the fan, and Jude thanks the associate behind us, and Rémi taps a metal card on the reader without checking the total, and the four of us spill back out onto the street as a unit for the first time since we entered this store, and the unit-ness of it, I will be honest, does something low in my chest that I am not in a hurry to dissect.
People look.
That is the part that gets me. The city we are in is a city that does not normally do double-takes, because it is engineered for the kind of beautiful young pack-shaped configurations that walk through its boutiques every Saturday and never raise an eyebrow. And yet pedestrians on this sidewalk are clocking us, in pairs, in clusters, the small wide-eyed registrations of people watching what they cannot quite name. Three Alphas. One smallpink-haired Omega between them. Holding the inner one’s hand. The defenseman on her open side at a half-step behind, the captain on her other shoulder. The diamond formation people have apparently been waiting their whole adult lives to see in a wild population.
It is, weirdly, empowering. I do not have a vocabulary for it yet. I will be writing one.
“We should do a movie night,” I announce, swinging her hand a fraction in mine. “Tonight. The four of us. Jude picks.”
“How about no,” Jude says, mildly.
“We have not done one in months,” Rémi notes, from the other side. “Why not.”
“I agree with Rémi.”
“Of course you agree, Santori. You brought it up.”
“Iris.” Rémi, neutrally. “You into movies.”
“I usually do not have time for them.” She is craning her neck up at me, then at Rémi, like a small pink switchboard operator. “But if you guys are not doing anything tonight, sure. Sign me up.”
“I will handle popcorn,” I offer.
