Page 74 of Knot Just A Fan

Shit. That’s why she’s here. Enzo, too I bet. I bet they’re all in on it.

“Did you go to Spain?”

She stops digging at this and looks up, a hint of surprise. She bites her full bottom lip. I wonder what it tastes like.

Stop it, you total knob.

“Yes,” Briella says quietly. And all the unspoken things between us gets said in the silence.

“Huh, okay,” I say. Hoping to convey total apathy at this revelation. “Are you in heat again?”

“Or still?” she says, shrugging. “I don’t know. It’s sporadic. And it’s also weird talking to—to you. About my heat.” She’s blushing fiercely. But I should’ve scented her right away, that coconut and jasmine scent. Likesunset on warm sand. Grayson had called it that, and after the office incident, I have to agree.

God, now she’s all I can smell, filling my nostrils. I shift in my cross-legged position as my cock starts to twitch in my pants. This is not okay.

“If you’re here so I can serve you as the others have, I think you should know you’re operating under a miscalculation.”

She looks up, staring at me. Her mouth opens a little, then quickly she looks down and tucks a chunk of pink hair behind her ear. Her shampoo smells of berries and reaches my nose, mixing with the beachy smell. Hot fucking damn.

I sigh. “Listen, Briella.” Just speaking her name to her face feels so alien. “I don’t hate you. And I didn’t mean that the way it probably sounded. Contrary to my earlier actions, I’m not a total fucking bastard, okay? My family—” I pause. Do I really want to tell her this?

Yes. I suppose I do. I owe her something, for losing her her Guild membership. And now look where we are—I’ve forced an issue and Willow’s revealed herself to not give two shits about us,really.

I guess I should thank Briella. That doesn’t mean I want her in our pack, though.

“Here’s the deal,” I say. And she returns to digging, averting my eyes. I stare out to sea as the fire is almost out now. “What I meant was, I don’t know how to care for—someone else. I want it. I want all those things. I think, maybe, deep down, I wanted Willow always at arm’s length, because I can’t handle losing someone I care about again.”

I tell her about my parents. The crash. The house. The fiery argument that led to my eviction from my childhood home. The subsequent loss of my siblings, who wanted nothing to do with the youngest O’Sullivan who wasn’t willing to grow up as needed. When a family member dies, it seems to me that all the filters are off, and any disagreement, however slight, between surviving relatives, turns into a screaming rage-fest.

Some of my siblings had sympathy, at first. We’dalllost Mum and Dad. But they all were ready to cut loose, and had their own problems.

I wasn’t ready. I still needed them.

Only Kyren seemed to care. And he messages once a month to check in, but not one of them, not once, has ever come to see a single show. Not one has welcomed me back into the fray. I don’t want to return to Ireland. But that doesn’t mean I don’t want that network. That community. That’s what made me join a pack.

But the words exchanged in the heat of the house sale sit in my head, unmoving. Kyren went with the majority. I know he had to. That was his job.

I flick open the Zippo a few times and Briella watches me silently.

“It’s not that I want to rejoin them; it’s not that I hate you. I just don’t want to worry about losing any more.”

Maybe I didn’t really put this idea into words even in my head until now, until she’s sitting there smelling like God’s paradise a few feet away.

Her eyes widen as she’s digesting all I’ve said, which to be fair, is more than I’ve said to anyone about my family in a long time. Maybe ever. On a few drunken occasions or late nights that became early mornings, I’ve told Enzo and Gray. But not all at once, and not out of nowhere.

I clear my throat. “I am sorry, you know. Very sorry I had you fired. I felt so cornered.” Maybe because I knew then that she was our Omega. Before the others even knew. “But I know it’s no excuse, and I’m a total piece of shit.”

I’ve always fancied myself the owner of stronger sense of scent than most Alphas. I can smellanythingquicker, stronger, through more walls than anyone I’ve ever known. And not just smell them, but sense them. Their feelings and emotions, too. It seems to get me into more trouble than not.

Like right now, I know Briella is desperate for me to accept her. Not because she’s in heat and needs a good hard fuck. Butbecause she cares about Gray. About Enzo. Maybe all three of us. Our little band back in the day, whose lyrics seemed on her lips constantly as she shot us during rehearsals. Our stupid fucking post-rock high and mighty art bullshit, even when we take ourselves so seriously, she was on the side pumping her fist in the air and proudly singing along.

And that’s where the danger is. Caring leads to love, leads to me loving, leads to me losing.

“I never hated you. I was angry that I had to wait so many years to have another family around me. I wanted to start it with the person we all seemed to think we were meant to start it with. By the time I realized—I mean.” I try again. “I think I’ve known it was you as long as Gray says he knew.” I take my gaze off the crashing waves and embed it in the extinguished fire and the thin line of white smoke snaking up to the sky. The death of warmth.

“I think you need to deal with the grief of losing all you’ve lost. Have you?” she asks, her voice soft.

I know she lost her mum, but I’ve never talked to her about any of this stuff before. Nothing beyond angles and colors and set lists and poses.

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