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Dropping the rag in the sink, I walk out from behind the bar, stuffing my hands into my pockets. “Keep an eye on things for me, will you?”
“Where are you going?”
“Up. I have to feed Potato.”
“Who is… your pet plant?”
“Cat.”
Now his brows arch. “Since when do you have a cat?”
“It’s a recent acquisition. I…” I hate how my voice shakes. I can feel the anxiety building like music, gripping me, rising toward a crescendo. “I took him in recently.”
“An emotional support animal?”
I flinch. Too close to the mark. “Something like that. I’ll be back in five.”
“And if someone wants coffee?”
“Tell them I’m on my way!”
He’s grumbling under his breath but I ignore him as I race out of the café and up the stairs to my apartment. My heart is thumping hard, my vision is blurring, and I manage drop my key in front of my door, and then hit my head on the door handle as I get back up.
Dammit.
Also, ow. That hurt. I hope my eye won’t turn black.
I unlock the door, my hands by now shaking so badly I can hardly insert the key.
But the moment the door opens, a meow greets me, followed by a small gray shape walking daintily toward me.
“Hi,” I whisper, dropping to my knees, reaching for him. “Come here.”
Yeah, Potato exists, I didn’t make him up just to escape.
And yeah, I found him in an alley nearby one day when it was raining, this tiny grey furball who marched right up to me and meowed pitifully until I took him in my arms.
The rest is history.
He purrs as he rubs himself against my jeans-clad legs, then climbs right into my lap and headbutts me until I give him some head rubs.
The anxiety starts to melt out of me, like some evil dark sap that solidified in my veins, now turning to liquid and seeping out of me.
Potato bats at my hand, then shoves his little head under it, rising on his hind paws to exact his dues. I scratch behind his ears and he purrs louder, like a small engine.
My own personal tiny stress-relief machine.
“Good boy,” I whisper as he finally relaxes and curls up on my thigh. I stroke his back with my finger as he goes to sleep right then and there. I wish I could drop off to sleep instantly, like him. “Good kitty.”
I stay like that for a while. I told Kaden five minutes, but I haven’t even glanced at my phone to see how much time has passed. I want… to stay here, hidden away. But it won’t help. My responsibilities can’t be taken over by anyone else. And the main reason I’m so stressed…
You know the main reason, Sawyer. You just don’t want to face it.
Yeah. Tomorrow I’m supposed to meet the pack my parents have chosen for me. They’ve been throwing me at various packs of their choosing ever since I awakened as an omega. Since I was a teenager. They thought, apparently, that meeting my pack early would be a good thing. I’d bond with them and become officially a pack the moment I became an adult.
But as time wore on and I refused every pack offer, they got mad at me. Cue the loan I asked from them, and the subsequent extra pressure, now laced with threats, and I’m so done.
What if I never find the perfect pack? The perfect scent-match, the perfect mates? What if my parents are right, and I just need to agree to a pack, letting my parents pick and choose? I’d only have to tie the knot—ha!—and maybe then…
