Page 35 of Pack Larsen

Silver gives me a look that screams ‘well, yeah, dumbass’, before eloquently pointing out, “Uh, no shit. Before Juno asked me for a favor that shafted me harder than my lovingly used dildo, you spent your time either ignoring my very existence or watching me like I was a criminal. Since you moved in, you’ve continued that pattern. I’m finding it very difficult to associate this Pace with the guy I’ve had very minimal interaction with.”

Wait, I haven’t ignored her at all since we moved in.

“When have I ignored you?” I ask, genuinely curious, because there hasn’t been a time where I’ve been around Silver since we carried our old shit into her lavish home that I’ve pretended she wasn’t there. Before moving in, yeah, because it was easier to do that than obsess over her and the feelings she keeps bringing to the surface.

“Saturday night. I knocked on all of your doors and invited you for pizza,” she answers quickly, as though the words were already on the tip of her tongue.

Narrowing my eyes, I think over the weekend. After we carried our things in, I went to my designated room, showered, and made a few calls and sent emails to change our address from the old house we were living in to Silver’s home, ensuring our mail wouldn’t get lost. That took longer than I would have imagined, and once that was done, I went to work at the hardware store. I wasn’t home until just before midnight, crashed, and didn’t wake until early morning on Sunday. Since Aero and silver were gone for hours, I spent my time in my room on my laptop and fiddling with music before Rage and Haze dragged me downstairs to watch a movie. My focus was on Silver the moment she came home and remained on her until she left. I haven’t ignored her at all. I’m pretty sure I couldn’t even if I tried.

“I don’t remember you knocking for pizza,” I answer honestly, narrowing my eyes on her when she does the same to me. Before she can continue, I tell her, “I was at work most of the evening. Could that be when you knocked?”

Silver opens her mouth, then closes it, peering up at the ceiling with a contemplative expression that makes me smile. Then she cringes, and those sparkling, gray eyes are back on me. “Okay, so maybe you haven’t ignored me. But what’s with all the intense watching?”

I shrug, never having realized my gaze was considered at all intense, and opt for honesty. “I like watching you. As I said, you’re beautiful, but I like watching your expressions. I can tell a lot about how you’re feeling or what you’re thinking, because you wear your emotions across your face. When you disagree with something, your nose wrinkles. When you’re relaxed and happy, your lip twitches right before you smile. When you find something funny, you’ll run your tongue over your lower lip and then laugh. When you’re dealing with Munro, you’re either raising an eyebrow when you’re unimpressed with him, scowling when he says something stupid, or your expression falls completely and you turn blank when he hits a nerve.”

Mouth parted in shock, Silver stares at me with raised eyebrows before she blurts, “Okay, I don’t know whether to be impressed by that or creeped out.”

“I’d go for impressed, personally, but it’s your choice to make,” I quip, my heart stalling when she snorts and shakes her head with a dubious look in my direction before she turns her face to the sun once more.

“Alright. Fine. Consider me impressed that you can suss out my emotions. Now do I get to ask why you've studied my face hard enough to develop that ability?” she wonders, tone slightly less hostile than it was when I first sat down. That’s good, right? That means progress.

Since honesty is winning me favors, I continue on that path, crossing my arms over my chest as I sit back in my seat and divulge, “Because I want to know you. I want to understand how your mind works.”

“And you couldn’t just ask?” she asks with a pinched brow that displays her confusion.

“I could have, sure, but then I wouldn’t have grown into my superpowers,” I tease back, and it feels good., so fucking good, to be joking with anyone that isn’t my pack. To feel the same level of ease with her as I do them. That alone should tell me that my choice to stop holding back was the best one to make. The only choice, really.

“Oh god,” she groans, dropping her head back before slapping her free hand over her face and rubbing hard. She isn’t wearing makeup to smudge, and I note that she usually goes without it unless she’s going to work, ringing her eyes with dark liner and staining her lips a deep red. Not that she needs it. She’s breathtaking without any added cosmetics. “Don’t sit there being funny. It confuses me.”

