“That’s my plan.”
For one second, all I can hear is the rain and my own pulse beating too hard in my ears. Then Jakob says, “If she doesn’t answer her door tonight, I’m going through it.”
“Deep breaths,” I say, though mine aren’t exactly steady. “Let’s not terrify her after the day she’s already having. This is a surprise for her too, and if we come in like three Alphas ready to tear the walls down, she’s going to bolt so hard she’ll leave a Claire-shaped hole in the drywall.”
Jakob’s jaw flexes.
“I’ll bring her up to speed,” I add, softer now, because the thought of her over there alone, rewriting us into something cruel, is making it hard to think straight. “Plus, I need to go pick up Damien from the neighbor.”
Jakob nods.
I march to my bedroom and pack a small bag, including toiletries, then shove the strewn clothes around my room into the closet with no real system before closing it tight. Trudy can have the room, the bed, the walls. Whatever basic decency requires.
But my place isn’t here tonight.
It’s next door, before Claire convinces herself she isn’t ours.
23
CLAIRE
Itold myself I wouldn’t go to the window, yet here I am.
My shower-damp hair drips onto the fabric of my oversized T-shirt, my glasses fogged at the edges from the steam of my quick shower, while my feet are bare on the cold kitchen tiles, and I’m gripping the windowsill as though it’s the only thing stopping me from marching straight out the door and demanding answers.
Their kitchen is lit up across the gap between our houses. Only Brody and Jakob are there, standing close, heads bent together in conversation, with no sign of Trudy or Corey. Somehow that makes it worse, because my mind immediately fills in the blanks with images of them together.
Trudy in one of their rooms, in Corey’s arms because maybe he missed her more than he ever admitted. His mouth on hers the way it was on mine, hungry and familiar and relieved, like three days with me were nothing compared to two years of wanting her back. The thought strikes a hot spike under my ribs, jealousy burning so fast and bright it almost scares me.
I picture them in his bed. His hands on her body, her tucked beneath him.
“God.” I’m breathing too quickly. “Okay, just calm down.”
I force air into my lungs because I’m building an entire betrayal out of a lit window and a woman who might only be crying into a mug of tea.
Their first Omega, first love.
The woman who slept in their beds and belonged to them in every way I’ve been trying not to want. Now, I might die if I lose them.
I tighten my hold on the frame until the edge bites into my palms, and I tell myself to stop. She probably came to them because she had nowhere else to go, and they are good men. Of course they’re helping her and wouldn’t leave her outside in the rain. This isn’t proof of anything except kindness.
This isn’t Louis all over again, choosing a different Omega while I stand on the edge with my chest split open, trying to understand how I misread every touch, every promise, every hungry look.
But my body doesn’t believe me.
I’m shaking so hard my teeth chatter, and there’s a horrible pressure building under my ribs, the old familiar kind that saysBrace, brace, bracebefore the blow comes. I try to breathe through it the way people say you’re supposed to.In for four. Hold. Out for four.Calm the fuck down. Be rational. Don’t make this about you and be the insecure woman staring through a curtain, inventing heartbreak out of silhouettes.
Except I remember what it felt like to be abandoned.
The bright, humiliating shock of realizing Louis had already moved on while I was still trying to fix what he’d broken. I smiled through conversations while people looked at me with pity. All those nights lying awake and replaying everything, searching for the exact moment I became too difficult and easy to replace.
And now my heart, stupid, hopeful thing, has already started building the worst version of the story.
The one where the mountain meant everything to me because I was in heat, and less to them because they were only doing what good Alphas do. They rut! Where three reckless days in a cabin made me forget myself, while they never forgot the woman who came first.
I press my hand to my mouth, breathing hard through my fingers.
“Stop it,” I whisper. “I’m not going over there.”