Page 34 of The Pack Next Door
I’d picked my phone up blindly, assuming it would be Emma. With the flurry of replies I was sending back to her and Seb, I expected a call. Instead, I glanced down at the screen and saw it was a video call from Candy. Shaking my head, I tapped the screen to answer it.
“What’s up, buttercup?” She grinned through the screen, obviously perched on her balcony outdoor setting, looking a little worse for wear. “How’s things in Hick River?”
“Moon River,” I corrected, pushing the laptop onto the bed.
“Moon, Hick, hicks that howl at the moon.” She shrugged. “Same diff. Now, you rang?”
“Ahh… Riley said something about working on a heat suppressant?”
“Meh, Fanta Pants is always working on something. She got this whole weird focus on the job thing going.”
“A work ethic?” I said with a snort.
“Yeah, that.” Her face screwed up in an expression of disgust. “Yuck. So why this sudden interest in…” Calling Candy was a mistake. She might do a very convincing impression of an idiot, but you didn’t get to work in one of the premier research facilities in the country without contributing something significant. The phone was jerked closer and suddenly I could’vecounted every pore on her nose. “Why would you want a heat suppressant, Briar? Tell me everything.”
I sucked in a breath, wiping yet more sweat from my brow.
“Well, I’m going into heat again and it's months too early.” A big huff of breath and my shoulders started to droop.
“So, it’s masturbation leave time again? Can I just say how cool it is that you omegas get that? I ran the idea of adding that to the leave entitlements of employees at Crowe Corp, but the boss was not having it.”
The camera swung around to where Mr. Knotty sagged from where his suction cup was stuck to Candy’s coffee table. His googly eyes listed to one side, making him look somewhat tragic.
“I even tried to claim Mr. Knotty as a dependant and said I needed mandated time off with him, but HR said that ‘sex toys don’t count as family members.’ I tried to fight that as discrimination against silicone-based lifeforms but didn’t really get far.” Her face swam back into view. “Rude.”
I couldn’t help but giggle. While I’m sure Candy was lying, it was so easy to imagine her doing just that, earnestly wobbling the dildo at her poor defenceless HR rep.
“Soo… Briar.” Nothing got past this woman. Her focus sharpened exponentially as all traces of weekend languor were wiped away. “Why do you need a heat suppressant?”
“Because it's the middle of an Australian summer and it’s hotter than Satan’s arsecrack?” I suggested.
“Nuh uh.”
“Because I’m supposed to help my mother, not spend the entire trip getting fishy fingers.”
I wriggled mine for emphasis.
“Going back to the bad old days of pretending you’re just ‘having a really long shower’ does make sense.” Candy made a show of tapping her chin. “But nope, my Spidey sense says that’s not it.”
“Your Spidey sense convinced you that you could climb a wall the night of that gala, after you got really drunk on company booze,” I shot back. “Instead of webslinging, you ran straight into it.”
“Pretty sure they laced the punch with LSD.”
With a shake of her head, she refocussed on me.
“Briar.”
“Candy.”
“Briar.” I looked meaningfully at the screen, ready to say her name again. “Bitch, we can spend the afternoon calling each other’s names, but I’d much rather do that with masculine company. Thanks, babe.” A masculine hand passed her a drink, and she took a sip, eyeing him hungrily before turning back to me. “So tell me what the fuck is going on and then I can get Mrs. Roboto on the case for you.”
That was one of the many pet names Candy gave Riley.
My hands rose and fell helplessly.
“I’m in heat and I shouldn’t be.” Her silence was somehow worse than her constant stream of bullshit. “It’s making me really uncomfortable and is super awkward.” A glance around the room and I was confronted again by the artefacts of my childhood. “I mean masturbation leave in your mother’s house? It was bad enough when I was a teenager, her constantly barging in ‘to have a talk.’”
I could hear the cicadas whining and the sound of a spade hitting the dirt, and the wolf was straining inside me, wanting to take a peek over the window sill. We just knew all three alphas would be stripped to the waist, sweating in the sun. Up here I’d be able to take in every inch of their glistening skin as I…
