Sugar Coated

11

Delaney Linwood

My phone vibrated halfway through the trip back to my apartment. I waited the standard 6 seconds to figure out if it were a text that could be ignored or an actual call.

When it vibrated again in quick succession I fished it out of my back pocket. Scam likely, or someone important? A rose emoji took up residence on my home screen.

Rosie's staccato laughter blasted my eardrum hard enough that I grappled the phone and the volume button at once, switching it to my other ear, "What's up?"

"Listen," she hushed down into a whisper that I would have appreciated much more 20 seconds earlier, "we didn't get to talk about tonight since Foster chased you out—"

"—Rightfully," I sniffed at my shirt, the muted edge of a storm still clung to me with the faint sweet smell of chamomile. A drugstore bag filled with de-scenter dug into the meat of my hand where it had been hanging for the last 4 city blocks.

"Yes, fine rightfully kicked you out. That is of course unless you wanted to tempt the chance of an omega dead set on scent marking you," the question hung in the air between us and I knew it for what it was. Rosie was gauging my interest in the pack I was pursuing.

"Or I could tempt getting kicked out and losing the most reliable source of income I have at the moment." Not entirely true. You've only been accepting the jukebox jobs, you've got a ton of requests for circuit board soldering that would pay so much more. Only those jobs just weren't as tantalizing.

"Look, all I'm saying is this: the pack wants you. In no uncertain terms, I'm telling you this right now. So that I can say 'I told you so' later once that alpha is knot deep in your—"

"—Rosie!" I scurried out of the elevator I'd climbed into with one of my older quiet neighbors, who I was sure could hear the phone conversation no matter how low I switched the volume.

"Listen! You aren't as familiar with pack courting as me or Foster," Rosie began again.

Though, if we were speaking frankly I wasn't familiar with it at all. Beta breakdowns were woefully under representative of pack life since packs put the most weight on alpha and omega members.

"The whole pack is going to try to gauge your reception of their advances. Maybe they'll do it slowly, but it's an ingrained thing for alphas and even omegas. Small touches or casual interest in the conversation and whether they're reciprocated. Foster and I have even done them with you, though I'd bet you hadn't noticed my sweet dense Delaney."

"You've what?" My voice was loud in my apartment, the silence —usually soothing— stressed me now craving something to fill up the space so it didn't sound so hollow. You could get another rug for the living room. It wouldn't echo as much and the floor would be warmer under your feet in the winter.

"Honestly, I'll never understand how you've not taken my invites to the pack seriously, Delaney." 'Long-suffering exasperation' is what she called that tone.

She was right though, maybe it was because we weren't a scent match or maybe it was something else dysfunctional with me, but I'd never taken hers or her omega's interest seriously.

"But yes, small touches when we brush by you in close quarters or interest in your spaces you call your own. You've never returned them," when I started to apologize she cut me off, "don't apologize, babes, it's completely natural and instinctual. If we're not it for you, we're not it. Can't fault a pack for dreaming, though. You're my best friend and I'd be a fool not to want to snatch you up forever. But, I want you to go into this with all the cards on the table. If they touch you, Delaney...touch them back," she was quiet on the line for a minute before she began again, "only if you want it, though. If they touch you and you don't want it, break their fucking wrists."

"Anything else I should know?" I dropped the plastic bag into the sink and toed my shoes off, resigning myself to the tingling burn of the de-scenter.

"Rub up on everything you can. Even though betas don't have as strong of a scent, that alpha will be hard as a rock seeing you in his space if he's interested in you. It's hardwired in us to want your pack to like your territory."

"I'm not pack."

"You will be," she snickered.

"Not getting our hopes up remember?" Because I'd be crushed. That was always the problem with packs and getting hopeful.

Hope didn't ever work out so well for betas.

"If I think of anything else I'll text you, sweets. I'd ask Foster for tips, but he's in a mood. We'll just have to ride it out I think."

"You'll ride something out I'm sure," I drawled and she tittered out a laugh that was just a tad too breathy, "I've got to scrub myself raw because of you. I'll let you go, Rosie. Go take care of your mate."

"Go take care of yours," if there were a way to convey the winking emoji over a voice message, she would have done it I'm sure. But, in the end, I dropped my phone into the sink with the shopping bag and stripped off my clothes before hopping into a shower set to 'boil a lobster' hot because it opened up your pores for the de-scenter to work long term.

Once I was sufficiently steamed and cleaned I stepped over my clothes, wrapped in a towel burrito with only the minimal amount of dripping I found myself in my bedroom. The blue-ombré tone of it always calmed me. I'd chosen the color exactly for that reason. Yellow kept you awake. Red was too aggressive. And green, though good for prosperity, didn't darken the room enough for me to sleep well at all.

Besides, I liked the underwater theme I'd come up with, so the color worked well.

The jellyfish wind chime that hung in the corner of the room tinkled like little bells in the breeze from the ceiling fan I'd left on all day.

You're going to wear one of those oversized sweaters to your first date, aren't you? Rosie's sentiments from earlier returned to me as I stared at the line of sweaters I refused to get rid of despite the ever-present Florida heat. They make me feel comfortable and safe, Rosie. I returned to her phantom words as if we were having the conversation right then as if from halfway across the city we were talking telepathically. And if they don't like me for who I am then what's the point of even going tonight?

I settled for a nicer sweater. One with designs in the knitting that required me to wear something underneath anyways. I considered it a compromise since —if I needed to— I could pull off the sweater and survive in the cami I was wearing underneath.

I glanced to my unmade bed, swimming with sheets and blankets that smelled like me —like nothing special beta Delaney— and just so faintly underneath all of that, it smelled like them as well. For good measure I rolled around in it, hoping for the best.