Page 136 of Coco and the Misfits

She tsks. “Got me fooled for a minute.”

“Trouble in paradise?” Gigi isn’t smiling, her gaze worried. “I thought you were getting back with the guys.”

“The guys?” Bee has a hand on her still flat belly and looks generally green about the gills. I thought she was feeling better by now? “What did I miss?”

“Shouldn’t you be at home resting?” I shoot back, defensive for no good reason.

“I wanted to get out. The nausea is a bit better today.”

I wince. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay.” She smiles. “I’m happy. I’ll be happier when I stop wanting to puke my guts out.”

“Ew,” Ruby says.

June is sitting there, watching me from behind the barrier of her mug. She hasn’t said a word since I arrived and now she decides to make her move. “Why aren’t you answering my messages? I’ve been writing and calling for days now.”

“Now you decide to make a scene when you weren’t answering mine for so long?” I burst out.

She winces. “Guilty. But you don’t have to do as I do. We’re not three years old.”

“Sorry. I myself am understaffed at the moment,” I mutter, hiding behind anger to nurse my confused feelings about my best friend, the three men I’ve fallen for, and my convoluted relationship with myself.

“Coco…”

“Just… leave it,” I mutter, pushing my chair back and getting up. “Leave it.”

I leave, ignoring their calls for me to come back. Striding away blindly, I abandon my friends in the café, unable to face them any longer.

Unable to face anyone, feeling as if I’ve been lying to all of them all this time.

I’m a beta, no matter how much I feel like an omega. I lied, and now it’s time to face the music.

49

ATTICUS

I’m the first to arrive at my apartment which has become our usual meeting point these days. The concierge knows to open the door for the guys if they happen to arrive before me.

Dropping off my business case and shrugging off my suit jacket, I roll my shoulders, shedding the day’s stress.

I walk into my kitchen and feel Coco’s absence there like a phantom limb.

Nowadays, I always do. She was here only for a brief time and yet it feels as if her absence is abnormal and tragic. How the hell did I live in this apartment all these years without her? Even my plants on the terrace look sad.

It’s a fucking mystery.

Fighting off the sense of discomfort, the loneliness that now feels like an ill-fitting coat, I open my cupboards, take out glasses and drag the whiskey bottle toward me.

At least, the guys are coming. Having them around for these meetings is a life raft.

Who would have thought? Certainly not me, with my distant family and few contacts, only meeting to discuss business, my one-night or even one-hour hook-ups. My empty, meaningless life that had seemed all right until now, only for her to knock down the walls and let me see the ruins and devastation.

Melodramatic. I chuckle to myself just as the apartment door opens and Zach walks in. He grins when he finds me there and my heart settles.

He lifts a hand in greeting. “Hey, big man. What’s up?”

“All good.” I lift a glass in his direction. “Drink?”

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