Phoenix snorts.
"And Rex still doesn't know I'm an omega," Bells reminds us both. She takes a long swig from her water bottle, then aims the spout at me. "So don't say that word too loud, yeah?"
"You're going to have to tell him eventually," Phoenix says in that sing-song voice he uses when he's saying something he isn't sure he should say and doesn't want to get in trouble for it.
Bells drags a hand through her white hair on her way to the door. "Yeah. I know. I'm planning on it tonight."
The door swings shut behind her and the room goes quiet except for the low hum of my amp.
Phoenix crosses his arms and leans against the doorframe. Still grinning.
"Stop," I say.
"I didn't say anything."
"Your face is saying plenty."
He pushes off the frame and drops onto the couch beside me, close enough that his thigh presses against mine. The contact is deliberate. I don't move away.
"So," he says. "Tonight."
"Tonight." I pick up the bass again, more for something to do with my hands than any real desire to play. "She tells Rex he'sher scent match, Rex either implodes or transcends, and we rehearse the unmasking for Carmine. In that order, apparently."
"You think Rex can handle both?"
"I think Rex can barely handle one." I run my thumb along the fretboard. "But Bells seems to think she can manage him."
"She managedyoupretty quick."
I elbow him in the ribs. He barely flinches. Giant bastard.
"For what it's worth," Phoenix says, quieter now, "I think telling him is the right call. He's been circling around it for weeks. You've seen the way he watches her when he thinks nobody's looking. Heknowssomething is off. He just can't name it."
"And when he can?"
Phoenix is quiet for a beat. His knee bounces once, twice.
"Then we're a full-fledged pack," he says simply. "For real. Not just four people living in the same apartment. Not just a band with loose pack bonds."
The word sits in the air between us.
Pack.
I think about Nash. About the way things used to be before the overdose, before Rex sealed himself inside grief and fury. Four guys who played music because music was the only language that made sense. Nash held us together with gentle hands and a crooked smile and songs that bled.
Now Bells bleeds instead.
Different key.
Same frequency.
"Carmine's going to walk in here and find absolute pandemonium," I say.
"When has he not?"
Fair point.
I lean into Phoenix's shoulder. Just for a second. Just long enough to feel the solid warmth of him, the steady drumbeat of his pulse through fabric.