Page 29 of Pack Larsen

I eye the others, catching Aero hiding his smile with a wipe of his hand over his mouth, while Pace stands back and watches with his arms crossed and his usually serious expression present on his structurally stunning face. What the hell was in the water where they’re from, because they have to be the most beautiful men I have ever seen? It’s simply not fair.

“Lay off, Ro. Haze and I were with her,” Rage answers for me, sending his pack mate an unimpressed look, as though the beta’s bad attitude is just as annoying to him as it is to me right now.

“Which leads me to asking you the same question. You couldn’t spare a second to let us know where the fuck you were? What the hell, guys? You go chasing after the princess and forget that you have family worried about where you are and if you’re hurt,” Munro seethes, and it takes me a moment to realize he’s actually being serious. He’s not annoyed because I left for work without telling him, Pace, or Aero. He’s blaming me for his pack not briefing him on their whereabouts. I’m at fault for worrying him over his family and their wellbeing, because they were with me. They came looking forme.

This is absolute madness.

Pace frowns as he watches me, likely seeing the flash of hurt that I can’t seem to hide in my already drained state. “Cool it, Ro. You’re not their keeper. If they want to go out, they don’t owe us anything.”

Munro sends him a disbelieving look before those dark, inky eyes land on me once more, anger swimming in their depths. Anger toward me for something I didn’t do or have control over. The only other person to ever look at me that way gave birth to me and look where we are now.

This fucking sucks.

Here I sit, after five hours of working, tired to the bone and desperate for food and sleep, and I’m getting my ass chewed out over a protective beta that was worried about the alphas in his family. Like he’s annoyed that I had some influence over the twins going AWOL, as though that could possibly be my fault. Since before he moved in, he’s been an asshole to me, but this takes the cake.

So, with a stunned expression and a hammering heart, I simply sit there like the doormat Alek claimed me to be and wait for the beta to get all his frustrations out before I finally pull myself together.

Chapter 11

Silver

“A phone call. A single text. That’s all it would have taken so we didn’t sit around worrying for the past five fucking hours,” Munro snaps, ignoring Pace as he shakes his head like he’s disappointed in me. Damn, that stings, because it’s hitting a little too close to home when I’m already drained and fighting for my life with my emotions.

In my head, I’m chanting ‘I won’t cry, I won’t cry, I won’t cry’ to absolutely no avail, because I feel the first pricks in my eyes as they fill with unwanted tears of upset and anger. I mean, it’s not my fucking responsibility to ensure the twins brief him every time they leave the house. I don’t even know why he’s having a go at me over it, when the twins are standing right there, holding pizza boxes and frowning like they’re just as confused.

Suddenly, too quickly for me to stop it, a tear slips free and trails a scalding line down my cheek. It’s like the tone in the room completely shifts as soon as the tears appear, because suddenly Aero is kneeling between my legs on the floor, cupping my face a split second before I see Munro’s face turn slack with shock, Aero’s thumb rubbing the tear away before I can reach it.

“Don’t listen to him, baby. He’s just being an overbearing asshole because he was worried about you all,” the omega assures, pale eyes pleading as he peers up at me, his warm hands cupping my face so gently that it makes me want to cry even more. Damn it, I hate crying.

To disguise that fact, I snort with skepticism, tugging my face free before I awkwardly stand and step away from him. I see a flash of panic over his face before I look around and find different expressions watching me. Pace looks understandably concerned, because he’s facing a potential crying jag from an overtired, hungry, and, apparently, emotional omega. Rage and Haze are both glaring at Munro like they want to knock his head into the wall a couple of times, and Munro is staring at me with a look I can’t decipher. I don’t want to decipher it, if I’m being honest. I want as far away from these guys as my house will allow.

Clearing my throat and blinking my eyes rapidly and accidentally knocking a tear loose, I swipe it away with a slap, tug harshly at my backbone and straighten as I have a stare off with the beta who has a fucking nerve. Anger battles against the hurt that niggles away in my chest, and I despise now more than ever that I’m an emotional crier as I calmly counter, “Juno and her pack knew where I was, because I texted her that I was going to work. She can track my cell for safety, just like I can with hers, especially after her attack. She knew where I was at all times and must have told her pack, too. It was Lowie that disclosed my whereabouts to the twins after I told Rage I was going to work, who came searching for me to apologize for Rage’s outburst earlier. I had no control over the twins showing up at my workplace, had no control over them staying for five hours while I worked, and certainly didn’t have any control over their lack of forethought in letting you know they were safe.”

