Page 107 of The Pack Next Door
I nodded. I had to wait around for the toasted sandwich, but I’d be there.
Standing outside Briar’s office, my hand raised, ready to knock, but not knowing how… The sandwich was still hot, the chocolate blotting on the paper bag the muffin was in. I sucked in a breath, then another, before rapping my knuckles on the door.
“Come in…”
Briar sounded completely distracted. I opened the door and came in to see her sitting at her desk.Just go and put the items on her desk and say good morning, I told myself, unable to believe that savagely tackling whole packs of alphas was easier than this. Probably because when Briar finally looked up, wondering who was lurking there, her brows creased.
“Oh, hey.” Surprise was there, but also disappointment. She blinked as if unable to believe what she was seeing. The mask re-situated itself quickly and she smiled tightly. “I told Jace I didn’t need breakfast.”
“So you can work inefficiently and then crash hard in the afternoon?” I didn’t mean to lecture her, but the words just came out. “Sorry, I…” The chai was set on her desk, the sandwich and muffin placed beside it. “Seb said you had some stock that needed sorting, so I’ll just go and do that.”
“How come you pulled breakfast duty?”
Her question had my feet stopping. I froze where I was, having no script to deal with this.
“Jace had something he needed to pick up before he made it to the warehouse and Mads went with him. I was free, so I went to the cafe for him.”
“And got one of my favourite muffins.” She peered at the contents of the bag. “And the toastie I love. Is this fate or did Emma help you out?”
Fate, I wanted to say. It was right there on the tip of my tongue. It was fate, and I’d learn how to make triple chocolate muffins myself, if that’s what it took to convince her. Of course,that wasn’t how it worked. No amount of carbs would make up for the side of me she’d seen.
“Emma advised me what to get,” I replied. “Otherwise you’d have probably ended up with a black coffee and some plain wholemeal toast.”
Her nose wrinkled, right before she smiled.
“Well, tell Emma she’s getting a pay rise.” Briar turned back to the computer with a sigh. “Right after she cancels the venue hire.” A shake of her head and that frown was back. “I hoped maybe we’d have enough stock to do the launch, but not with these numbers.”
The tally we’d created was shoved away as if the paper personally offended her. That had me moving forward and lowering myself into a chair.
“The loss of the launch will have a negative effect on your business?”
“Sort of.” She sipped her tea. “I mean if we can get back our deposits, it’s probably not going to have that big an impact financially, but launches are more than just sales.” Her back pressed against her chair as she looked up at me. “It’s like a culmination of so many things. A ritual of sorts, to commemorate the fact we’ve launched a new line and finished all the logistics of setting that up.” Briar shrugged. “It also gets us some nice local media coverage.”
“So you can’t use other items for the launch?”
In my mind, I saw all the boxes and boxes of items stored on the shelves.
“I mean, I guess.” The flat note in her tone made clear that was not desirable. Being an alpha, I knew all about rituals. We performed them in different ways to demonstrate and retain our position in the community. If someone had changed a trial, swapping it from the one thing I’d prepared for, telling me another would be just as good, I’d have been gutted. “Actually,no, we can’t. There’s all the pre-launch stuff that goes into it. You need to build hype and I did that for Tom’s new line. There were blog posts and social media ads and newsletters…”
Her voice trailed away. It felt like her eyes speared straight into me when she met my gaze.
“I just wish…” That convulsive little swallow had me following the bob of her throat. “I just wish I did things differently, y’know? Hired a different freight company. Checked in with Tom more and made sure this is actually what he wanted. Been here when the pallets arrived and supervised the delivery more closely.”
“And if you did?” Suddenly I was on familiar territory and that gave me an unexpected rush. “What then? The driver was obviously inexperienced or negligent. How could you have made up for that deficit if you were here?” She stared at me, her brows shifting, but not settling in any one expression. “It’s the illusion of control, Briar. If you believe everything is your responsibility…”
I saw my mother, my fathers, and heard the scripts they told me over and over, impressing just this upon me as far back as I remembered.
“There’s a relief and a pain to that. It means the world is a reliable, predictable environment where luck doesn’t play a role.” I sat back in my chair and she watched my every movement. “It also means you can’t relax for a second, lest all the many, many balls you have in the air start to drop.”
“Huh…” A thoughtful sip of her tea and I watched her closely, almost able to see Briar process my words in real time. “I hadn’t thought about it that way.” Her smile was small, but I treasured it far more than a toothy grin. “That actually helped.” The muffin was dragged closer. “And you brought chocolate. There isn’t much a chocolate muffin can’t improve.”
“You’ll have another one on your desk by lunchtime,” I promised, getting to my feet.
“I guess you can’t have a sugar crash if you keep eating it.” She pulled off a piece and then took a bite. “Thanks, Gideon.”
Jace talked about having a praise kink, but I had no idea what he meant until now. Every muscle seemed to relax in that second as a feeling of the sweetest pleasure rushed through me.
“Any time.”
