Puck my life, p.24
Puck My Life, page 24
part #1 of Knotty Puckers Series
“I said I would date you and Deacon. I never said I would date Raynor.”
“But, baby, we’re a packaged deal. We come together.”
She growls and stomps out of the room. “Be ready in five minutes.”
I lean into my phone camera, smile, and whisper, “Who wants to go to the shops?”
I get into a massive fight with Malcolm in the shops. We knock over a giant stack of cans. Indy shouts at us, but we ignore her and keep wrestling.
“Indy, pick them up for us,” I hiss when I have Mal in a headlock.
“What?”
“Well, you’re our girlfriend, we’re famous, we can’t be seen to do it.” I whisper it to her and then walk away.
People watch her until she bends in her teeny-tiny skirt and starts re-stacking the cans.
Raynor, meanwhile, has filled three trolleys full of groceries and is currently standing by the checkout on his phone.
“What are you doing?”
“Signing Indie up for Hot Daddies Looking For A Creamin’ Good Time. Car insurance quotes. Omega Match Prisoner Pen Pals. Beta Baddies and Alpha Age Gaps. All those creepy ads where they call your number day and night.”
“What?” I ask, choking on a laugh.
“Indy! I want to get some meat. Let’s go look at the meat,” Malcolm whines.
Indy’s face is bright red. “No, let’s go-”
“How can I cook you a romantic meal if you won’t even communicate with me? I try so hard, but you won’t meet me halfway,” Mal says loudly.
Indy looks around at all the people watching and mutters but walks off with him.
“Oh, here’s a good match for her. He likes long walks, drinking tea, and golden showers. Perfect, just messaged him her number.”
I laugh silently and lean on the trolley.
“I couldn’t sleep last night, so I put all those fish things she had in little jars in her curtain rods and the ugliest pair of sneakers in her wardrobe.”
“You evil genius.”
“What about you?”
“I had a gift delivered while we were out.”
“What kind of gift?”
“You’ll see.”
Indy pays for all our shop and loads up the car with difficulty. I make her sit in the back with the groceries, saying she’s so small that it’s a perfect size for her.
We get home, and after bringing all the groceries in and putting them away, I hand her the present. It’s a large silver box. She smiles warily and opens it.
BOOM
“Happy two-week anniversary!” I cry out.
She blinks and blinks and blinks. I think the veins in her forehead might burst. I’ve never seen anyone as angry as she is right now.
And I feel no regrets.
The glitter continues to rain down in blues and pinks, so fine that it’s almost a mist. I might never ever get it off me, but it will be worth it. A story I can laugh about with the pack once we’ve taken care of this.
Indy tilts her head back and screams. She stamps her feet, throws her arms around, and screams. The glitter spreads farther and farther, coating everything in the vicinity.
“But, babe, don’t you like the present?”
She picks up the rainbow horse dildo and throws it at my head. “You disgust me! I hate you.”
I stare at her in shock. “Babe, you don’t mean that.”
She opens her mouth, closes it, and turns and stalks off.
I lean into the camera. “Phase three: begins.”
In the middle of the night, Indy wakes us all up screaming.
I mean, I would, too, if I woke up to a bed full of crabs. It cost a small fortune, but there are about thirty crabs crawling across her bed as I lay here safe in the spare bed, nary a crustacean in sight.
I lay back and smile up at the roof.
She continues to scream.
It’s music to my ears.
I feel no regrets. Zero regrets, uploading the before and after video onto her social media accounts when Malcolm managed to get her password.
“What did you caption?”
“Rah! Scared you, didn’t I? Sometimes I scare myself.”
Malcolm laughs.
I send Where’s My Phone to our phones and change the ringtone to me singing ‘Baby, Come Back’.
It sounds terrible.
I go through her photos and find a video she’d taken three weeks ago of a guy she was fucking.
“Should I?”
“Yes!” Raynor says.
I don’t just upload it; I just send it to all her family and friends. Then we all rush out of the house and go down to the street. We come up, arguing, but Indy’s eyes are wide and full of tears.
“How did you do it?” She roars.
“Do what?”
“How did you send that video-” She cuts herself off short.
“What video?”
I pass her the wrap.
She takes it, opens it, and bites in. Her eyes widen and water. She rushes to the sink and spits it out.
“What is that?”
“Wasabi, it's really good for you.”
She sticks her head under the tap and tries to rinse it off.
“FUCK!”
She snaps her head towards the hallway where Mal yelled.
“I’m really sorry, Indy.”
“You’re sorry? For what?”
“I accidentally knocked your foundation into the toilet.”
“WHAT?” Her screech is terrifying. And hilarious. No more masks for the princess.
“I wanted to see if the colour matched my balls and if they’d look better with some make up on.”
“WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU?” Indy howls.
“Seriously, Indy, calm down.”
“What were you doing in my toilet?” She howls and grips her hair.
But my eyes widen as the hair lifts a bit.
“Oh, God, is that a wig? Are you wearing a wig? Your scalp just parted.” I flick a finger up at her head.
