Kelsey grabs the kit and her purse as we head out to my car.
“How many cars do you have?” she asks as I round the Tesla and open the door for her.
“A few, but I use this one the most. Sometimes I forget to charge it though.”
She gives me a smile and nods her head as she buckles her seat belt. UPS isn’t far away, and it doesn’t take long for us to get there. Just as we’re both about to open our doors, Kelsey grabs my arm and pulls me back in the car.
“Can we just wait a second?” she asks.
“Of course. Is something wrong?”
She bangs her head to the headrest of the car and breathes out a huge gust of air. “That’s my ex’s girlfriend. I just ran into her yesterday. What the fuck?”
“That does seem a little suspect,” I reply. “Do you want me to run into the store real quick?” I ask, and her eyes widen, like she’s afraid. Definitely not leaving her in the car. “Never mind.”
She relaxes. “Thanks.”
“Do you want to talk about it?”
She licks her lips and watches as the woman sits at the table with her coffee, just looking at her phone. “She’s a fucking bitch, but not as bad as my ex. She’s part of the reason we broke up, and I know she isn’t the person to blame for what happened, but it’s hard to separate the two of them.”
“How bad was the breakup?”
“Really bad. She invited Vernice to go camping with us. We all had a bit of wine to drink, which was a mistake.” She inhales and looks at the woman again. “My ex kissed Vernice, and I lost it. She was so adamant about me not adding to the pack, that we were fine as we were. I told her I didn’t want Vernice in the pack. She has such pick me energy, you know?” I don’t know, but I nod my head in agreement. “I told her I wanted a male Alpha, specifically Dom.” She gives me a cautious glance before continuing. “and I’d be open to looking into other Beta partners, but not Vernice. She got in my face and told me how ungrateful I was and that a good Omega would listen to her Alpha. I told her she was being a selfish bitch, and she slapped me across the face.”
I wince when she mentions being hit. I want to comfort her but something is nagging me. I look out the window and see the Beta she’s talking about. I really look at her and then look at Kelsey. She looks so familiar, but I look back at Kelsey as she tells me about her breakup.
I grab her thigh across the dash and give it a squeeze, not knowing what to say.
“It’s stupid, it was just one slap. It wasn’t like she hit me all the time. So I ignored it. I figured maybe it would blow over, we could work past it. But it was clear she wanted Vernice more than me. That’s why seeing Vernice is just as hard as seeing my ex. If it wasn’t bad enough she put her hands on me, she broke up with me. I wasn’t even the one to end it. I was going to stay with someone who hit me and belittled me. I know there are Omegas and women out there who have it worse. But I just haven’t been able to recover from it, and seeing them both yesterday really set me back. There’s more to get into with the aftermath, it’s not pretty, but I reacted poorly.”
Tears well up in her eyes, but she holds steady and doesn’t cry. “I’m so sorry that happened to you, sugar. I’m here for whatever you need.”
“Can we just come back and do this later?”
I look back at the woman named Vernice, and I can’t stop myself from asking.
“Kelsey, what’s your ex’s name?”
She swallows. “Meera.”
My hand retreats off of her thigh and my head hits the back of the headrest. No fucking way. I only know one Meera. This can’t be happening. I have to double check. I pull out my phone. I’m not friends with her on any platforms but knowing her full name, I pull her up.
I hold out the phone to Kelsey. “This her?”
She nods, I can tell she’s close to crying. I’m almost about to keep this information to myself. It could hurt so many people. It could ruin everything.
“Emmett, what aren’t you telling me?”
I swallow, my eyes plead with hers before it spills out of my mouth. “Meera is Shyla’s sister.”
Kelsey blinks at me multiple times. “What?”
I nod my head. “They aren’t close. I only met her one time, at their aunt’s funeral a few months ago.”
Kelsey bites her nails. “This… this isn’t good.”
She shakes her head like she’s trying to make a bad memory leave her mind. “Kelsey.” I touch her thigh and she doesn’t retreat from my touch.