Page 177 of Roulette Rodeo
"Will do. Are you coming alone?"
"Course not! Coming with Malrik."
My eyebrows shoot up.
"Do you two have a thing?"
Her laugh is complicated—part amused, part frustrated, part something I can't quite identify.
"Girllll, I'm not sure what our dynamic is, but neither of us have a pack so I guess he can just exist next to me as we're kind of forced to at the moment."
"What do you mean?" I sit up straighter, intrigued by the odd phrasing.
"Well," she draws out the word, and I can practically see her checking to make sure no one's listening. "It's kinda complicated, but he's technically living with me."
"HUH?!" I practically shriek. "You're living together?!"
"Yeah," she laughs, but there's something underneath it. "But don't tell the whole town. Long story short, his apartment building had a mysterious fire—and by mysterious I mean his psycho ex-alpha tracked him down—and my place has a spare room and better security, so..." She trails off.
"But I guess it's okay cause he's an omega," I say, trying to work through the logistics of two unmated omegas sharing space.
"Yeah..." Poppy's voice takes on a different quality, something between frustration and want. "For now... but it'shard when he's an omega with a big fat dick. Girl, I'd never bend for a girl, but that omega is a whole ass snack and he has some Alpha traits which is crazy."
I nearly choke on my own spit.
"How is that possible?"
"It's a bit of an odd story," she admits, her voice dropping to a more serious tone. "I'll explain in person. Weird experimental shit from his time in Vegas, and now it's being used as collateral almost. It's drama central hidden in the hearts of this small crazed town."
"Damn," I sigh, processing this information. My mind is spinning with the implications—an omega with alpha traits? Experimental shit? "Crimson Collateral should be the label of your life."
The term just pops out, but it fits.
Everything in our lives seems to come back to those years in Vegas, to the debts we accumulated—not in money but in trauma, in survival, in the pieces of ourselves we had to trade just to make it through.
Poppy laughs, bright and genuine this time.
"Right? Only I need some chaos and maybe watch him fight a few battles on my behalf to make things spicy."
I roll my eyes even though she can't see me.
"Please, my spicy life ain't shit."
"If you don't hurry up and start fucking those Alphas the right way," she says with authority, "the universe is going to be mean and risk it all with a hoe."
"Ugh, don't say that," I whine, actually knocking on the hood of the car for luck. The metal makes a hollow thunking sound under my knuckles. "Look, I had to knock on the car hood to save me from such a pitiful end."
Her giggle is infectious.
"Then be more risky, silly goose! I'll see you at the rodeo and wear something extra dazzling and sexy. I want the town to be reminded that you got a sinful side to you."
"Cheeky," I reply, already mentally raiding my closet. "Bye, bitch."
"Bye bitttcccchhhhh!" She draws it out until the call cuts off.
I grin, lowering my phone and staring at the blank screen for a moment.
My reflection stares back—hair messy from lying on the hood, cheeks flushed from laughter, eyes bright with the kind of contentment I never thought I'd experience.
