Page 28 of Knot Just A Fan

“No need, Gray. I can get it online. Just good to hear your voice,” she purrs gently. No note of awareness that something very fucking weird happened on stage two days ago.

“How’s work been?” I ask.

I don’t know how she’d act if she knew. But I’ve been warned for years that she’s worried when Arcadia Echo hit it big, she would be old news. She’s even voiced this. And technically, I think we peaked in LA and will never get higher.

I’ve always said the same thing.I’m not going anywhere, Willow.

A knife-ache in my gut.

“Going well,” she says. “My team’s doubled since this time last year. I’ve got three assistants now, but even with all of them I still barely get time to myself.” I hear the smile in her voice. She’s loving this. “It’s been a long time coming but I feel like I’m where I’m meant to be.”

I nod as I say into the phone, “Then that’s where you should be. And it’s well-deserved. Are you still thinking end of this year to move it down south?”

She hesitates. “I think so. You know I want to. I miss you. I miss how you smell.” We never scent-matched, I know that now. But I don’t think she means it this way. Just that the cologne I used to always wear is the one she picked out. It’s like she was prepping me to fit the mold she wanted, and I ate it up. Back then.

Last year I sent her a scarf doused in the cologne, and an extra bottle. She told me she would inhale it and then get herself off. And as hot as the image of Willow wrapped in nothing but that thick red scarf was in my mind, it felt somehowlonely. As if she sent me that message to assure me we still mattered to each other, even if I was the one who started every conversation. Who sent every gift, never receiving one in return, just apologies.Been so busy, I forgot it was your birthday! So sorry, I’ll make it up at Christmas.OrI’ll find something that screams your name when I’m out antiques-shopping this weekend.

It wasn’t that I needed one goddamned material thing from her. What I longed for was the forethought.

“I’ve been eager to see you. Thought we could sit and talk about the future, about the pack. Ronan and Enzo are?—”

“Hang on, Ali, be right with you!” Willow shouts in my ear. Then the muffled sound of a hand covering the mouthpiece, followed by a, “Sorry, Gray, sorry. Got to run. I was up half the night reviewing a project that’s got to be handed to the client today and Ali was putting the finishing touches on. Sounds like he’s done. Ah, thanks, love!” she chirps, presumably to “Ali,” some bloke I’ve never fucking heard of.

“He with the new team?”

“Eh?” she says, confused.

“You said your team’s doubled in the past year. Is Ali one of the new guys?”

“Ali? Ahh, no chance. He’s been around since the early days. He’s the artist, I’m sure I’ve told you about him a million times!”

No. No, unless I’ve had a concussion resulting in amnesia, she has never told me about someone called Ali a “million times.”

“Okay then, well, let me know. We’ll chat when Echo’s up next month, but I was hoping you might fly down for a weekend soon so we could talk it over with Ronan and Enzo. They’ve really been on me to?—”

“Right, love, I best go. Give them my love, one of these days I’ll get to exchange more than five words with them before a show, right? Speak soon, mwah.”

The line goes dead and I quickly stow my phone like it’s burning my hand. My eyes stay glued to the path as it turns down toward our road.

And all I can think as I round the juniper hedge on the corner of our estate is how Willow promised me that her Omega would reveal itself the day we were both relaxed and together.

That’s when we’d finally mark each other. Become a proper pack with Enzo and Ronan.

Is it wrong for her to want to make her name for herself before becoming publicly attached to someone already seen as a success?

Of course not. So I can’t give up on her. Not unless she gives up on me.

CHAPTER 13

Briella

I wakeup on the floor of my bathroom, my head against the base of the sink and my legs outside the door on the carpet of my bedroom. I’m in a cold sweat, my pajama bottoms I must’ve struggled into at some point damp and cold. But my pulse feels normal, and I lie there, staring at the ceiling, gathering my thoughts.

I’ve survived my second-ever heat. No nearer to understanding why my normal meds stopped working. And suddenly I remember, I have no more meds at all.

This is going to be the norm from now until I find a job—if I can find a job that will hire a thirty-one-year-old Omega without a pack or a partner—and get new insurance.

What a start to the new year.

---