Page 9 of Choosing Their Omega

I watch her walk away, because I can’t help it. She’s got a gorgeous ass, and I want to sink my teeth into it. But as she walks, I realize… she’s not getting into any of the apartment buildings.

In fact, she seems to be headed for the beat-up Corolla.

Lily unlocks the car and puts the groceries in the backseat, then gets into the front passenger seat, closing the door after herself. I wait, but she doesn’t seem to be doing anything more.

Huh.

I pull away and drive past, trying not to make it obvious that I’m looking at her. She’s just sitting in the front passenger seat, and she looks exhausted. She wipes at her eyes with the back of her hand, and I see a pile of clothes in the backseat next to the groceries.

The non-perishable groceries.

It hits me then that she didn’t buy anything perishable. And she walked all the way to the store, even though she apparently has a car. She couldn’t afford all the food she got, and she was nervous about accepting a ride from me. Not out of fear from me, I realize, but from fear of what I might see.

She’s homeless.

Chapter 3

Lily

As grateful as I am to Cruz for the groceries and the ride, I wish he would’ve driven away faster. I shouldn’t have let him drive me here. I should’ve just insisted on walking. But I’m tired, it’s a hot day, he’s so handsome and charming, and he smells really, really good. It’s been a rough few days. I couldn’t resist.

I tried to be subtle, but as I sit in my car and try to figure out what to do next, I see Cruz turn his own car around and come back to park right behind my poor beat up baby.

Fuck. I take a few breaths, fanning my face so that it won’t look like I was just crying. I want to sink into the street and let the earth swallow me up.

Cruz comes up and raps on the window of the car. “Lily?”

I wince, but I know there’s no avoiding it. I open the car door and get out. “Yes? Did you need something?”

“More like I was wondering if you needed something,” Cruz replies. He eyes my car. “It’s not safe for you to live out of there.”

Oh god, I really need lightning to strike me right now. I’m so humiliated. “I’m fine, really. Thank you so much for the groceries and the ride, it was really kind of you. But I’m okay.”

Cruz frowns. “I can’t just leave you here. I’d never be able to forgive myself if something happened to you. Can I give you money for a motel? Or… we have a spare room, actually a few spare rooms, in our house, you could stay with my pack for a few days.”

“I can’t possibly accept that. Seriously, that’s just way too much. I can’t impose on your home and your pack like that.”

Cruz eyes me up and down. I don’t know what to call the look on his face, but it sends heat up my spine. He’s not checking me out. It’s more like he’s looking at a puzzle and just figured out the solution. “It wouldn’t be charity. You could actually help us out.”

“What do you mean?”

“We need a nanny, for our three-year-old.”

That throws me off. “Are you all mated?”

I didn’t sense a mating bond, but it could just be my Beta senses throwing things out of whack. It’s been a really stressful few days, I probably couldn’t tell an Alpha from an Omega right now if my life depended on it. They could have an Omega who works outside the home.

“No.” Cruz shakes his head. “Ben’s not our kid. Well, he is, but not biologically. He’s technically the nephew of Knox, one of my pack mates. His sister died over a year ago and he got custody of Benjamin.”

A warm, protective fondness enters Cruz’s voice as he talks. “I love that kid. We all do. He’s got us wrapped around his little finger. But it’s hard to balance raising him with our demanding schedules. Especially when it gets to playoff season, assuming we make it that far. We need someone full-time, and we were about to start looking, but if you could step in…”

My heart aches hearing about what happened to Ben. “Losing a mother is devastating,” I agree quietly.

My mother didn’t die. She left another way. I remember as a kid sometimes wishing that she had died. I’d felt almost envious of the kids who lost parents to something like a car accident or cancer. At least they knew for sure their parents were gone. There was no weird sense of limbo, no wondering if their mother would show back up again in their lives out of the blue.

And at least they knew their parent hadn’t left them by choice.

Mine had.

---