Page 34 of Pack Larsen

Not that history is included in my courses, it’s just the only spot in the library that tends to go ignored, thus providing the perfect spot for me to work without interruptions. With my old laptop open in front of me, several software’s that I use for audio engineering open, the history books are the last thing I’d be paying attention to here.

And now that Silver has appeared like a pastel, bubblegum goddess before me, even my attempts at mixing and mastering the current song I’m producing ends up the furthest thing on my mind, Silver taking up all of the space in my head. The small spike in her scent, a leak of her perfume, sends me into a spiral of thoughts of nothing but the blonde-pastel-haired beauty with glittering silver eyes.

Not that she would know it, because on the outside, I’m a blank canvas. I keep my emotions and feelings bottled tight as a rule, the only exception being Silver. As much love as I have for my brothers, Juno, and all of pack Baines, not one of them has managed to make me relax enough to chuckle, catching me off guard enough to actually find something funny. The only one I’ve smiled at is Juniper, and that felt awkward and uncomfortable on my face even as I tried to comfort her back when I first met her. Silver, though? It takes only a few cheeky words or a dry delivery of a sentence to have me smiling or laughing. A feat no other has accomplished and further proof that there’s something special about this omega.

Not that I’ve shown as much to the omega, opting to keep my distance. Something I regret after her reasonable outburst last night. We haven’t exactly been the most courteous, grateful, or polite bunch since Silver graciously offered us a place to stay, and I can only put it down to being so off kilter with the omega who looks, sounds, and smells like heaven. I mean, she’s a pack’s dream from the top of her pastel-infused hair to the tips of her skater-shoe-covered toes. She has her life together, isn’t strapped for cash, and has a vibrancy for life that not many would have after all she’s been through with her pack, something Aero disclosed when I checked on him last night.

But us? Hell, we didn’t even have a place to stay until she offered her home to us. We’ve barely been scraping by. The twins are already overworking themselves between their engineering program and part time jobs at the mechanic shop five minutes away from Gabby’s Diner. I’m holding down two jobs as a lifeguard at the school’s swimming pool and a part time gig at the hardware store in town while I attempt to pass my own classes and produce music I’m hoping will find discovery online through different media apps. Only Munro and Aero aren’t currently working, and that’s not for lack of trying. With Munro taking two different courses for photography and architecture, his plate is already overfilled with his workload and assignments. Aero is very much the same, his days usually spent working on his computer science and engineering degrees, all in the hopes that he can infiltrate the gaming development career field. It’s all he would focus on before Silver entered the picture, and now, based on last night, it’s clear our omega has grown attached to the new omega still standing awkwardly in front of me.

Gesturing at an empty seat at my table, I say, “Take a seat.”

She eyes the offered seat before promptly shaking her head. “No, thanks. I’m hiding.”

Then she frowns as though she said something she shouldn’t have, shakes her head, and does a funny little U-turn before scuttling away without so much as another uttered word.

I don’t know what it is about Silver, how she seems to contain a magnetic pull that lures me in more and more with every encounter, but the sight of her walking away from me again sends a pang through my chest. I don’t like it, and I like the sight of Silver disappearing from view much less, so, with an impulsive decision cementing in my mind, I grab my backpack and laptop and hurry after her.

It feels completely alien chasing after the omega, especially since I haven’t dated a single woman since I turned eighteen. There’s no time for a girlfriend, no time to offer the energy it would take to look after her while trying to keep a roof over my pack’s head and food in their bellies. I’ve only offered Juniper Baines the time of day because she’s grown into a sister role for my pack and me, and after the incident that almost got her killed on my watch, I will always have time for Juno.

And yet, here I am, quietly chasing the woman that has wiped her hands of us all after only a weekend. It has to be a record or something, repelling a woman so thoroughly in only two days. I’ve spent weeks on end watching the omega, enjoying the sound of her laughter, and bottling every smile in a vault in my mind, and the moment we move in and end up sharing the same space, it all goes to shit. Had I made a move like I was beginning to want to, then I’d have been shot in the foot just like the others.

Although, the only one to really make any kind of move is Aero, and he’s made it beyond clear that we either fix what has been broken, or he’s going after the girl by himself. That thought alone sends prickles of unease through me, and not because I’m worried for the omega I’ve known since we were teens in the same school together. There’s unease because the idea of Silver only belonging to one of my pack and not all of us has a pit forming in my stomach that I never would have paid attention to before I saw those tears in her eyes last night and felt gutted to the core.

