Page 68 of The Beta's Heart

You’ll see,she laughed.

By the way, how are things going with Misha?

And the way her eyes lit up gave awayhersecret, too.

Like mother, like daughter, I chuckled to myself.

After breakfast, I helped clear the table and wondered what to do with my morning. Luna Posy had invited me over to the alpha house for lunch, and Alpha Wyatt was picking me up right before noon, so I had a few hours to fill.

Usually, I’d go pester Landry and Reuben, but the gammas were having a big meeting with luna’s eldest brother, Alpha James Briggs from Green River. He wanted to draft an alliance with us and had also asked for help with training his pack warriors, and the alphas had assigned the gammas to handle both requests.

As for my fellow betas, Emerson told me yesterday that he and Angelo had errands to run in town all day and Crew said the same. I knew Tristan was supervising the morning fighter practices in the gammas’ absence and Matthew and his mate, Maria, were helping the Breckenridge twins pack up their house to be ready to leave with their new mates, Alpha and Beta Briggs.

I wonder if Bram wants to do something,I was thinking when Honor came into the kitchen with a loud squeal.

“Your surprise is here, Beta Ty!”

“My surprise, huh?” Grinning, I dried my hands on the dish towel, hung it back up on the oven door handle, and picked her up under her arms to swing her around and around. As she screamed with laughter, I heard two deep chuckles from the doorway and cut my eyes over to see Bowie and Beckham Hall standing there.

“What areyou twodoing here?” I stopped spinning Honor and looked at her. “Don’t tell me these two elephants are my surprise?”

“Yep! They are!” She squirmed until I put her down, then grinned up at me and yelled, “Have fun!” before she took off.

“Elephants, huh?” One of the twins, possibly Becks, crossed his arms over his chest. “Maybe the little beta would rather go to the circus instead of what we have planned, Bowie.”

Whew. Good. Guessed right.That was not an easy task since it was impossible to tell them apart by sight alone.

“Every day is a circus around here,” I scoffed.

“Facts!” Bowie slung an arm around my neck and gave me a hard noogie.

“Bro!” I shoved him back before he could grind my skull into powder, then carefully patted my hair back into place. “How did you two get the day off, anyway? Alpha Mase is strict on Sundays being your break day.”

“We traded half of today for half of Sunday,” Becks explained. “We do it all the time when something comes up. We may be the first trainees in his special squad, but he also understands we’re eighteen-year-olds with families and friends.”

“And football!” Bowie grinned. “Now come on, beta, grab your shoes. We’re taking you to Bounce!”

“What?” My eyes widened.

“Yep, and Bram’s meeting us there, so get a move on.”

“I’ll be right back.” With a wide grin, I took the stairs three at a time to grab my boots from my room.

We’d had a great time when the four of us went one Sunday shortly after it opened, but it cost a pretty penny. Since I was saving as many of mine as I could, I hadn’t been back, even though some of my friends had asked me to go along a few times.

The beta pay was excellent, but I only had one paycheck under my belt, and half of that Alpha Mase had invested for me as part of my benefits package. If I wanted him to, he’d continue to invest for me, but I was very aware of how few zeros my checking account currently had. For now, I’d decided that Mama Dollar and Papa Dollar were on their own with only Alpha Mase’s financial wizardry to help them make babies.

Hopefullylotsof babies!I snickered as I climbed into the twins’ Jeep.

Until they had a growing family, though, I wasn’t going to spend a cent on anything unnecessary. Whether she came from money or was as poor as me, my mate—should I be lucky enough to have one—deserved to start off with whatever she wanted or needed to make our house a home, and I was determined to provide that for her.

I would work as hard as I had to so I could give her the life she deserved. It might not be in a few months or even in a couple of years, but I’d carve our future out with my own two hands, and I hoped she’d be the kind of girl who’d want to help me.

It was the quality I dreamed of in a mate more than any other. While Bowie and Becks went on and on about their bucket list of threesome positions—what I wouldn’t give for earplugs sometimes!—and Bram whispered his hopes for a loyal mate who would treat him well and not abuse Smoke, I longed for a girl willing to stand by my side as the two of us worked to create our life together. A true partner in every sense of the word.

Yeah, well, people in hell wish for ice water, too,I reminded myself.Don’t mean they get it.

But the warning did nothing to stop my heart from wanting it.

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