Page 38 of Packed Up In Vegas

“After I graduated university,” said Miles, “I moved to Vegas. Mostly I just needed to get away and Vegas seemed like a good place to lose myself. I was the first one of us to get recruited into escorting. Did that for about four years before I ran into Kai and Diego.”

“We were both working miserable retail jobs,” added Kai. “We escorted for about a year before Miles got his job in recruitment for the company that does the shows and he dragged all of us with him so we could have way better paychecks.”

“I guess I’m kind of ruining that.” Guilt sat like a stone in my stomach.

“You’re not ruining anything, little dove.” Kai draped his arm around me. “The point is that we’ve all pivoted in our careers pretty hard, so it’s not the end of the world if we have to do that again.”

I leaned into Kai, getting as comfortable as I could with the seatbelts in the way of me draping myself across his lap. “I wish that red thread thing would just tell you you have fated people out there so you could avoid all the stupid ones before that.”

“In fairness,” said Kai as he traced patterns on my arm, “we never would’ve met you at all if your jackass of an ex hadn’t insisted you come to Vegas to begin with and then fucked off. Things line up a certain way and a million building blocks go into creating the unique circumstances. If we all knew beforehand, the world would just be at a standstill. And to answer your earlier question, none of our families know exactly what we do.”

I wouldn’t want mine to know either, so I didn’t blame them for not telling their loved ones. People could get so weird about sex. I had mostly been intending on just forgetting the heat had ever happened when I started. I knew things on the Internet didn’t disappear, and obviously there was no going back now that I was bonded, so my original plan was out the window.

I stared at Kai, still trying to figure out how I felt about him in a way that wasn’t influenced by all the hormones. He had been nothing but kind to me from the start, so I could at least be somewhat reassured that liking him wasn’t purely hormonally based. I just didn’t know him, but that would change with time. Warm sweetness flowed steadily down the bond from him, little flickers of worry in the background that were all but drowned out by surges of that sweetness whenever I touched him or he looked at me.

Through the rest of the drive, I learned more bits and pieces about them. They had been an official pack for a little over three years, had a pack house on the outskirts of town in a district I could never hope to afford. Their families knew they were a pack, but never came out to visit.

At some point I would probably have to meet their families and they would have to meet mine, but right now I was not remotely emotionally equipped for any of that.

I fell asleep on Kai shortly after our mid-trip snack and woke when the vehicle stopped in front of my apartment building. I groaned, half-ready to indulge myself in a full petulant tantrum as if I were a child. I didn’t want to go in there after everything that had happened, even though I had to.

“Deep breath, precious.” Diego helped me sit all the way up. “You’re starting to smell like burnt sugar.”

“I don’t want to be here.”

“We won’t be here long,” said Miles, checking the time on his phone. He passed back a pair of skin patches to cover our fresh bite marks. I didn’t want to answer unnecessary questions if Jerry saw the bondbite. “The moving company is only about fifteen minutes out. Let’s go start grabbing your essentials.”

I pouted, using the fob to let us into the building, and the four of them followed me with duffel bags slung over their arms. When I got up to the actual apartment, my door code didn’t work, and neither did my key that I tried afterward. “Motherfucker.”

Locked out of my own apartment was not how I’d expected this to go. Jerry always left the tasks to me, but maybe his new woman had thought of this and done it for him. He’d been good at the start, competent enough that it hadn’t raised too many red flags, at least until I’d moved here with him, and then that had all changed.

One of my neighbors, Mrs. Frisk, poked their head out across the hall. “Hello, Callie dear. I never expected to see you again. Jerry said you moved out.”

“That’s what I’m trying to do, but he changed the locks before I could get any of my stuff.”

Mrs. Frisk chewed her bottom lip before dipping back inside for a second and returning with a key. “He gave me this for emergencies. Try to be quick.”

“You’re an absolute angel. Thank you so, so much.”

“You are so welcome, dear. You were such a lovely neighbor to have and I’m so sorry things didn’t work out.”

My bottom lip wobbled as the realization of everything struck me again. An eight-year relationship down the drain. Meeting Jerry when I’d started university, latching on to him immediately, never taking a chance on anyone else, and following him across the country had been the biggest mistake I ever could have made. My family hadn’t liked him, but they’d tolerated his frat boy attitude. I’d been trapped with rose-colored glasses, so in love I’d ignored all the issues, and then I was in a new city and reliant on him until I got a job. At that point he’d pushed more and more bills onto me, and at first it had felt like I was just making up for him having to support me those first couple of months, but…then it had never stopped.

“Who are these lovely gentlemen?” Mrs. Frisk asked, startling me out of my thoughts.

“Friends,” I said before any of them could tell her otherwise. “They’re helping me move out.”

“How sweet. Be sure to say goodbye before you head out.”

“I definitely will. Thanks, Mrs. Frisk.”

I could do this. I could face this. I’d built a life in this apartment and just because Jerry had lit it all on fire didn’t mean I had to simply let him push me out. I didn’t want him anymore, not really, but I was still nervous about what I’d find on the other side of the door to what had once been my home.

I shoved Mrs. Frisk’s emergency key into the lock, both relieved and terrified when it turned.

Callie shrank into herself, her hands shaking as she pushed open the door to the apartment, and the sight filled me with rage. She shouldn’t feel like she has to hide. That asshole had ruined her home for her, and even though we were determined to give her a new home, I knew that didn’t take away the pain of losing this one.

The apartment smelled wrong when I stepped into it, my nose wrinkling. It was like a hoarder had taken over, with stuff covering every surface. Was this how she’d lived?

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