Page 2 of Pack Down Bad

“Everything okay?” Mia nudges me with her elbow.

I laugh nervously, a high-pitched guffaw that distinctly saysno, everything is not okay.

Seventeen minutes. Maybe something terrible happened to Jason, and I don’t know yet because things are way too new for me to be his emergency contact. He’s in a coma somewhere, waking up and immediately asking the doctor for the time because he has a very important first meeting to get to.

“Is your friend okay?”

Oh great, the bartender is watching me with concerned eyes, too. So glad that Mia and the cute bartender could bond so that when I go into a full-blown panic attack out of embarrassment and pass out on this barstool, she has someone to help carry my limp body out.

Things could be worse. I’ll take sweat stains in the armpits of my sweater over something like… an unexpected heat spike in public. Still, this situation is becoming completely mortifying.

“Everything is great, except... “ Why am I still lying? I’m not doing a great job, she already knows something is up. “Traffic. There’s traffic.”

There, that isn’t a lie. Technically, trafficalwaysexists. Just sometimes worse than others. Maybe tonight is a bad traffic night. How would she know otherwise?

“Really?” Mia arches her eyebrows. I feel like the world is moving in slow motion as she slides her phone out of her jeans pocket and quickly navigates to her map app. “None of the streets on my map look red. Which direction is he coming from? The airport?”

I resist the urge to swat the phone out of her hand like a cat. Look at her bringing logic into a conversation where it doesn’t belong.

Nineteen minutes. Once we hit twenty minutes, I really should just assume he’s dead. That’s easier to live with than the idea of him ghosting me after I told him how much this introduction means to me. Mia is practically my sister. Now, I have to admit to her that my sweet and stable boyfriend is actually my rude and unpredictableex-boyfriend.

At least we’re already at a bar. I can drink my woes away.

Mia looks up at me, waiting for me to answer so that she can sleuth out the nonexistent traffic. My mouth hopelessly opens and shuts like a goldfish as I summon the courage to lay my dead relationship at her feet.

“The thing is–”

“Oh!” Her eyes light up as her gaze slides past me. “Is that him?”

Oh, thank god.

My whole mood brightens as I swivel on my stool and look in the same direction as her. Jason runs his hand over his head to brush off a layer of snow as his gaze frantically searches the room. His coat is covered, too. The snow must have picked up quite a bit since the light dusting that was coming down when Mia and I arrived early.

“No wonder there was traffic. Looks like we’re in for one heck of a snowstorm tonight. I’m sure you wouldn’t be too upset about being snowed in with your beau, though, huh?” Mia’s attempt to tease me falls short as I continue to watch Jason.

His gaze finally lands on us where we’re sitting at the bar. The corners of his lips tip up into a soft smile when he sees me. As he walks toward us, his gaze slides to Mia beside me, and his steps falter.

“Oh no,” Mia mutters under her breath.

I tear my eyes away from Jason to look over my shoulder at my best friend. Her mouth is open wide with shock, the skin around her eyes wrinkled with worry. She can’t seem to tear her gaze away from Jason’s direction. My tight grip on my phone might as well be a grip around my heart as my chest squeezes painfully.

I watch with horror as Mia’s nostrils flare and she inhales deeply. Her eyelids flutter closed, and the muscles of her face relax into omega bliss. There’s only one scent that can otherwise override an omega’s good judgment...

Did my best friend just find her scent-match?

ChapterTwo

Belle

“This can’t be happening,” I whisper to myself.

I’m not sure where to look. In one direction, my boyfriend is staring bewildered at a woman who isn’t me. On my other side, my best friend is squeezing her eyes shut and inhaling the sweet scent of said boyfriend. I drop my gaze to stare at my hands instead. Those haven’t betrayed me yet... but the night is still young.

After a few seconds, a pair of dress shoes appears in my peripheral vision. I don’t want to look up, but I force myself to face the betrayal head-on.

Jason stands stiffly facing me, but I can see him glancing at Mia again from the corner of his eye. I guess he’s having a hard time taking his eyes off of her.

From behind me, the bartender raises his voice to be heard over the ambient music being piped through the bar speakers. “Can I get you a drink?”

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