Indy clamps her hands down on her head and hisses at me. “Get back.”
She rushes to the mirror down the hallway.
“You know, I’m starting to think she’s like some possessed golem or something. Is anything real?” Raynor murmurs.
I continue eating my food. Her phone is ringing, pinging, the sound of my crying out ‘Baby, Come Back’ at the top of my lungs is so loud and distracting and satisfying.
She looks at all of us and shrieks when Raynor flies his remote control plane at her head.
Indy explodes, she chases after it with her teeth bared. I casually pick up her phone and answer it.
“Hello, Deacon Katz speaking. Oh, hi, Mum, I can call you Mum, right?”
Indy stops, her face going white.
“Yeah, Indy’s here. No, I’m not in any video; what are you talking about?”
Indy snatches the phone and disappears.
I wait, glancing at Raynor and Malcolm with a satisfied smirk.
Raynor goes and sits on Malcolm’s lap and starts making out with him because Indy hates seeing us together. It is apparently disgusting.
Why did we ever date her?
She comes storming out, furious. “How dare you! I’m going to release all those photos. I’m going to ruin you and that omega you love so much. Vae won’t be able to walk down the street without the fans attacking her.”
“We were never anything with Vae. All those photos are innocent.”
“I don’t even care. Your fans are so dumb they will believe anything they see.”
“I’m not sure what you thought you’d get from blackmailing us into dating you.”
“I didn’t realise you were such pigs! You’re monsters. No one’s going to want you. Besides, you aren’t even that good hockey players, and WILL YOU STOP KISSING HIM IN MY LOUNGEROOM, IT’S FUCKING FOUL.”
I couldn’t have written the script for this more perfectly.
Malcolm pulls away from Raynor. “But I love him.”
“I don’t care. You belong to me; you are my possessions. Raynor shouldn’t even be here; he’s useless.”
Raynor pretends to gasp.
“I am not your possession, Indy, and the only reason we agreed to do this was to protect Vae. I don’t give a shit about you. Vae is everything that is good in this world.”
“Oh, the saintly Vae.”
“She is our scent match, Indy.”
“I don’t care, if you go to her, I’ll send those photos out.”
I wait, staring at the phone, waiting for a sign.
“Do it,” Raynor says, calling it before I can.
I close my eyes in relief.
“Time to go home,” Mal says maliciously and lifts Raynor’s hand to his lips. “Right, babe?”
“I’ll send them, I really will,” Indy screams.
The doorbell rings, and I cross over and open it, revealing Jansen with two police officers.
“Indy Danvers, you’re under arrest.”
She screams and protests, but, in the end, nothing matters but that we are free. I end the live stream and share the link to her social media profiles.
I almost want to run over and find Vae, but I need to give her time. We’ve taken out the trash, now we need to prove we’ve changed.
Vae
PAST
“It’s been six months since we met. I want to be your girlfriend.”
Deacon lifts his eyes to study Indy.
My heart thumps hard. They haven’t had a girlfriend since the pregnancy scare.
Say no, Deacon. Say no.
“Why not?”
He turns back to watching the game, putting his shoes on the coffee table I just cleaned.
I wonder if he realises that he stomps as easily on our furniture as he does my heart.
PRESENT
I watch the live over and over. My heart, which was crushed and broken, is fluttering back into a heart-shaped piece with what they are doing and saying.
Indy blackmailed them; I should have known.
The live ends, and I sit back with a cup of coffee and an uneaten piece of cake. I hear the front door and look up to find Jansen huffing his way inside. He blows on his fingers and whines.
“I’m not built for this cold.”
I get up and make him a hot chocolate and grab him a piece of his favourite carrot cake.
We sit down at one of the cute little tables he helped me shop for. There are armchairs and tables, comfortable places to sit, encouraging people to linger here. To savour the taste.
The tables are square, and there is artwork of cakes on the walls, with their ingredients and recipes on the wallpaper behind them.
It’s a beautiful shop, and we’re slowly making a really good name for ourselves.
“It’s been a month,” Jansen says easily. He snatches the cake and picks it up, biting into it with a groan. “So good.”
“Yes, I’m aware.”
A month since I’ve seen them, since I’ve talked to them, since I’ve–stop, Vae. I miss them more than I did, and each day gets harder, but seeing that live has made it worse.
Everything in me wants to bounce up and run to them. To hold them close and tell them I forgive them.
Except…I don’t trust them.
“You know, I thought you would have gotten better, improved, but I got to say, Vae, finding out they were your scent matches changes things.”
“It changes nothing,” I grumble.
“It changes everything; you’re never going to be happy with anyone else. Now I watched those lives, and I can tell you that those alphas hated that omega with a passion. I did not want to be her.”
I make a sound of agreement.
“Your boys are savage.”
“They aren’t mine,” I protest.
“They are clearly yours, Vae. She blackmailed them; are you going to hold it against them? They were protecting you.”
I stand up, shoving away from the table. “Now they were, what about all the other times?”
Jansen stares at me. “I can’t bear to see you so sad.”
“I’m not sad.”
