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The League kick-off is a big deal, apparently. All week, the pack raced in and out of interviews, check-ups, fittings, and practices.
I tried insisting they didn’t need to have me over after the game, but they all nipped my uncertainty in the bud. In fact, they insisted I come over to watch the whole production on their enormous flat screen.
When my primping time expires, Remi waves me out the door, humming happily around a stolen donut. “Have fun!”
At midday, the drive from Remi’s place to the guys’ only takes about ten minutes. Ronan said they would all be gone by lunchtime, but promised Mrs. Fleming would welcome me and get me “set up.”
When I left on Wednesday, it was too dark to see the outside of their house in detail. Now, my jaw drops as I turn onto the wide gravel drive.
It’s a?—
I don’t even know what to call it.
The word “mansion” seems outdated, but I guess that’s what I’m looking at. “Architectural marvel” is more like it. Huge, black concrete rectangles stacked at artful angles, interspersed with walls of tempered glass and white stone accents. It all makes for a luxurious, masculine, absolutely enormous… well, mansion.
The dread of complete and total inadequacy rolls over me. My hands shake as I inch my tiny car up the driveway, suddenly wishing I had washed it or something. Parked in front of the gorgeous pack house, it looks every bit as pitiful as I feel standing there in my borrowed blue shirt and shorts.
I convinced myself the guys wouldn’t care or even notice, probably. But now that I see how stylish and luxurious their house is in broad daylight, it’s all I can do to keep myself from jumping back into my car and driving to the nearest mall.
Where I would have no money to spend.
But still.
The massive, beautifully-stained wooden slab at the front of the house falls open, revealing Mrs. Fleming in her canvas apron. She waves me up the slate steps to the front porch, a friendly smile on her plump face.
When I get close enough, she pumps my hand in a firm grip, her smile widening. “Miss Reed! So lovely to see you again. The boys can’t wait to come home to you tonight.”
Come home to me?
Home… here? This insanely gorgeous house? To me? The girl who wears other people’s panties?
Does not compute.
“They… are?”
She nods happily. “Come along, dear. I’ll show you what they left for you.”
She pulls me into the great room sprawling out from the base of the stairs. It’s all I can do to keep walking and not freeze up again.
The room features a huge slate fireplace that stretches up to the ceiling. Over the blue flames crackling in the glass grate, a wide-screen television occupies the mantle space. There’s one enormous U-shaped couch, all shiny brown leather.
I feel a pang at the emptiness of it all. My stupid omega brain tells me I need to fill the room with soft blankets and fluffy pillows and strong alphas.
Then I see it.
“Oh my God!” A startled laugh bursts out of me. “What did he do?”
By “he,” I mean Theo. It can only be Theo. Ronan and Archer would never leave me something so insane. And Declan would never leave me anything at all.
Mrs. Fleming chuckles again, watching me pick up the… pillow-man? An assortment of men’s clothing, all stuffed with pillows to make a full-sized man. One inhale tells me he’s wearing clothing from all three of them.
The extra-long, super thick joggers are Theo’s, of course. The crisp, black zip-up jacket smells of Archer’s bourbon and bitters. And under it all, there’s a well-worn Ospreys’ T-shirt steeped in sweet smoke.
Ronan.
I don’t notice Mrs. Fleming slip away until she bustles back in, carrying a big tray of snacks. Every single food I’ve mentioned liking, actually. Stacked slices of thin-crust cheese pizza, bowls of kettle corn, Oreos, and pretzel bites.
She sets them in front of me without so much as a flourish and switches the huge TV on. The screen flickers to life.
