Page 31 of Secret Heart
Brielle sighs.
“Okay, look, I don’t know if I should admit this,” she says, her cheeks flushed again. “But you’re one of my closest friends, and I hate how you’re struggling over all of this. And… I remember being the Omega floundering.”
“Admit what?”
She bites her lip.
“Ethan’s clothes had that sour smell, too, when he got back to the house on Saturday.”
I grab my purse from the backseat. “So?”
“He didn’t stay long enough to help with the cleaning.” Brielle wraps a flannel at least three sizes too big and smelling of cinnamon around her as we head toward the boutique. “Beau sent him back while they were still waiting to see if the calf would make it.”
A small set of bells jingle, and a woman glances up from the counter tucked to the right. I give a small smile and nod that conveys we don’t need help, then grab a basket and start toward the bit of the shop I’m interested in.
“So it can’t be a cleaner.” She holds up a cute paper sun. With a smile, I set it in the basket and grab a few more. Her voice is softer than before when she says, “And even if it could have been, I know it wasn’t because my scent did the same thing when I first moved here. It’s a symptom of touch-starvation.”
“You were touch-starved?” The question drops out before I can keep it where it belongs.
Her blush tracks down her neck and onto her chest, disappearing underneath Naomi’s head. “Yep. It was the beginning stages, so it was easier to keep it hidden. But Melissa and Olivia both knew. Hudson, too, since he walked in at the wrong time while we were hanging out at Olivia’s place.”
“Oh.” It’s such a lame response. I focus on the decorations.
“I’m not saying that you need to make him better or anything. Just that…” She whines a bit, and I grab her wrist. She blows out a breath, then tries again. “If he’s so touch-starved that it was that potent on Ethan’s jeans, then it’s no wonder you were reacting so strongly on Saturday. If you’re looking for a reason to try being a trio, that’s one that most will never hold against any of you. It’s how Caleb and I started, just the promise of him helping ease it.”
She grabs some garland that matches the paper suns. It’ll look perfect strung from the porch rails.
“I don’t know what he’s like, not like you do,” she says.
I scoff, but she shakes her head.
“You know him, even if some things have changed. You said you spent that entire summer sneaking around with him, just like Beau. And it’s obvious enough in your dynamic. There’s enough tension between you to power a city block for a week.”
Slowly, I nod. “Yeah, that’s true.”
“Right. So I’m not sure if he’s the type of Omega who can handle making that first move. Faedra could. But me? I needed to not be the one constantly asking about where everything stood. Maybe that was just because Brett was horrible and Ethan and I had a decade apart standing between us, but…” She shrugs. “Triston might not be able to be the one to bring it up, no matter how bad the touch-starvation gets. He might even read your hesitation as disinterest. Which means he might need you to take the leap first.”
My stomach clenches at the thought, and that festering, messy fear spreads even more.
Chapter Seventeen
TRISTON
By the time I’m leaving the toy store in the heart of Jackson with gifts for my daughter, my head is pounding and I want to crawl into a dark room. The heavy foot traffic clogging the sidewalks of the quaint street doesn’t help at all. I swallow a groan, duck my head, and turn toward where I parked Scott’s unassuming SUV down the block. I don’t breathe until I drop into the driver’s seat and can drop my head against the steering wheel, trying to control my breathing so I don’t have a complete breakdown.
When I’m moderately sure I won’t end up a complete mess, I stash the bags from the toy store in the backseat and then drive the five minutes to the only Haven in town. A group of college-aged girls walk by, looking at something on one of their phones. As the girl nearest the SUV takes the phone, the NBRA logo flashes along with a cowboy hat I know intimately. I freeze, not even breathing until they’ve turned the corner.
I haven’t seen whatever campaigns the NBRA is running after the championship ride last month. Have they started prepping for the exclusive interview next week, the one that’stypically done in the days immediately after the championship weekend? None of those apps are on my phone, all of them run and accessed by Tyler. If I’d pushed back on the hard moratorium of having them downloaded, would I have known about Penny? Would I have gotten the option of going public with Emily the way Beau did and experienced all those little moments I saw in Beau’s phone?
The questions gnaw at my already frayed nerves. I run my hands down my face and try to get the racing thoughts to stop. Tears well, and I blink them back. The reminder on my phone goes off, forcing me to action even if I don’t feel like I’m physically capable of much more than rolling into a ball and weeping at the moment.
My hands shake as I triple-check the plastic wrap is sealed tightly around the toys. Having any kind of foreign scents end up on the fabrics will not end well. Beau won’t notice anything off, but any Alpha or Omega not suppressed to high heaven will know exactly what this appointment entailed. If it were just Ethan, I wouldn’t worry about it. He’s kept my secret already when it wassodamn obvious in my scent. But there will be more than just him at the party on Saturday, including Emily.
Just thinking her name has my skin tightening again, my bones aching and my stomach cramping.
Jesus.
We’re not even scent matches. My bloodwork came back unmatched when it was processed before that first heat I rode out here in Jackson three years ago, and I know she’d consented to putting hers into the database when it was first created. There’s no reason for this unholy reaction to just the thought of her, much less my body’s aching for her scent specifically.
