Page 31 of Knot All is Forgiven

Dinner that night istense. Simon barely speaks to either of us. I'm not sure how us living here together is supposed to fix our strained pack bond if we're not, you know, fixing our pack bond.

Not to mention the awkwardness that still lingers between Simon and me from how we left things.

After a tense meal featuring our glares as the main course, I call a pack meeting—a proper one.

You see, we can talk all the shit we want when we're together, but when someone calls a pack meeting, we have rules. It's been this way since we were sixteen. It was really young to find our pack, but I guess we got lucky.

The rules of a pack meeting are simple.

No interrupting.

We go round-robin style to bring up our grievances.

Personal attacks can be returned with a nut check.

Look, it's stupid, but we were sixteen. And you know what? It mostly worked over the years.

"Pack meeting? Why can't we just talk?" Cyrus says, flopping down on the stiff white couch with a tumbler of whiskey.

"Because I think this is going to be heated, and I want the rules instated," I tell him, leaning against the fireplace. "So from now on, we'll operate on our pack meeting rules. And Simon is going to start."

Simon rolls his shoulders from his position sprawled on the floor. The man never really sits still. He's constantly in motion, changing his position, standing up, changing seats. It's exhausting watching him. Without his leather jacket and his contacts out, he looks more like the boy we grew up with. Who he used to be before the incident.

Except for the tattoos. He's got a shit ton of those. His tank top hides only his torso, but his arms and shoulders are completely covered.

"I want to see Jordan as much as the both of you," he says, tilting his head back to stare at the ceiling. "I haven't stopped thinking about her. Not once. I never wanted to cut her out of our lives. Never once agreed with it." Cyrus makes a noise of protestation, but I glare at him until he closes his mouth and sits back.

"Anyways," Simon says, his voice turning vulnerable. "Despite what we want, despite how I or either of you two feels, not that I presume to know, we cannot just fly in demanding that she forgive us and be with us just because of our scents."

"Cyrus?" I gesture to the brute. "Your turn."

"I honestly don't understand why we need to tiptoe around her. All Jordan ever wanted was to be our Omega, and now she gets her wish. Why do we have to tiptoe around her feelings? Shouldn't she be happy?" He takes down his hair, letting the curls brush his shoulders. His entire vibe is arrogant today, and it's pissing me off.

When it's clear he won't talk anymore, I speak up. "We do not know what kind of life Jordan has made for herself. All we know is that I scent matched her, and she's an Omega. That's it. She could have a partner, a husband. She could have found a pack and didn't care if she was scent matched or not. There is a less than zero percent chance she waited for us because we lied to her and told her we had a match. By the way, we're going to have to come clean and tell her why we lied."

Simon raises his hand, and I cede the floor to him. "I think we need to tell her we lied before seeing her in person."

"Why?" Cyrus asks. "What's the point in that?"

The tattooed Alpha stretches his legs out, arching his back and accentuating the long, slender lines of his torso. "Well, for one, I don't doubt the hospital told her who was waiting for her and what we said. And you were very clear she wasourOmega. So she's already thinking something screwy is going on. We don't need to add our scents into it."

I suck on my teeth, sinking to sit on the hearth. Cyrus looks to me for a response, and I shrug. "It's not a bad idea. If we tell her we lied all those years ago before she knows we're scent matched, it'll look more genuine. We can get her forgiveness and then meet in person."

"We'd have to be able to find her, though. Not like we have her number." Cyrus's voice is a defeated grumble. I want to say I think getting Jordan back will perk him up, but it's pretty unlikely at this point. I think this is the software, not a bug.

Simon flops down onto his back, staring up at the ceiling. He folds his arms behind his head as a makeshift pillow. "I'll do some more digging, see what I can come up with. I want to do this right, though. So if anyone finds her, we need to agree that we won't go off half-cocked and call her on our own."

---