Page 24 of Talk About… Dramay
A smile moved across his face but it wasn’t humorous, just triumphant. “I have a prior obligation, remember?”
“Fuck,” Lane protested, running his tattooed hands through his hair. It was dyed a dark midnight blue that more often looked black. Between the tattoos covering nearly every inch of him, piercings, and dyed hair, he was every parent’s worst nightmare. Another reason our pack was picked more often than not. “I’m invested now.”
“So, we go ahead, you join us later,” I argued, kicking myself for letting him talk us into his yearly solo camping trip. He’d booked the reservation weeks ago, I’d just forgotten about it until now.
His scowl was back but he didn’t argue. “Fine. A few days then we’re done for good.”
“A few days,” I said, triumph in my voice as I snatched his drink again and stalked off, ignoring the growl of protest that followed.
I had a trip to pack for. Rockwood Valley was tiny. I’d looked it up. But it was gorgeous. The kind of place I could imagine settling down in.
Something about this omega, this job, called to me. I wanted to make our last job count and I had a feeling this one was just the thing we needed.
Grabbing down my suitcases, I started packing an array of clothing, ensuring I was covered no matter what popped up. Anything else we could find there or the city nearby.
It had been too long since we’d been out of the city and she had paid us for three weeks. That meant even with Tate’s yearly hermit trip, he’d get two weeks there with us.
Maybe Rockwood Valley would be the perfect place to settle down. I’d been in this business for over eight years. We’d made good money and were more than ready to settle down and figure out what we wanted to fill our time with.
Or rather, who.
Something in my gut told me this was it. This was where we’d find our pack.
Tate always scoffed at my intuition, but my gut was rarely wrong.
Okay, maybe it was half right, half wrong, but I stood by my instincts.
I’d gotten through my clothes, books, and a few random things before Lane walked in. His face was guarded as he sat down in the recliner I kept in the corner. I may be an alpha, but a cozy reading nook was a necessity.
“What is it about her?”
I glanced over at him. “You feel it, too?”
He shrugged. “I think she’s gorgeous, but we’ve done plenty of jobs for pretty clients. That town though?”
“Yeah, it’s exactly like we described,” I agreed. “There are still places to travel around there, and a city not too far to get our fill of city life.”
“The lake… I want a house on it,” he said. “It reminds me of home.”
Lane grew up in a small pack in Virginia. The small town he lived in was his favorite but he’d been in foster care after losing his family pack in a fire since no one else stepped up. With foster care you don’t choose where they move you. We met in our early twenties and by then he’d vowed never to go home again. Though, he always admitted to wanting to end up in a town just like that.
Just somewhere else. One without memories.
“Well, this is the perfect time to check it out. If we end the relationship like a breakup, nothing says we can’t stick around,” I said. “There’d even be camping around for Tate.”
He nodded, running a hand over his jaw.
Maybe we were all getting our hopes up for nothing. If so, there would be no harm done.
What the hell did we have to lose?
Oriana
The alpha in front of me smelled like a rancid cigar shop. I kept my fake smile on my face as he processed everything I just told him.
“This is a huge mistake. You’ll be finished in this industry if you abandon your clients,” Charles Sanderson said as he looked down at me without bothering to hide his disgust. “We all knew having an omega in this industry was a problem.”
Raising one eyebrow, I held eye contact while I tucked the folder back into my bag. If he thought for one fucking second he could insult me then get his hands on my clients, he was a fool. I came to him because he was someone I thought I could trust.