Page 4 of Pack Larsen

“You heard me the first three times, you tit tickler. Now will you interview them or not?” Juniper gripes, and I grin at my fierce, little kitten with claws. I’ve never known such a sassy, little omega, and I can say without doubt it’s my favorite kind of omega. Well, tied with the cuddly, clingy type. Like me.

“Well, I’d like answers first,” I counter, roaming the too-empty house in nothing but pastel-blue booty shorts and a white, cropped shirt, my white-blonde hair with pastel streaks piled on my head in a messy bun that will hurt to brush out.

Silence replies, and I grin, knowing I’m frustrating the shit out of my best friend. If she wasn’t so easy to rile, it wouldn’t be so amusing. As it was, I have as much fun winding her up as I do her evil counterpart, Munro motherfucking Villin. I’ve never known two people to be so platonically compatible. Juno is quite literally the female omega version of the miserable beta, but it’shimthat occupies a corner of my brain I would very much like lobotomized.

“You need to ask questions before I can answer them, Pixie. Fucking hell,” Juniper grumbles, using my stage name as a nickname more now that she knows my secret, and I hear a snicker from down the line. Instantly, my body breaks out in goosebumps, because I think I recognize that snicker as one that belongs to none other than Aero Loughty. Great. So, she’s with them now while demanding I interview the pack who have been nothing but distant, indifferent, and downright insufferable since I met them.

“Fine. Why do they want to live with me? They hate me,” I state, tucking my cell under my ear as I reach for my guitar and place it back in the stand between the violin and near my producing setup, my keyboard still lit up with the track I’d been messing around with when Juno called.

“They don’t hate you,” my sweet-and-sassy bestie lies through her pretty, little teeth.

“You’re full of shit,” I counter with faux sweetness.

“They really don’t. Well, I can’t speak for Munro. But the others… I don’t even know. They’re desperate, okay?”

“Hey!” Aero shouts, and my lips twitch.

“I wouldn’t say desperate,” I hear the very distinct baritone of Pace Larsen.

And, to top off this particular shit sundae, Munro’s recognizable voice gripes, “Fucking rude.”

“Get over yourselves,” Juno snaps, and everyone shuts up. I sigh. I wish I had that superpower. As it was, I’m a fucking doormat. Every Tom, Dick, and Fanny walk all over me, according to my cousin, Alek. But not anymore, damn it.

Frowning with a shake of my head, I ask, “I mean, they have to be desperate to want an interview to live with me. But why don’t they stay with you? You know, since they actually like you and your pack.”

Juno snorts. “They don’t like the prospect of Evron—”

“—and his freeballing ways?” I conclude, groaning when she laughs in agreement. Then I’m groaning again, because despite my original instinct to say fuck no to the pack, my mind goes to the Deuce Biggalos and hussies who wanted a place to pimp out at. I cringe. Surely, anything would be better than that, right? Even if they don’t like me. At least it means I’ll have noise around the house. It won’t feel so lonely. My house will kind of feel like a home.

Chewing my lip, I finally ask, “Are any of them pimps or gigolos?”

Juno chokes on her inhale before she breaks out in laughter. I don’t know why, it’s a very serious and genuine question. I’m scarred for life after the last pack tried to Magic Mike me into giving them a key to my house. Fucking ab-less weirdos.

Clearing her throat, a couple of snickers still escaping, she finally answers, “Nope. No pimps or gigolos here. Well, I can’t speak for Aero.”

“Oh, my god!” the guy in question exclaims, and before I know it, his honey-smooth voice is crooning to me down the line so clearly that I don’t doubt he just snatched my bestie’s phone from her. “I’m not a lady of the night, Silver. I don’t sell my body or anything. I’m not a cam girl, and I don’t do OnlyKnots. Hell, I don’t even send nudes. Other than that one time I sent my doctor a photo of my—”

“That’s enough of that,” a different voice interrupts, Pace on the line now. Fucking hell, where am I? The godsdamned twilight zone? “Silver, what can we do to convince you that we’re not a bunch of creeps? We really just need a place to stay.”

Damn those heartstrings. The exhaustion in the man’s voice tugs at me. I’ve been lost and alone, I’ve been on the brink of desperation. I know how it feels to reach out for help when you so badly want to do things on your own. It’s those echoes of feeling that have me sighing. “Don’t make me regret this, okay?”

“Wait, are you saying you’ll let us stay?” Pace asks seriously, tone even and a little less tired now.

Shaking my head, I bite the bullet and hope I’m not making a mistake. “So long as you tidy up after yourselves, help me with grocery shopping, don’t bring your rando hookups over, and don’t eat my sweets, I’ll let you stay. I have four spare rooms, one of which we can turn into a nest for Aero. The twins can share the other. Munro can live in the shed or something. The other spare room can be used for… closet space.”

Laughter vibrates down the phone, and my jaw unhinges and falls to the damned floor. Did I just make Pace Larsen laugh? Am I high or something? Is this a dream? An alternative reality, perhaps?... Am I dead?

“That all sounds reasonable,” Pace agrees easily, and my eyebrows pinch.

“Even the hookup thing?” I blurt, surely that one would be a hard rule to follow.

I hear that laughter again, and I’m officially convinced I’m dead. There’s no other reasonable explanation for why I’m having a conversation with Pace, making him laugh, and agreeing that his pack can come live with me. None at all, other than I have officially expired. Damn, only twenty-one years on this earth and I’ve perished before I could do what I wanted to do. That’s a shame.

“None of us date, so there won’t be any randoms in your home. We’ll be respectful of your space, Silver, I promise,” he assures, his voice genuine and back to serious, though I’m sure I hear a hint of a smile in his voice.

Being dead is trippy.

Sighing at my own internal dramatics, I scratch my head where my bun sits, messing it up that bit more as I say, “I’ll take your word for it. Come by this weekend to move in. I’ll have keys made up for you by then.”

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