“Vae, if you were any sadder, people would look at you and burst into tears. You are a cloud of misery.”
His words sting. “I don’t mean to be.”
“Oh, I know that, Vae. If you were walking around rubbing it in, I would go off and not come back. But this is heartbreak, soul scarred, trying to put on a good face and move on, but you can’t because they are your everything. So go and get them.”
I shake my head. “I tried. I lost them. I can’t go through it again.”
Jansen puts his mug down with a thud. “I didn’t peg you as a coward.”
“They don’t love me.”
“Millions of people just watched their absolute annihilation of the person trying to hurt you and would say otherwise.”
I shake my head again and go behind the counter, tidying up.
“You can’t ignore this. Everyone is talking about it.”
“Everyone can keep talking about it.”
Jansen leans back in his chair and rolls his eyes. “You are stubborn; I will give you that. All right, my ridiculous friend. I’m heading home, I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“What’s tomorrow?”
“Uh, home and our weekly brunch appointment? I’ll be here at nine am.”
I watch him go and putter around trying really hard not to think about them.
I get an idea for a cake and start baking. I won’t sleep, so there’s no point in going up and even trying.
The door opens. “What did you forget?” I ask without turning around.
“I didn’t tell you how I really felt.”
The spoon drops into the mixture, and I turn, forgetting all about the cake.
“Malcolm.”
He steps further into the store, looking around and taking in everything before he returns a heated gaze to me.
“Vae. My Vae.”
For a long minute, all I can do is stare at him, drinking him in. He looks like he’s lost weight. I tear my eyes away and robotically continue pouring the cake into the tins.
The whole time, I’m aware of him moving towards me. I put the tins in the oven and stand there with my shoulders stiff and curled.
“Vae, you haven’t been taking care of yourself.”
I suck in air, almost ready to scream. He wraps his arms around me but gently, as if he’s afraid I will run.
I stay still as he tightens his hold, wrapping himself around me.
“Vae, come home.”
I shake my head. “I knew you’d find me.”
“We will always find you.”
“But I’ve prepared myself for this moment. I can’t be with you. You’ve broken the trust.”
“Vae-”
“I destroyed my nest. I shattered something inside me. Mal, I tried so hard for so long to be the person you needed, and I needed you. I was vulnerable. You were my alphas; you were supposed to be mine.”
His arms tighten around me. “Vae, we were always yours. She had photos.”
“You should have released the photos and stayed with me. We would have weathered the storm together, like we always do. I could have handled it. I handled everything else.”
Malcolm’s arms loosen and fall away from me.
“You would have wanted us to see our fans rip you apart?”
“I would have wanted you to give me a choice. You have no idea how awful, how completely shattering it was to come home and see my alphas, the guys I loved more than anyone else, my best friends, my lovers, the only people I call family, kissing the omega who made my life hell, just after we went through a heat.”
I turn to face him. He’s pale, and he’s retreated three steps. As I advance, he retreats again.
“You should have asked me what to do. You should have told me what was happening. Instead, you let me come home to see her all over you, in my house, with my nest.”
“Vae, please. We thought we could protect you.”
I bark a laugh. “I don’t need protecting. I’ve been taking care of you three all my life. I’ve never needed protecting.”
“Vae,” he whispers my name.
“You ruined her. She’s no longer a threat. That’s great. I’m really happy for you, but I’m broken in a way I have never been and,” I pause, my eyes filling with tears, “I just don’t trust you with me anymore.” I take a breath and hold it before I let it out slowly. “I need you to leave.”
He opens his mouth and closes it before his jaw flexes, and he gives a tight nod. I don’t know what he’s thinking, but he’s giving in and listening to me.
“I’m so sorry, Vae.”
I don’t say anything as he walks out and disappears. As soon as he’s gone, I rush to the door and lock it before going in the back and leaning over a sink being quietly but thoroughly sick.
The shakes return, and I end up sitting on a stool in the back, staring at the floor with my arms wrapped tight around me.
Did I make the right decision?
I let out a sob and then press a fist to my mouth. No more tears, not over them. I throw myself into cleaning, ignoring everything. When the cake is done, I pull it out of the trays and wait while they cool down.
It’s close to dawn when I finish decorating it and put it in the display counter. It’s a chocolate and pear cake that I don’t have an exact recipe for but is a cross between a sponge and a mud cake.
I fall asleep until my alarm goes off and jump in the shower. Jansen is waiting for me when I walk outside.
“Morning, my lovely.”
“Hi,” I grunt.
“Oh, we are in fine spirits today.”
I growl at him, but he just laughs and helps me into his car.
“What happened?”
“Mal came after you left.”
“Oh, you made up…” he stills, reading my face. “You didn’t make up?”
I shake my head. “Nope, I said what I said, and he left.”
“He just left?”
“Yep.”
I swipe at the annoying tears that keep escaping.
“Oh, honey, I am sorry.”
“I’m not. It was good. To have closure. To say it all properly and to get the anger out.”
“Yes. To all that, but also that he didn’t fight harder.”
