Page 59 of Let It Snow
Am I the only one in this house who can’t play a single note?
I watch from the balcony for a while, half-hidden. They don’t talk much. The alphas sip light beer from long-neck bottles, Lake and Jordan share a little sweet wine, but nobody’s overdoing it.
Down by the grill, Jordan keeps an eye on the sizzling meat, flipping pieces of pork shoulder and brushing them with sauce, the scent of smoke and fat curling upward.
The air smells like pepper and char, and every so often, someone laughs softly or taps a foot in time.
Finally, I force myself to move.
My heart’s thudding, but I go down the ladder and step into their circle.
Lake notices me first. He stands, smiles, and gestures to a rattan lounge beside him. "Come sit," he says. "Can you play?" he asks.
I shake my head, embarrassed. He just shrugs and offers me a glass of wine.
"Then just chill out," and he grins.
I take it, grateful. Snow’s eyes find me, glowing a bit, but he says nothing.
They slip back into the music almost immediately. The sound rises and folds over itself, like waves breaking and retreating.
And then something happens. At first, I don’t know if Snow does it for me or if it’s just a natural part of their jam sessions, but as the music flows, colors begin to move through the air. Thin ribbons of light and tiny glowing dots rise and fall as if following the melody itself, swirling, brightening when the rhythm comes alive, and melting into darker waves when it turns more melancholic.
No one seems particularly surprised by the spectacle, so I come to the conclusion that it must be something Snow sometimes does for everyone’s enjoyment, and tonight, maybe also for mine.
It’s almost dreamlike, the way they fit together, perfectly in tune, trading riffs without a word. The energy between them is constant and alive, like some invisible current running from one to another. Notes hang in the air, glowing with rainbow colors and pulsing softly, bending and weaving, and the melody reshapes itself moment by moment.
This aching need builds in me to belong, to be part of it. I really wish I could. Maybe I should ask someone to teach me how to play?
After about half an hour, they pause to eat, the grill still crackling in the background.
Conversation drifts lightly over the table. At one point Lake mentions a text from his purple alpha son, Storm, saying he suspects he’s found his TM.
The topic stirs something in me. Immediately, I glance at Snow and catch him glancing at me too.
Are we?
Shouldn’t it be obvious by now? We’ve touched. The First Touch.
The Pull should be at its peak after a few days apart.
What exactly is the Pull?
How does it work? I need more details.
While they talk, I slip out my phone and scroll through an article about it.
It’s complicated and may vary in cases of alpha-beta or omega-beta pairings.
But in the classical alpha-omega sense, it starts as an intense longing for closeness, not necessarily strictly sexual, but more like a deep hunger to be near someone.
I’ve definitely had something like that these last few days, constantly missing Snow’s presence.
But then the Pull grows sharper, more intense, and finally… painful. Mates become anxious, unhappy. Their bodies develop side effects: headaches, dizziness, cramps. As the days pass, it leads to fainting, and if the separation lasts, to coma and, after another week, death.
Right now, I guess, I’m still in the intense longing phase, but mixed with something the classical description barely mentions: rising sexual arousal. Yep, I’m pretty much hard every half hour.
That’s not supposed to be the most pronounced part of a typical Pull. It’s usually more about the obsessive need to be close, which then evolves into the painful separation symptoms.
