Page 16 of Alpha Brock
“I’ll take you to Stillwater.”
I snap my head in his direction, my eyes meeting his. “But…” I start, trailing off as I search them, nearly drowning in the emerald depths.
“It’ll save Reid a trip,” Brock says gruffly, looking away and shrugging his shoulders.
“You don’t have to do that,” I reply with a wave of my hand. Brock has made it pretty darn clear that he doesn’t like being inconvenienced, and I don’t want to give him another reason to resent my presence here. “Besides, he’s probably already on his way…”
“He’s not.” Brock sets his phone down on the island, picking up his coffee cup again. “I just told him I’d bring you. I’ve got a few things to discuss with him anyways.”
I just stand there for a moment, lips parted, unsure of what to say. Watching him as he takes a long sip of his coffee.
He swallows it down before his eyes come to mine again. “You gonna change so we can get going?”
“Uh, yeah,” I stammer, suddenly a bit flustered. Those little tingles break out all over my skin again, my cheeks heating.
I spin around, making a beeline for the hallway that leads to my room. Still trying to dissect what the heck this damn feeling is supposed to mean.
~
We pull up to the Stillwater packhouse a half an hour later and Brock leads the way up the front walk as I struggle to keep up with his long strides. I’m still not sure why he offered to drive me, considering he barely said anything on the ride over. Then again, nothing about this guy seems to make a whole lot of sense.
When we reach the front door of the packhouse, Brock pulls it open to let himself in like he owns the place. “Anybody home?” he calls out, looking around as I follow him inside.
“In my office,” Reid shouts out in response from somewhere off to the left.
Brock shoots me a sideways glance and gives a little flick of his head, beckoning me. I follow him down a hallway, nearly running into his back when he stops abruptly at an open door, turning to look inside and leaning a shoulder against the doorframe.
I peer past Brock into what is evidently Reid’s office, spotting him seated in a large leather chair behind a sturdy wood desk covered in tidy stacks of paperwork.
“Perfect timing, I just finished up the list of placements for the Denver wolves,” Reid says, grabbing a piece of paper off of his desk and pushing his chair back, rising to stand. He looks to me, grinning. “You excited to see some of your pack?”
I nod enthusiastically. “Can’t wait! Thanks for getting everything organized.”
Reid starts toward us, rounding his desk. He holds out the paper to me as he approaches. “Wanna double check my count for your people?”
“Sure,” I breathe as I take it from him, skimming the neat lines of text- names of wolves from my pack beside names of families from the Stillwater pack that will be taking them in temporarily. I provided a list to Reid yesterday denoting which members of my pack should be housed together.
“So what’d you wanna talk about?” Reid asks, looking to Brock and arching a brow. “In your text, you said…”
“It can wait,” Brock replies dismissively. “You guys can go ahead and get this stuff sorted out first.”
I give the list a cursory once-over before handing it back to Reid. “This looks good. Are you going to have them come here, or…”
I don’t need to finish because Reid is already nodding his head.
“I’ve staggered the host families the same way you’ve staggered the evacuees’ arrivals into three different groups,” he says. “My people should be here soon, just one from every family so that it isn’t overwhelming for your people. I’ll introduce you to each of them so you can direct your pack accordingly.”
“Perfect,” I nod. I’m a highly organized person, and Reid and I are cut from the same cloth in that regard. I’m really hoping that as long as we stay organized, everything will go smoothly this morning.
Brock and I step aside so Reid can exit his office, leading us back through the hallway and into a large room just off of the foyer. It’s full of comfortable looking furniture; clearly the gathering place for this pack’s meetings. It isn’t long before members of Reid’s pack start trickling in- eight of them in total to be matched with this first group from my pack. The Denver evacuees are traveling up here in large passenger vans, grouped in twos and staggered thirty minutes apart. The first two vans are carrying twenty-six refugees; the children, elderly, pregnant women, or those that are otherwise unable to fight.
True to his word, Reid introduces me to the eight members of his pack that will be hosting members of my own, so I’ll know what direction to send my people in once they arrive based upon the list that Reid created. I’m terrible at remembering names, so I’ve gotta ask each of them multiple times before I get them down- and even then, I’m still blanking on one or two. I’ll definitely need Reid’s help for this.
“They’re here!” one of the Stillwater residents announces, glancing out the large picture window at the front of the packhouse. I think her name is Martha-or was it Maria?Like I said, I’m shit with names.
Excitement bubbles up inside of me as I rush for the front door of the packhouse, yanking it open and bounding out onto the front stoop. As the van doors open and people start spilling out onto the driveway, I wave enthusiastically, a big grin spread across my face.
“Astrid!” a couple of the children call out when they see me, darting in my direction. It isn’t long before I’ve got a child hanging off of each leg.