Chapter Thirteen

Having Kara gone put Damon on edge, which wasn’t a feeling he enjoyed. The conversation with Marshall weighed on him as he considered the discomfort she had to be in.

So far, neither Reese nor Cullen had mentioned that they smelled Damon on Kara. There was no way they’d missed it, which meant they either didn’t care or had purposely chosen to ignore it.

Which hadn’t sat with him any better than Kara being missing had. It felt like a weight on his shoulders he couldn’t quite ignore, like a crack in their bond he had to address.

“Are you mad?” Damon blurted out as Cullen lowered himself in a pushup, pausing at the bottom.

Cullen lifted his head to look at him before pushing up again, then moving to his knees. “What?”

Really smooth. Damon groaned, giving up on trying to make the conversation easy. He’d blown that, hadn’t he? “Kara,” he said.

Reese chuckled from his spot in the kitchen, seated on a bar stool, an open magazine in front of him. “I win.”

Cullen tossed him a glare. “No, you don’t.”

“I said he’d break before the end of the day.”

“You said he’d apologize. He hasn’t actually apologized, so you haven’t won.”

Reese huffed and looked at Damon. “He’s right. Say sorry so I win.”

“Win what?” Damon frowned as he tried to keep up.

“Cullen said you wouldn’t say shit today, that you’d hold out for at least a week. I said nope, you were going to crack today. If you go ahead and say sorry, I’ll take my fifty from Cullen.”

Damon’s mouth dropped open, no matter how stupid it made him look, at the alphas’ bickering.

Cullen laughed, a low, dark sound that he didn’t do as freely or often as Reese.

A moment later, Damon found his voice. “You bet on me? Why didn’t you just say something?”

“And not get to see the whole internal struggle you had going on?” Reese shook his head. “Nope, I wouldn’t miss that for anything.”

Damon narrowed his gaze, a soft growl rumbling from his chest.

Cullen got to his feet and shoved Reese. “Give the kid a break, huh? We were kidding, Damon.”

“He was kidding. I want my money.”

And that made it impossible to stay angry at either of the other men. It snapped the tension, made the conversation accessible. Damon let out the same small laugh the others had, and it stole away the rest of the uncertainty. “So, I guess you aren’t planning on firing me?”

That did kill the laughter, though. Reese and Cullen wore nearly identical expressions—surprise.

Reese straightened on his stool. “No, kid, we aren’t going to fire you.”

The words took a weight off Damon. He hadn’t even realized before how worried he’d been about it, how he’d dreaded the idea of losing the friends he’d found. He worked so hard to keep everyone happy, to meet expectations, yet he always felt he was failing. He was always waiting for someone to send him away.

“You really thought we’d toss you out?”

“Well, I slept with the omega you two have sort of claimed.” He shrugged. “We alphas tend to be possessive.”

Reese shook his head. “Doesn’t matter what happens with Kara—with any female—you’ve got a place here.”

The words took a weight from Damon, the first time he’d really felt part of the group, as if he’d made the pair into a trio.

Cullen took a seat on the chair in the living room, stretching his legs out and crossing them at the ankles. “Whatever this is with Kara, it isn’t long-term.”

The statement didn’t sound entirely true, and Cullen didn’t say it like a man sure of himself. Instead, he tripped over the declaration.

“Why can’t it be long-term?”

Cullen shook his head as if Damon were naïve. “You know our work is dangerous. Do you want the sort of people we deal with going after her? It isn’t like she’d ever let us keep her safe, like she’d sit back and stay out of trouble.”

Reese picked up the conversation. “Besides, even if something more real was possible, Kara isn’t the type.”

Damon’s hackles rose. “Because she can’t have kids?”

Reese flinched, then frowned. “Of course not. We could work around that if we had to. She’s a thief, Damon, and a liar. Could you ever really sleep well? Ever trust that she was where she said she was, doing what she said she was? Every single morning I woke up, I’d need to make sure she didn’t steal anything. That isn’t a recipe for happiness.”

While Reese said it like a bad thing, Damon couldn’t fight the smile at the truth of the statement. Maybe Kara wasn’t long-term, but she’d be fun for however long she stuck around, and fun was something he hadn’t had much of in his life.

Damon pushed his glasses back up his nose. “All right, so if she isn’t long-term, what is this? It isn’t a one-night stand, either.”

“I guess it’s something in the middle,” Cullen said. “This job is going to take a little time, and as long as we’re here, we might as well enjoy it.”

“How do I fit in?”

“Neither of us tried to tear your throat out for fucking her, so I guess that means we’re okay with it.” Reese paired the not-so-subtle threat with a grin that stole any sting. “You’re not stupid. You know how Cullen and I are.”

“You share?”

Reese shook his head. “No. I fuck women and Cullen just enjoys sloppy seconds.”

Something sailed past Damon. Cullen had thrown one of the décor wicker balls and nailed Reese in the shoulder with it. “You asshole,” Cullen tacked on.

“Call me sloppy seconds again and you’ll lose something you’re fond of,” came a voice that had all three of them sitting up taller, as though just a few words from Kara could call them to attention. Even with the threat, she didn’t look all that upset as she passed them. In fact, she only flipped them off as she emerged from the shower, her blue hair back in place, a smirk on her lips as though the comment had amused her.

As Damon watched her go, he wished there was a way to work past the issues, because he couldn’t stomach the idea of losing her.