Page 8 of Sunshine

I should have put a reminder in my phone to finish them yesterday, but I’d been busy with the florist, and then it had been the actual event. And then when I’d gone home, I’d totally crashed.

Yet another failing that my former pack had pointed out whenever they caught me up late. Rob would say I needed to act like an adult if I wanted to run a successful event business.

I tapped on my keyboard, and, of course, my computer wanted to update. Whenever I wanted to get into my spreadsheet, build an invoice, and then fling it at the client, my computer acted up.

I huffed, waiting for the updates.

“Knock, knock.” Talia poked her head in the door.

My stomach clenched. I wasn’t sure I was ready to talk to Talia today.

She was my best friend, but she was sometimes hard to be around. Mostly because of how she’d responded when I’d found out Becca was sleeping with Rob and Isaac. Instead of taking my side, Talia had decided there were no sides. It was a bad situation, she told me. Scent-matching wasn’t common, and Becca couldn’t help that she’d scent-matched the men I was dating.

The problem with that was, in my heart, I didn’t believe that Becca had actually scent-matched Rob, and then the rest of the pack. But, instead of comforting me while my life was imploding, Talia reminded me that Becca was having a hard time too, because she couldn’t tell me about her new love. Then Talia had complained about being in the middle of her two best friends.

So I’d stopped talking about it. It hurt, and I still felt like I was right, but I didn’t want to fight about it either. It felt too much like high school drama. We were all grown women, for crying out loud. It was supposed to be ‘betas before boys’, but somehow that didn’t count when there was a scent match.

“Hey.” I looked up from my computer, internally swearing at the piece of junk. If it hadn’t been updating, I’d have the excuse of work to avoid talking to her.

“I wanted to check on you.” Talia came into the office and set a plate of cookies on my desk, scooting some papers over to clear a space. My desk was always ground zero of a massive paper mess. “Ember let me in. She’s still glaring at me.”

Talia sounded put out and confused, her platinum blonde hair framing her face like an angel.

My cousin, Ember, was still pissed off that Talia talked to Becca on a regular basis. My entire family was, but Ember didn’t bother to hide her stink eye.

My life had turned into a soap opera. Minus the hunky men vying for my love and attention.

“Just tired.” I forced a smile. “Trying to finish my invoices.”

“I heard you saw Becca last night.” Talia sat down in the chair opposite my desk. “Are you okay?”

I let out a gust of breath. “It hurt, but I’m okay.”

Talia frowned. “I’m sure that was awful. If I’d known they were going, I would have warned you.”

She had warned me in the past when Pack Beneventi was going to be attending certain functions. The problem was that, now Rob and Isaac were climbing the social ladder, there would be a higher chance of running into them. California was a big state, but not big enough, apparently.

I considered opening a browser to check into moving to the Midwest—somewhere far, far away from my exes—but of course my computer was still updating.

“Thanks. It was just a surprise.”

Talia cocked her head. “Becca said you were rude to her, which doesn’t sound like you.”

Hackles raised, I gritted my teeth. “Really? She called you right away to tell you I’d been mean to her, did she?”

Talia lifted her hands up. “I’m sorry. But you’re not usually rude, so I wanted to see how you were doing.”

“I was perfectly pleasant.” I couldn’t keep the defensiveness out of my tone. “But Julian was there, and Becca asked him if I was still chasing omegas.”

Talia frowned, her pretty face looking confused. Sometimes I wished she’d pick either me or Becca and stop trying to be a good friend to both of us.

I waited for Talia to tell me that was rude of Becca. But she didn’t say anything, and that was another little bitter twist in my heart.

I finished the story. “Julian brought up that she was the beta who’d been sleeping with the pack I was dating?—”

“—she scent-matched?—”

I held up my hand. “I don’t want to rehash everything. You asked me what happened. I’m telling you.”

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