Page 10 of Snowed In With the Snow Queen
“The youngest of those boys is a father, and it’s Zach’s first Christmas as Alpha. He really needs to–”
“Randy Lamar,” she says, cutting me off, “don’t start all that bullshit with me. Just because you’re not Alpha anymore, it doesn’t mean they don’t need you around.”
I sigh. “I never said that, but Zach needs time to be the Alpha. If I’m here all the time, people are going to keep coming to me. They need to learn to come to him.”
“They will come to him, but it’s okay if they come to you too. Besides, it’s Christmas.”
“Mama, leave Randy alone. You know he hates Christmas,” Zander says, coming in to take his baby from her.
She clucks her tongue. “You think you’re the only one?” She readjusts the other baby in her arms and sighs. “Don’t think you’re the only one who’s spent the past eighteen years pretending to love this fucking holiday. I hate it just as much as you, Randy Lamar. But it’s not about me, it’s about the kids.”
Guilt gnaws away at me just as strong as it did eighteen years ago. “I can come by for Christmas dinner, I guess,” I say, relenting, like I always do.
Zelda nods. “Good, then I don’t have to be the only Scrooge around here.”
Nolig, Zander’s mate, comes in at the end of the conversation and looks between us both. “You know, neither one of you has to celebrate Christmas anymore if you don’t want to. I could talk to Red and Zach about picking it up.”
Zelda shakes her head. “We don’t celebrate holidays because we want to. We do it because it’s a time for the entire pack to be together. We do it to keep things moving forward, to have something to anchor us, to–”
“But maybe blindly moving forward isn’t always the best idea,” Zander interrupts, softly.
Zander’s phone begins to ring, thankfully, saving me from having to talk about any of this. He looks at the screen, then answers it. “What’s up?”
There’s a long pause as someone speaks on the other end. “You’re fucking kidding me. No. Yeah. He’s right here.”
Zander holds the phone out toward me. “It’s Zach.”
Reluctantly, I take it from him. “Let me guess, there’s a problem with the alarm?”
“How’d you know?”
I take the phone from him with a sigh. “Hey, Randy–” Zach starts. I don’t let him say anything else.
“I’ll be there in twenty,” I say, cutting him off and handing the phone back to Zander. “Can someone please switch my laundry over when the cycle ends?” I call out as I head toward the door.
“We’ll get it taken care of!” Zelda hollers out behind me as the screen door slams shut.
Chapter Nine
Randy
You’d think that December twenty-third would be a quiet night for a strip club, but most years it’s one of our busiest. I guess not everyone is thrilled to be spending time with the family. The lot is full, so instead of parking, I just roll up to the curb where Eddie’s stationed at his stool, checking IDs. I can hear an alarm wailing in the distance, but it’s definitely not the obnoxiously loud one installed at the Wild Hare.
“I thought there was a problem with the alarm,” I say as I roll down the window.
Eddie pushes up from his stool and comes to lean against the open window. “There is. Over there.” He grins, nodding his head toward Soojin’s. The tiny restaurant is dark and looks deserted.
“Why couldn’t one of you fix it?”
He shrugs, but the smile doesn’t leave his face. “We’re short-staffed. Zach’s having to run the bar tonight and can’t leave.”
“Soojin didn’t call or text me,” I admit. “Showing up is moving me into creepy asshole territory.”
He shrugs and grins. “Maybe… maybe not. Maybe you just need to be a little persistent. Show her you really are serious.”
Or maybe I’ll have a restraining order on me by New Year’s. Eddie goes back to his stool, so I roll up the window and guide my truck around the potholes and curbs that separate the Wild Hare and her place until I’m parked in front of the tiny gas station-turned-restaurant. She’s closed Mondays and Tuesdays and the whole place looks deserted. I check the front door, anyway. It’s locked, of course, so I head around the back. I can hear the alarm through the back door, but no one answers when I bang on it with a fist. If Soojin is around, she’s probably not inside.
I turn away from the door, ready to head back to my truck, when a half-chewed piece of yellow paper in the grass catches my eye. With the flashlight from my phone, I read what’s left of it–my partial phone number and some teeth marks.
