Page 71 of Packed Up In Vegas

“We’ll figure something out, precious,” Diego assured me. “Miles, hold them off for as long as you can, and we’ll all see what else we can get for work.”

“Let us worry about it, little dove. In the meantime, your room is ready if you want to look at it.”

“Are you trying to distract me from despair?”

“Is it working?” Kai asked with a smile.

I pouted. I really did want to see the room.

They ushered me over to what had previously been the guest room. All the furniture had been changed out, the walls painted a warm sunrise pink with blackout curtains the same shade so they blended into the wall, and the beautiful sleigh bed I had admired was front and center. The bed itself was empty beyond the new mattress and sheets I had purchased; all of my nesting supplies were still upstairs in Diego’s room.

“It’s beautiful.” I laid my hands on the smooth wood. I had wanted a pink room for as long as I could remember, but my sister hated pink, we weren’t allowed to paint in the dorms, and Jerry certainly hadn’t been amenable to the idea. Tears pricked my eyes, and I climbed onto the bed, spreading out to see the ornate ceiling rose they had added around the light.

Was this what it felt like to start healing your inner child? I had been working on reparenting myself before everything went down, letting myself have the treats and small experiences that had been shamed out of me my whole life. A pink room was beyond indulging myself, and I’d never thought I would be able to feel loved because of a paint color, but here I was, sprawled in the start of a new nest and ready to start bawling.

“Everyone get in here.”

Kai was first in, Diego tucking up against him and Amir on my other side while Miles hesitated.

“I said everyone.”

Miles joined us, stretching out next to Amir. “I’m pretty sure this is the best mattress in the house.”

It honestly felt like a cloud, and even though everything was fucked up, I couldn’t help my purr at all the alphas being in here with me. I was trying not to feel guilty over how much money they’d spent on me since I’d come to stay with them. We hadn’t known how precarious things were at the time, and the thought of returning everything had my instincts twisting me into knots.

I loved this beautiful house they called home, but if we needed to move, I was pretty confident I would be happy anywhere as long as they were with me. I might not be able to pull as much income as they could, but I would be handing in some big projects soon and getting paid. Hopefully that would be enough to offset things while they looked for work.

Being with someone unemployed did make me nervous after I had supported Jerry, but I kept trying to remind myself that these alphas were different. They had been going out of their way to take care of me since we had met, and even if they needed some financial support, I didn’t think it would stay that way.

It wasn’t like Kai was going to lose his job and hide it from me. The pack seemed like they were pretty good at open communication and that helped.

We decided on a quiet night. The last project I needed to work on had finally finished its download and the alphas were going to start looking for other work. In a sense, it was nice to fall into this sort of rhythm. I had been neglecting my own work in favor of getting to know my new partners, but it would be better to ensure my clients were happy and hopefully they would hire me again or refer me to others.

An email popped up in the corner of my screen after I’d been working away for a few hours.

Notice of nonpayment.

What on earth? I clicked into it and found a notification from my phone company that payment for my bill this month hadn’t cleared. That didn’t make any sense. Miles had assured me that all the payments for the show had gone through already.

I logged in and felt the same dread as when Jerry had first abandoned me, seeing zero dollars in my account. I clicked into the account history and found no record of any money coming into it.

What the fuck?

I locked my computer and wandered through the pack house in search of Miles, finding him in the courtyard on his tablet.

“Hey, sweetheart. Is everything okay?”

“Not really.”

He sat up straighter. “What’s wrong?”

“None of the money from the heat is in my account.”

Miles paled. “What?”

“No payment and no record of it in the account history. I thought you said everything would be paid out by the end of the heat?”

“It should’ve been. We’ve never had a problem with payment going through before.”

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