“Me being funny is confusing?” I ask, entertained beyond belief.

“Yes, Pace Larsen, serious alpha and silent sentinel who watches people like it’s his job. You being funny is muddling my head,” she retorts like a smart-ass, glancing at me from the corner of her eyes. “I’m supposed to be pissed at you.”

“Why?” I ask, because I’m pretty sure it’s Munro she’s angry at, and Munro only. I haven’t done anything to warrant her ire, and I know Aero was already in her good graces if she took him to meet her cousin and his pack. The twins are also ahead of me in the race for Silver’s affection, since they decided to chase after her at work and stayed long enough to soften the omega into forgiving Rage’s snotty comments about her money.

Once again, Silver opens her mouth to respond, only to slap it shut just as quickly, that pinch between her brows deepening as she thinks about it. I leave her to ponder for a moment, watching every expression and noting each detail of her face, before she finally but reluctantly murmurs, “I thought I had an answer, but it turns out you haven’t actually done anything wrong, so now I feel stupid.”

I jump on that particular opening, leaning against the desk that separates us with my elbows as I drop my smile and tell her seriously, “Maybe I haven’t done anything to you to receive your anger, but I feel like I should still apologize. If for nothing more than allowing Munro and Rage to speak to you the way they have been. I guess I got so lost in trying to figure you out that I didn’t stop to realize that they were being punks. I should have stepped in, so I’m sorry.”

I can tell by the expression on her face that I’ve surprised her again, her glittering, silver eyes watching me just as intently as I usually watch her. It takes a moment for her to reply, and when she does, her voice is hushed and a little cautious. “As much as I appreciate that, you realize you’re not responsible for how those shitheads speak to people, right?”

Shrugging, I nod and explain, “Sure, they’re their own people, but they’re still my pack. My brothers. And it’s certainly not how I’ve raised them for the past six years. I should have put a stop to it before it escalated to what it did.”

“Wait, raised them? What does that mean?” she asks, bypassing everything else.

Since we’re having an actual conversation, I feel obliged to answer, hoping she might garner some understanding about the guys if I divulge a few things about us all. So, I nod, and tell her, “Aero and Munro are foster kids.”

Silver nods, and I deduce that Aero might have shared as much.

“Munro phased out first, but they let him stay so long as he got a job in the year Aero had left there. When Aero turned eighteen and phased out, they both came to live with me. They were already friends with Rage and Haze, and the twins and I have been friends since they were in fourth grade. Their old pack were wastes of space, and they were always on the verge of starvation with nothing to their names, so my mom took them in like they were her own. The twins and I grew up together, and when Aero and Munro joined our school, they slotted in perfectly and we’ve been together ever since. When my mom passed away from a car wreck the day after my eighteenth birthday, I promised to look after them all. They’re all the family I have left. So, we took Munro and Aero in and became a pack of our own. We’ve not had much in the way of nice things, but we’ve always had the essentials, and we’ve had each other,” I explain, watching her as closely as she’s watching me, enraptured by her face while she clings to my words.

I shrug, and continue, “The twins were always mocked growing up for how little they had. It eased when they started staying with mom and me, but then mom passed and I was forced to grow into a caretaker to two alpha seventeen-year-olds, a seventeen-year-old beta with a bad attitude, and a sixteen-year-old omega. Not many jobs would hire an eighteen-year-old alpha with four charges, but we made do.”

Silver blows out a harsh breath, eyes filling with sympathy as she stares at me. “I’m sorry, Pace. About your mom, about your struggles. And the others.”

“Thank you,” I accept, smiling softly, because Silver’s heart is showing again and it’s the size of all of North Five University.

“So, you raised four boys while being a boy yourself,” she deduces, nodding slowly as though a few things are coming together. “Foster care, shitty parents, and a tragedy, along with struggling to pay to live. And here I am, bitching about my own life and troubles, the omega who was raised with a silver spoon in her mouth.”

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