It was the deciding factor that what I was secretly feeling for Silver wasn’t something that was going to disappear if I ignored it. That it would simply go away the longer I pretended there was nothing there despite how she makes me laugh and smile. I might feel like our pack doesn’t have much to offer, that there are better suited packs for her and could give her what we can’t, but the moment I saw the first drop of liquid fall from her eye, I decided that those packs can’t have her. Those tears snapped something inside me, and I spent the whole night trying to figure out how to make things right. Because I meant what I said last night. Silver might very well be worth any kind of risk bonding an omega could bring, something I never would have thought before her. If we manage to fix what we broke and, later down the line, Silver agrees to courting and possibly decides that bonding with us is what she wants, then I’d do it. I’d give her the world on a rusty but still usable platter, because we might not have known each other long, but I’ve spent enough time watching the kind of person Silver is. And I know that, without a doubt, she’s something rare. Something special. And something that I don’t plan on letting get away.

It doesn’t take long to find her in the large room, my nose leading me in her direction. I find her tucked away in the back corner, the heels of her shoes resting on the lip of her seat as she peers out of the large, stained-glass window with a bar of chocolate in her hand and a frown on her face, highlighted by the sunshine that streams through the window.

My boot scuffs along the floor, announcing my presence, and she barely flinches. Seems she could smell me, too. Without looking over at me, her gaze captured by the outdoors, she quietly asks, “Are you lost, Pace?”

“Nope,” I answer seriously, steadily walking toward her even as my heart starts beating a little erratically. Seems the norm when Silver is around, so I pay it no mind as I pull a chair opposite hers out and take a seat, placing my laptop on the desk between us. “Figured I’d join you if you won’t join me.”

“Ever thought that I didn’t want company?” she mildly quips, biting into her chocolate bar in a way that has me entirely enraptured.

“It crossed my mind,” I answer, my lips twitching when she rolls her eyes in answer and continues to stare outside instead of bestowing her gaze to me. I don’t try to evaluate why that bothers me so much, simply acknowledging the feeling exists and leaving it alone after that.

Deciding to work in Silver’s presence, even her silent one, I open my laptop and go about editing and tweaking the file I’ve been working on for the past couple of days. At least, I try to. But, apparently, sitting in Silver’s space has me distracted enough that I can’t focus enough on anything but the scent that surrounds us, the way she holds her chin up to the sunlight and closes her eyes as if she’s soaking in every bit of the sun as she can, and the small smile that tugs at her full lips.

My gaze is darting between my laptop and the omega, lingering on Silver much more than my laptop, and it doesn’t take a genius to realize that working when there are things to be said, things to be fixed, that hang between us, isn’t going to happen.

So, with a defeated sigh, I close my laptop and stare at Silver. As though she’s as attuned to my presence as I am to hers, she quietly informs, “I can feel your eyes burning a hole in my face. Tone it down, would you?”

I don’t, not that I know how to tone anything down. I’m only looking at her, etching the adorable slope of the tip of her nose to memory, committing the fullness of her lips and the beautifully sharp angles of her jaw and cheeks to my mind. It’s no wonder Juno calls her Pixie. Silver Gage looks like she belongs in a fairytale with pixie dust, lost boys, and a captain with a hook for a hand. She’s astonishingly beautiful, and I can’t help but stare any time she’s in the room.

“Dude. Knock it off,” she gripes, and my gaze lifts from her mouth to her eyes that are now glaring at me.

Lips twitching, I offer an apology, the first of many. “Sorry, can’t help it. Has anyone ever told you that you look like a prettier, pastel version of Tinkerbell? You’re beautiful.”

Surprise flickers in those gorgeous, gray eyes before she barks a laugh, slapping a hand over her mouth as her eyes widen from her outburst. Grinning at her now, the action feeling weird on my face, we remain quiet for a long moment, waiting to see if anyone will round the corner to provide a warning on our volume.

No one does, so Silver drops her hand and lowers her voice as she asks, “Are you okay? Have you received a bump to the head between last night and now?”

I shake my head, openly enjoying Silver’s theatrics for the first time since I saw her with Juniper, and I watch with rapt attention as her eyebrows pinch and she eyes me as though I’ve been body snatched when, in reality, I’ve simply decided to stop trying to shut her out. The weeks and weeks of observing are over, constantly watching while wanting and not allowing myself to have forgotten.

I want Silver Gage, and I want her to want me, too.

“Are you unwell? Is there some mutant disease hijacking your body or something?” she continues. “Are you even Pace Larsen?”

Shaking my head, I ask her, “Is it so hard to believe I’d pay you a compliment?”

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