I look at the others, and I wonder for the first time if this shit is even worth offering my energy to. All it took was a single weekend to make me regret offering them a place to stay, because not only am I on the verge of tears, but my crushes have been effectively ruined. They’re not gone, because I’m, apparently, a sadist, but now it doesn’t feel good to be crushing on them at all. I didn’t mind crushing on pack Larsen before I realized what tools they were. Now I feel stupid for it, even if I still find them all levels of hot.

What’s worse, though, is knowing that no matter how many olive branches I hand out, no matter how many good deeds or kind gestures I apply to pack Larsen, it seems that it won’t ever be enough for Munro. And if I can’t break through to the miserable bastard, even just a little, then it’s clear that he andhisfamily aren’t the ones for me. That was the truest delusional, little daydream I’ve been harboring. Even if Aero likes me, and the twins don’t seem to mind me, it’s not like anything will happen from there. They’re all a pack, they come as a package, right? If one isn't on board, then none of them are. At least, that’s how it was with Juno’s pack. It was her or no one for them.

I’m clearly not going to get that here, so I guess I should simply let that fantasy go. They can stay here like I promised, they can help me with the ball in a month, and then we can simply coexist until they move on. I’ll stay out of their way, and they can stay out of mine while I try to carve these stupid, little crushes out of my head and heart.

It’s a good decision, it really is. But why does my chest ache at the thought of it? I mean, this weekend is the first time I’ve actually spent any level of time around them all in any capacity without Juno present, and even then we didn’t really talk. And yet, it seems my crushes ran a little deeper than I realized, spending those months looking in from the outside and growing little ideations and fantasies in my mind of a pack that could be mine and slotting pack Larsen’s faces into the spots I reserved for the guys I’d end up with.

Silly me, right?

Shaking my head and feeling disappointed in myself, I shrug and huff a tired, humorless laugh. “You want to be pissed at your family for not telling you where they were, then be pissed at them. But don’t you dare stand there snapping your teeth at me for not providing you the same courtesy when I don’t belong in your little family. For weeks on end you’ve spent your time either ignoring me, avoiding spending a single second in my presence, or snapping at me. You’ve made me perfectly aware that I’m insufferable to be around, that I’m a nuisance that you tolerate for the sake of Juno, so excuse me for not wanting to offer my location to you when it’s clear that my very existence seems to bother you. Not that I think you’d give a shit to have it anyway. You’re just finding something to bitch me out over, when you’re actually upset with the twins for not telling you they were leaving the house.”

Without offering him a chance to retaliate, too tired to deal with this shit and not wanting to cry in front of them all, I look to the floor and bite the inside of my cheek before muttering, “I’m tired, I’ve been on my feet for five hours, and I want to go to sleep. I don’t even care about the pizza anymore.”

For some reason, that feels like the saddest thing of the entire day, my pizza going wasted because my appetite has suddenly disappeared.

“You still need to eat something. You were working for five hours and you didn’t stop once to eat,” Rage insists, holding a pizza box out to me, the indifferent mask he usually wears slipping enough to reveal annoyance and concern. I don’t even know if he’s annoyed at me, which says a lot. I don’t know these guys. And they don’t know me.

Taking the box without a plan to eat its contents, I hold my breath and step around them all, offering Munro a wide berth. I’m already drowning in sensory overload, with my emotions rioting and my chest aching and head pounding. Breathing in each of their scents will simply have my betraying body going out of sorts, and I have no interest in battling that tonight, too.

As soon as I’m clear of pack Larsen and the threat of inhaling their addictive scents, I take a deep breath and stop at the archway that separates the living room to the rest of the house. Without turning my body, I announce over my shoulder, “If this weekend has proven anything, it’s that we are absolutely not compatible. So, from tomorrow onward, you guys live your lives and I’ll live mine. That way, when one of your family members goes AWOL, you can rest assured that it had absolutely nothing to do with me.”

I’m about to leave them all standing there like a bunch of rotten melons when I make a last minute decision, pausing to add, “And don’t worry about the charity benefit. You’re free of our deal, because there’s no way I’m dealing with more of this. Two days’ worth of drama is enough to last me a lifetime, so don’t sweat it. I’ll keep my end of the bargain, though. Stay as long as you need or want, I don’t care. If you want to start paying after six months, whatever. Do as you please. All I ask is that you stay out of my life, and I’ll stay well and truly out of yours. Gods forbid I get blamed for something that had absolutely nothing to do with me again.”

And with that, I walk to the kitchen, a tense silence following after me. I don’t look back, keeping my head high, as I reach the fridge and stuff the pizza box inside, the other boxes from last night notably missing. I’m glad they helped themselves to the pizza we were meant to share, anyway.

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