Sugar Coated

59

Delaney Linwood

I'd thought it had been a relatively good discussion. A good chat all around really. There were barely any meltdowns during the whole debacle with Bea and her unknown alpha entering the space. Who would have thought the fact that someone had been too late to ask me to coordinate a Halloween costume with them would be the final straw?

I pocketed the fact that I'd let Rosie guess which one of them it was...not that it was a hard guess seeing as I was simultaneously being smothered on the couch while Andres had taken up a gentle cooing, while still trying to be the reasonable one when it came to my right to do whatever I pleased for the holiday.

Em hiccupped, "...but you're ours!"

I was.

"And we should have planned ahead better, but we didn't so she's allowed to go with her friends."

"She's not allowed to have friends!"

I most definitely was.

Andres cut off the snarky remark that was so close to falling off my tongue.

"Doll is most definitely allowed to have friends. That's the heat talking and you know it."

Em huffed, but he didn't fight it so I'd let that selfish red flag pass. Really it was the little toxic side of me that preened at the fact that he was devastated that I wasn't going to be an obvious addition to their pack that was preening.

That side of me was growing faster and faster it would seem. Greedy was what mom would have called me, but with this pack, the word didn't feel dirty. It felt decadent and sweet.

Jax ran a hand down Em's spine which caused him to purr and growl in equal measure. "Your heat is definitely coming fast. We'd be lucky if we even managed to make it to the Halloween celebration before it's upon us. He snuck a golden glance my way when he said it and I felt my neck tingle in awareness.

Not long before I'd be theirs.

The thought didn't startle me. I'd decided a long time ago I was theirs, but decisions that stayed in the grey matter of my mind were always easier than the ones that made it out of my mouth. So, I'd let Jax make it in the heat of the moment...pun only slightly intended.

"Means you're probably due for a checkup too," Andres murmured.

I expected Em to fuss even more given the foul mood, but instead, he stilled until I could barely see the steady rise and fall of his breathing. Faster than a snake he pushed up from the couch until he could look into my eyes, red-rimmed and tear stained but yet inexplicably brightened by a thought behind them, "Doctor Nolan!"

It was easy to assume that as his Doctor, it was harder to assess what Em was expecting me to glean from his excitedly shouting his name while gripping my shoulders as tightly as he was, "Doctor Nolan?"

"It's an OME clinic," Em glanced at me from top to bottom, assessing. "It didn't even occur to me."

"What?"

"That Doctor Nolan can probably help you find out why you haven't perfumed. He's a specialist...or handles special cases. Y'know, like mine. Guarantee you he can help." Em excitedly turned to the others who shared a glance. It wasn't a loaded glance, but they did turn their attention my way with similar assessing looks.

"Would you want to try it?" Andres asked at the same second that Jax tucked a lock of hair behind my ear.

Past the random half-hearted designation assessments at my early pediatricians, I'd never gone to a doctor who dealt with designations. We'd only ever gone to a small second-shift clinic and infrequently at best in my youth. Mom had always been of the mind that I'd faked a lot of illnesses in my childhood, but I'd only ever been a child subject to the whims of classroom germs.

It made me wonder what other aspects of my life I was woefully behind on like physicals...or a tetanus shot and other similar things.

"I'll do anything." It was simultaneously disgraceful and also so very comforting to have this pack care for those simple things in such a way that they would no longer plague my mind. Jax had his phone out even despite the late hour, calling the clinic's line to schedule an appointment.

Easy. Simple. Clean. Em –and by extension, I– didn't even have to think about setting it up.

"Appointment is set for Monday morning." Jax pocketed his phone before leaning his hip against the back of the couch. "Now, back to the topic of the Halloween Ball. What is the theme that the illustrious Rosie has decided upon?"

"The Three Blind Mice," I shrugged, "I'd thought it'd be reasonable but she's made it into something insane." It also explained why I hadn't gotten my usual steady stream of texts from her if she was in her crafting hole.

Jax barked a laugh and turned a smug smile Em's way, "If you'd have asked the theme earlier that dastardly mind of yours might have considered that we could simply be the cats that caught the mouse."

And with the silliest of comments, Em's foul mood bled away entirely.

And so somehow, some way, I found myself stuck in the middle of two packs and two themes. How far my life had tumbled from the comfort of being simple, boring, nothing special Delaney Linwood. 

*****

A/N

Wanted to give you a heads up, I'm going to take a short break through the month of July and do the same thing that I did back in February (and effectively November for NaNo) where I make a specific writing goal to plow through chapters and rebuild my backlog of writing for you. 

I want to have a strong stack of parts up since I know August and September are going to be bigger months for me with helping plan my friends trip this year in early September and the host of birthdays that start to come through this time of year as well as quite a few weddings, so I want to give myself ample time to devote to writing beforehand so we don't fall off the bandwagon! 

Sugar Coated will pick back up on August 4th! I am so sorry to give you a pause but I'm hoping when we get back we'll get to enjoy quite a few fun parts of this story and I hope you'll stick around!

Love
~Layla