Page 28 of Knot Now Knot Ever

“What about you, Pascal?” I inquired, shifting my attention to him.

“I work in IT developing programs to streamline company efficiency,” Pascal answered. “It wasn’t what I thought I would be doing, but it ended up being what I loved. I knew I’d be working with computers but more in the scope of cybercrimes. As part of my program, I needed to take a basic developers class, and that’s what changed everything. Each student in that class created a program, and mine was a service that allowed companies to create a central hub of information that any authorized employee anywhere in the world could access. No more having to worry about sending emails or data transfer if the file was too big. The person simply uploaded the content to a secure folder and linked whoever needed it.”

“Are you telling me you created Access Net?” I questioned.

Pascal adjusted his glasses and grinned awkwardly. “Basically. A company bought the program and improved it, but I created the idea and hold the patent even now. The company pays me a leasing fee for them to use my code.”

“Yet you still choose to work,” I pointed out.

“Yeah, but not because I have to. See, my brain needs a problem to fix or a job to do. If I don’t have that outlet, I can’t sleep, my body feels restless, and I’m not the greatest person to be around. My mom had me tested in elementary school, and I have an IQ of a hundred and thirty,” Pascal admitted. “My one dad used to joke and say I was a human supercomputer and why I struggled to relate to people. In reality, the average kid didn’t find learning computer code as fun as I did. Took me a while to accept that normal simply means the average commonality between children, and not fitting in that bracket doesn’t mean I’m an outsider.”

“I understand exactly what you mean,” I said, confirming my suspicion that Pascal and I would easily find common ground. “When my father passed, I’d only briefly worked for the company. I had no idea he’d left his company shares to me until the lawyer handed me a letter my father had written explaining his choice. As I’m sure you saw in your search, not everyone in the company was thrilled with me taking over, but here we are, and the business is still standing.”

Pascal let out a huff of laughter. “Eli, it doesn’t take an MBA to know you took this company and doubled, if not tripled its earnings. That’s not even touching on how you’ve expanded locally and internationally, allowing your company to provide oil to countries not many others can. Clearly, those men are kicking themselves for ever speaking against you.”

“What makes you say that?” I asked, curious at his choice of words.

He grinned and leaned forward. “Because you’d never let those bastards stay on the board after pulling a stunt like that. It would have been a threat to your family’s legacy.”

The blunt response drew a grin, and I chuckled. “You’re absolutely right. The moment I knew I had the votes, I cleaned house in the boardroom. Many were original backers when my fathers were young and naïve, but they’d more than made back their earnings, so I didn’t see a reason to keep them.”

Tanner let out an impressed whistle. “That’s pure Alpha energy right there. God, I would have loved to see their faces when you dropped the ax.”

Our conversation paused at Lyra’s office door opening, and Fawn emerged holding Lyra’s hand. I could tell she was still nervous, but she seemed much more relaxed with Fawn close by.

“Hey, guys, I’d like to introduce you to someone,” Fawn announced, drawing Lyra beside. “This is Lyra, our scent-matched Omega. Lyra, these gallant gentlemen are your Alphas. Starting with the dashing man in the glasses, we have Pascal, Zachary, and Tanner. Zachary and Tanner are a couple and met before our pack was brought together, but they both have plenty of love to go around. Across from them is a newly added member just like yourself, Eli.”

We all smiled and greeted Lyra as Fawn introduced us, following the Omega’s lead. It was smart of him to give this meeting a do-over—the first time around hadn’t gone how any of us thought it would.

“Hello, everyone,” Lyra greeted, tucking her hair behind her ear.

This was something I’d noticed she did when feeling nervous or uncomfortable about the interaction. I also happened to think it was rather adorable in my eyes.

“First of all, I’d like to apologize for my abrupt exit. I felt a little overwhelmed and needed some space, but I could have handled it better,” Lyra acknowledged. “I hope you’ll be patient with me as we get to know each other. I never expected to find my scent matches since I didn’t enter the Scent Matchers’ database. Now that I have, it’s forcing me to work through some things I wasn’t expecting to face.”

Pascal rose and walked over to Lyra, offering his hand. When she took it, the Alpha smiled tenderly and kissed the back of it. “It is such a pleasure to finally meet you, Lyra. As for being patient, take all the time you need because we’re not going anywhere. Just keep in mind we’re here to offer our help and support. All you need to do is ask.”

His words seemed to soothe her enough to sit back on the couch beside me. We all talked for another half hour or so before they decided it was best to head out.

“We need to get over to the Scent Matchers, and I’m sure you have important things to do,” Zachary said. “If you two are up for it, we’d love to have you over for dinner in the next few days.”

“Oh, maybe we can do it once we get confirmation about courting leave,” Fawn suggested. “Then it can be the official kick-off to the beginning of forever.”

Everyone agreed, and I thought it would give Lyra plenty of time to adjust but not enough time to overthink the situation. Even if she hadn’t been resistant to the idea of meeting her scent matches, this would be a lot for anyone to deal with after just relocating and starting a new job. I wanted this family we were building together to have the best chance, and I would do whatever it took to ensure we got it.

Two days passed since meeting the pack I never knew I had. We’d exchanged numbers, and all the guys had texted me throughout the days. Fawn liked to send me funny memes or cartoons that always seemed to make me laugh. I learned the hard way not to open them until I was alone or with Eli since the sound of a woman moaning accompanied one of the images. Of course, it would happen when I was in a meeting taking notes as Eli hashed out an important safety issue with one of our refineries. Thankfully, everyone got a good laugh out of it and moved on, giving the meeting a lighter feel than it had up to that point.

Tanner discovered my love of small batch coffee and picked my brain about my favorite flavor notes. He, of course, shared that he owned a coffee shop and promised to give me a tour and roasting lessons if I wanted to learn. Zachary was a huge fan of art and liked to sketch in his free time. He’d send me pictures of things he was working on trying to come up with ideas for a hair competition he was entered in. I had no idea there even was such a thing, but a quick internet search revealed just how big a deal these types of competitions were.

Pascal tried his best, but he openly admitted he wasn’t skilled in the art of small talk and preferred phone conversations to texting. He called me last night absolutely fed up with all his spelling mistakes, and we talked for over an hour. We bonded over our love of classic literature, and I tried to offer him some suggestions for books that had been published in the last decade. He wasn’t convinced they’d be worth his time but promised to at least look up a few of them at the library and see. I was learning Pascal was a man who knew what he liked, and once he found it, he didn’t see the point in changing or expanding that comfort zone. I understood, feeling the same in a few areas of my life, but Elora found ways to show me there was no harm in enjoying more things.

We’d all been waiting to hear back from the Scent Matchers, and this morning, I’d been sent a summons to meet with a Matcher this afternoon. Immediately after reading the letter I’d been handed, I called Eli, even though he would be here any moment to pick me up.

“What’s wrong, Lyra?” Eli questioned the moment he picked up.

“I got a summons,” I blurted. “It’s the Scent Matchers. They want to meet with me this afternoon.”

My hands and voice shook as my mind filled with all the terrible possibilities this could mean for the others and me. What if they refused to believe I was matched to them? Would they have to put me in the system just on the off chance there were more matches out there? Oh God, what if they took Fawn and me away from the pack and turned us into some science experiment to figure out how we were scent-matched?