Page 65 of Pack Down Bad

“Fuck it.” Knox’s whole body tenses. “Let’s do something. There’s no way in hell I’m going to settle for our omega not knowing just howwantedshe is. We need to woo her back with a scene like in one of her romance novels. A grand gesture.”

My ears perk up at the mention of her books. He mentions the grand gestures a little too confidently. I have a feeling that if I walked into his bedroom right now, I might find a few books borrowed from my collection sitting by his bedside.

I appreciate his commitment.

“Well?” Knox prompts.

And I realize Knox and Rhys are both staring expectantly at me.

“You’ve read all of her books,” Rhys explains. “If anyone knows the kind of grand gesture she’s interested in, it’s you.”

Shit. My mind comes up blank.

Think, Percy. Get creative.

She wouldn’t want us to do something ripped straight out of one of her romance novels...

An idea hits me.

“Actually, I think I do have an idea of something that might work.” Something that might help us bridge the gap between her old life and her new one. Something that will show her exactly how much we’re prepared to support her doing whatever she loves, so long as she can do it from the comfort of our homehere.

I think a writing desk would look pretty damn good in my office, but first things first. We have a grand gesture to set into motion.

ChapterThirty-Three

Belle

This feels like the worst possible moment for my phone to start ringing.

I’m awkwardly contorting myself to keep my desk chair from completely falling apart as I try to carefully take it apart piece by piece. The comfy chair with its footrest and vibrating pad maximizes my comfort... and also makes the chair a beast to move all in one piece. I made that mistake when I moved into this apartment, and I vowed never to make it again.

I’m sure Mia is calling even though she only left my apartment this morning. I finally had to kick her out so she would go back to work and her own apartment.

Whatever is going on between Jason and her, she didn’t seem in a hurry to be anywhere else but with me. Interesting. I should stop putting her off soon and rip the bandage off on her telling me what happened after she caught a whiff of him.

I keep working at taking my beloved chair apart as the phone stops ringing.

A few moments later, the chimes start up again.

“Ugh!”

Well, now I’m worried there’s an emergency or something. I release the stray limbs of my chair, letting everything fall into a heap on the floor. Guess I’ll box this sucker up as-is and deal with the consequences later at this point.

I hurry over to where my phone is sitting on an otherwise empty bookshelf.

“Hello?” I answer frantically without bothering to check the Caller ID.

Mia isn’t the one calling.

“Finally!” Janice shrieks in place of a greeting.

Janice is a marketing pro who specializes in working with indie authors. She runs ads online for my books and organizes my social media accounts since those kinds of things aren’t in my wheelhouse. Sometimes she’ll text me updates on how a campaign is doing. Otherwise, we stick to quarterly video calls for her to propose new campaigns for my backlist or whatever I have releasing next.

She doesn’t usually call me.

“Sorry, I’ve been busy packing. Is everything okay?” I think she’s doing excited shrieking, but I can’t tell for sure.

“Okay? Everything ismorethan okay. We’ve never seen this much online traffic in one day before!” Janice rambles a few paragraphs worth of information that I don’t understand about online metrics before I have to stop her.

---