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I scratch the back of my neck. “Yeah, not exactly.”
Archer would describe me as a nightmare employee on every level. He constantly covered for me because he actually needed that job.
I do still feel bad about that, actually. Now that I’m an adult in the real world, I hate the way I dismissed Archer’s repeated reminders that he needed to work in order to, you know, eat.
Meg practically bounces beside me. “So…what happened?!”
Her enthusiasm is irresistibly adorable. I heave out a breath and blurt, “I was a dickhead, okay? I obviously know that now. But, at the time, I showed up way late for one of my shifts and made him miss an exam. Put his scholarship in jeopardy. Later that afternoon, he walked back into work and punched me in the face.”
Meg snorts, nearly tripping over her feet. “He did what?”
I wince, realizing that I sound more and more like a joke with every answered question. “He broke my nose.”
Meg’s laughter makes up for all of my regret. The sound is high and melodic, like wind chimes. She shifts her sparkling eyes over me again. “How did you guys ever become friends after that?”
I find myself almost-smiling. “Well, after we both got fired for having a fist fight, I went to the bathroom to clean all the blood off my face. My nose hurt like a bitch, and I was impressed that another alpha even had the balls to step up to me.”
A rarity, even back then. My innate dominance bowls over even the cockiest alpha-holes. I would probably enjoy that power more if I didn’t know exactly where I inherited it from.
“So I walked out of the gym, and Archer was standing around the corner, on the phone. I heard him telling his father what happened and asking his dad to send him some money to get by.”
Fuck, I still remember that moment so clearly. How devastated Arch was to let his old man down and ask him for money that he knew his family didn’t have. It was like a kick to the gut, the realization that another person might not have a place to live or food to eat because of me.
I was such an arrogant little prick. Obsessed with pissing off my father and ruining our family’s reputation. It never occurred to me that I could hurt innocent people in the process.
Meg looks stricken. “You must have felt so bad.”
I nod. “Rightfully so. I had to try to make it right, so I hounded him every time I saw him around campus. Insisted I needed help with my courses and told him I’d pay if he would tutor me. I didn’t really need help, but it got the cash I owed him into his pocket, so I didn’t give a fuck. That’s how we eventually stopped hating each other.”
When I told him about my inheritance and what I originally wanted to do—piss it all away in the most egregious fashion—he told me I was an idiot. He said, if he had the money I did, he would do so much more. When I asked him what he meant, he laid it all out on paper. Quite convincingly.
“And then you decided to start the pack?” Meg guesses.
I nod. “We thought we would keep things simple. It was just us, and we weren’t ever romantically interested in each other, so we figured we’d try to find the right omega and that would be that, but…”
Humor flashes over Meg’s face. “Did Theo and Declan sneak in or something?”
“As if Theo could sneak anywhere,” I mutter. “He got wheeled in. On a gurney.”
Meg’s mouth drops open while I go on. “Archer was doing his sports medicine residency at the hospital attached to the university where he went to medical school. The university’s football team was having a great season, mostly because of this quarterback/tight end duo everyone kept hearing about.”
They were really good. Still are.
“It was the last home game of the season, and Theo was injured taking a hit for Declan. Luckily, Arch was there to piece him back to together. He told me that Declan and Theo reminded him of us. Dec was all ornery and spoiled. Theo was easy-going and chill. They’d been friends all their lives. When Archer asked them what their plans were for playing after college, they told him they didn’t know. But they both dreaded learning to play without the dynamic they’d developed on the field. It gave Arch an idea.”
A brilliant idea.
He called me up that very day and told me he knew what we should invest in. Something we could both work on—him with his sports medicine degree and me on the business side. Something that would horrify my hoity-toity father. Something just pedestrian enough to bring the Ash name down from the lofty heights of high society.
A fucking football team.
It was perfect. While Archer finished his residency, I worked on finding the right team and the right location. We took Declan and Theo under our wing and formed a larger pack, providing a home base of sorts while they went through the draft process and got signed to different teams. It was important for them to cultivate their own reputations for a couple years to legitimize their talent.
By the time we announced that our pack would take over the Ospreys, with the best quarterback and tight end in the League reuniting to captain our ranks, it was the biggest coup in Major League sports.
For one season, everything fell into place. Turned out, all of my years in business school and taking over my father’s shit actually accomplished something: the team ran perfectly. Our facilities were unmatched, our staff superb.
And we won.
