Page 6 of Knot Forgotten

The message is clear despite the smile still on his face. Get out, his dark, stormy eyes shout.

Shifting uncomfortably, my attention caught between his dark beauty and the hallway that will lead to even more exposure and embarrassment. My feet are like lead weights attached to my legs. I brush my palms over my jeans before massaging my neck. He follows my motions, and then, as if he’s dismissing me, he swings up onto his bed and leans over the edge for his guitar.

Standing as still as a statue again and feeling as out of place as the sun on a rainy day, I watch him strum the strings absently. When he lifts his eyes to me again, I haven’t budged an inch. He raises his brow before looking across at the made bed. He sighs and runs his tongue over his straight white teeth. Preparing to say something.

“You still here?” he asks drily. It is the final nail in the coffin. I’m pretty sure I’m going to die of embarrassment today. “Are you so desperate for attention that you can’t take a hint?”

The words hit me hard, and I suck in a breath.

He starts strumming his guitar again. And although he looks relaxed, I can feel the tension flowing off of him, surrounding me and triggering my own anxiety.

His words spur me into action, and I turn to the bed, pulling my comforter and sheet from the surface, stuffing them haphazardly into my tote, following it with the contents of my dresser—or my not-dresser.

He watches me like I’m an interesting specimen beneath the microscope he loved when we were kids. He had been so obsessed with science that it drove me crazy that he didn’t take the AP classes with me. Part of me wants to ask if he still is, but the other half wins, and I lift my tote up facing the doorway.

Out of the pan and into the fire I go. Bracing myself, I step out of the room. I will go to admissions and beg for a different room. Explain their mistake. They will fix this. Omegas shouldn’t room with alphas. And I shouldn’t room with my childhood best friends.

But now, as I find myself entering the living area, three sets of eyes land on me, and my face flames again. Heating like a volcano ready to burst.

Matt pops to his feet, the controller in his hand forgotten. Dib’s, he’d called… on me. I slide my eyes to Cameron; he is openly glaring at me. When had his blue eyes gained the ability to freeze my blood in my veins? Just a look from him before had my teen self warm and full of feelings I wasn’t sure about.

Now, I know it had all been driven by my presentation as an omega. Hormones. They make you want things you shouldn’t. And if I used to be attracted to all of them, well, now, it is a million times worse.

Which is crazy because my hormones can only be described as lazy. Watching a marathon of Omega in Paradise rather than going to the gym. Putting on P.J.s as soon as I get home. It would take a miracle to pry the TV remote from the grip of my hormones. I am broken, plain and simple—at least I thought I was until now. Now my hormones are buzzing around in my blood like a bee woken from a long hibernation and needing its pollen fix.

“What are you doing here? You must be lost because we don’t need or want you in our dorm,” Cam says. A bite to his words that stings my already bruised ego. When I don’t answer, he scoffs. Then he signs the question to me. I glance at Riley and back to Cam. “Not deaf then?” he says when I remain silent.

It raises my hackles, and I say, “Even if I were, there isn’t anything wrong with being deaf.”

He laughs. “Oh, she has fight.”

I narrow my eyes on him, sure he looks like Cameron, but he has been replaced by a doppelgänger sometime over the years.

“I have more than that.”

“Ignore him; he has the manners of a troll.” Matt comes around the couch. He takes the tote from me and sets it on the small table, knocking the helmets out of the way. “It looks like you’ve been given the wrong dorm key and room number.”

I press my lips together. I wish that were true, but I’m sure going by Quinn instead of Erin complicated things. And having someone else fill out the application—well, Aunt Tracy could have put anything in it. Including that, I wasn’t omega or female. She is determined that I find my pack after I didn’t immediately find one after graduation.

I don’t want an alpha or a pack; I want an education.

“Actually, I’m in the right place, and the first room I picked has already been claimed by—” Blake, the K-pop look alike, I add mentally after trailing off and glancing back down the darkened hallway.

Matt runs a large hand over his mess of curls. “Yeah, Blake—he—needs to sleep alone,” he pauses, obviously keeping the full story from me. “Riley has a spare bed. Don’t you, Ri?”

He turns and signs his words to him, even though Riley was already nodding and grabbing up my tote. He heads to the first shut door and kicks it open. I slowly follow him into his space. Eyeing the empty bed.

“If you're not comfortable, I’ll sleep with Blake even if he is an asshole,” he says as he turns to face me again.

He pushes his platinum hair off his face, and I catch sight of his hearing aid, but it is smaller and less noticeable. Did he get that surgery for the implants? When we were kids, he barely wore hearing aids, always saying they were uncomfortable and just made the wrong things louder.

I soften at his adorable uncertainty. Maybe I read his ASL wrong earlier; it has been a while. Even if it just feels like riding a bike. He is still the same Riley. One of them has to be the same, right?

“This is good,” I say as I sign the words. His face brightens as he smiles.

‘You know ASL?’ he asks, using his hands to talk.

I quickly sign back that I’ve known it since I was a kid, but I haven’t used it in a while.

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