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I shouldn’t have worried. They’re staring at something on June’s phone.
“Here you go,” I say brightly, lifting the steaming mugs off the tray and placing them on the table. “Your flat white, your cappuccino, your?—”
“Thanks.” Sophie pats the table. “Just put it here, honey.”
“What are you looking at?” I need the distraction. My foot is tapping already a rhythm to match the renewed counting inside my head.
“Hunks,” June says absently, sitting almost in Coco’s lap, drawing her lower lip between her teeth in concentration. “Oh, stop scrolling, there, there. That one!”
“Lordy, that’s nice,” Sophie purrs, leaning over so much to see she’s in danger of dipping her chin inside her coffee. “Look at those abs! Unreal.”
Walking around the table, I lean in to see. “Are those… bat wings on his back?”
“I love me some bat-men,” Coco sighs. “It must be from a fantasy book or movie.”
I don’t mind me some bat-men, either, though currently the only men on my mind are a trio of human hunks, quite wingless, and plenty sexy.
I should call Roman, I think, tell him… tell him what exactly?
‘I’m sorry, Roman. Please, tell the others, too. I’m about to choose a pack that isn’t you to tie the knot. Sorry I hung out with you. Did you realize how much I want you? How badly I?—?’
“Enough imaginary hunk time,” Coco decides, putting her phone face-down on the table, to the groans of the two other girls. “Sawyer, come sit with us.”
“Uh,” I hedge, “I really shouldn’t. I need to clean the?—”
“If your café was any cleaner,” June says, “it would be a hospital. The operating room.”
I wince. “Now, let’s not exaggerate?—”
“I’m not,” June says. “Seriously, have a seat. Haven’t seen you in ages.”
“You saw me last week,” I point out.
“In passing. Not the same. You don’t spend time with us.” A perfect pout. “You don’t love us anymore.”
I swallow a sigh. Unlike omega men, omega girls are given free rein to be who and what they are: playful, sometimes melodramatic, childish, annoying, funny. We omega males have to tread a fine line between our omega nature and what is seen as masculine. Sure, we’re expected to sleep with men as much as with women, it’s not a sexuality thing. More of a… gender stereotyping thing. A macho thing.
“Now tell us the truth,” Coco says. “The reason you look so miserable—is it that girl you’ve been pining over?”
Startled by the question, still thinking about June’s pout and my role in society, I blink at her. “What?”
“That girl who comes over sometimes,” June says. “You know! The pretty one with the fluffy blond hair and the big eyes and the long skirts.”
“Right. Yeah.” I swallow hard. “I mean, no. I’m not pining.”
“Or was it those guys?” Sophie says, as if she hasn’t heard me.
I start again. “What guys?”
“That pack who was here the other day. Word travels, you know.”
It sure seems like it. I thought she was going to point at them, that they were here. But no such luck.
I can’t speak. Suddenly I want to howl and throw the furniture at the wall. Hearing the reason of my misery spoken out loud hammers the point home—that I’m giving up on them, that I will be living with another pack.
Fuck, I don’t want another pack. Just the thought makes me feel sick. I’m going to?—
“Excuse me,” I manage and all but run to the back of the café, to the bathroom, where I proceed to puke my guts out.
