Page 3 of Packed Up In Vegas

He hung up on me and I dropped my face into my hands, letting out a scream that turned my throat raw and drew every eye in the lobby.

Over.

My life was over.

How the hell was anyone supposed to come back from something like this?

We’d already been living paycheck to paycheck since Jerry had lost his job, and I was barely keeping us afloat between the exorbitant rent in LA, my student loans, and debt repayment from before he’d told me he’d lost his job. How could he have gambled everything away when we were barely surviving as it was?

Maybe his wife—ugh, the word nauseated me—had money and it was all some elaborate ploy to get her money and then come back to me… No, that was stupid. Fuck! How was I supposed to get home? My only credit card was back at home in the freezer to keep me from spending over our means. That didn’t do me a lick of good when I was over four hours away with a cleaned-out account.

I didn’t want to call my family in Seattle. They already hated Jerry and I would have a full-on breakdown if I had to hear an “I told you so” right now. I didn’t have many friends in LA after moving there for Jerry, and the contacts I did have were my video editing clients. There was no way in hell I was going to ask any of them to bail me out. I could figure this out. Somehow…

Everyone was looking at me, staring really. The hotel graciously agreed to watch my suitcase for me and I wandered to a nearby coffee shop, away from all the eyes who had watched me freak out on the phone.

I stood in line, dissociating to cope, and wanting an iced chai to push back the impending doom, but of course when I tried to pay, declined flashed across the terminal. I’d half forgotten everything was gone, even though it loomed over me like a specter of the end. I tried with my card for my personal account, hoping I’d somehow left at least a few dollars behind when I’d transferred over the money for our vacation.

Declined.

“Let me see if I’ve got enough change.” I dug through my purse, finding only a few coins. My eyes burned, tears sneaking up on me as the line behind me grew, and my fingers found nothing else. I hiccuped, a little sob breaking free. I was so fucked.

The sweetest omega whimper I had ever heard drove me out of my own head as I stood in line at the coffee shop. I glanced down at the dark hair of the woman in front of me, standing before an unimpressed barista.

“Ma’am, your card declined.”

“Let me see if I’ve got enough change.” She rifled through her purse, managing to fish out a few quarters and dimes. Definitely not enough to pay for her drink. I could smell her tears from here, and when she hiccuped before a tiny sob escaped, I couldn’t stop myself from sliding my credit card across the counter from behind her.

“It’s on me.”

The omega turned to me, chocolate-brown eyes luminous with tears, her bottom lip wobbling. Her pale skin was flushed pink and blotchy from crying, but she still had a soft sort of beauty and triggered all of my protective instincts.

“Thank you,” she said quietly.

“It’s no problem. Let’s add a couple cake pops to the order, and I’ll get a medium flat white.”

The barista updated the order, and I tapped my card. Then I ushered the omega over to the side, where we could wait for our drinks, reaching out my hand to shake hers. “My name’s Miles.”

She stared at my hand for a moment before her brain caught up to the social niceties, and she took my hand. “Oh, I’m Callie.”

It was only her petite size and her sounds that had given her omega status away. In all likelihood she was on scent blockers, a courtesy to the rest of the world, especially when she was distressed, but it made me wonder what she smelled like without those drugs in her system. The only scent she carried was a faint whisper of sugar that every omega smelled like beneath their unique fragrance.

“Having a rough day?” I asked.

Her lip wobbled dangerously again. “You could say that.”

Our orders arrived, and she sipped at her iced chai latte, clutching the paper bag of cake pops to her chest like a lifeline.

“Do you want to talk about it? You look like you could use a friend.”

She nodded after a moment of hesitation, and we snagged a tiny table near the door that got blasted with the Vegas July heat every time someone stepped inside.

“Money is tight. Too tight, to be honest. I just wanted a little boost to cheer myself up today. I don’t even know what to do. So much is fucked up right now.”

“I’ve got a willing ear if you want to share, but I totally get if you don’t want to spill your guts to a stranger.”

She stared at me for a long moment before whipping out one of the cake pops and biting off half of it. “Everyone told me not to date him. I didn’t listen. Now I’m fucked. He drained everything out of our joint account, and I didn’t have anything kept aside in my personal account because he never seemed to have money for rent or groceries or anything useful. I?—”

Callie gulped down some of her iced chai. “He just left me here. I don’t have enough money to get home and I can’t call my family because they all hated Jerry to begin with. I can’t handle the ‘I told you so.’ Fuck. I’m gonna have to find a roommate somewhere. I don’t even know if he’s going back to the apartment, but I know he can’t pay for it.”

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