Chapter 3

                                    

                                          
Leaving the others at Duke’s house to keep him company, Seokmin headed home. Before he left, he made sure all of them were coming over to his place for dinner that evening. Maybe more time spent in each other’s company would help settle things down.
Opening the front door, he called out a hello and heard a distracted response from Zane from within the house. Seokmin followed the sound of the beta’s voice to his father’s old office, spying Zane going through another box of old paperwork.
“Making progress?” he asked.
Zane made a face. “Every time I think I’m getting somewhere, I find another box. I hate to say it, but your dad was a bit of a hoarder.”
It was hard to argue with the truth, and Seokmin was too worn down to even try.
“He was never that good at throwing stuff away. Especially after Mom died.”
He paused in the doorway, not quite able to bring himself to step inside. There were too many memories through that door. He was supposed to be reopening his father’s medical practice, but with each day that passed, it looked less and less likely.
“Is Vernon okay?” Zane wanted to know.
“This time,” he said. “What happened last night?”
Zane shrugged. “Beats me. I got out of there with Duke by eleven. Vernon said he’d stay on. You know what he’s like. ‘Just one more drink.’ It’s never just one with him.”
“The guys are still at Duke’s place. They’ll be here tonight.”
“Are you sure that’s a good idea? Seungcheol and Vernon were at each other’s throats last week.”
Seokmin waved that away with a sweep of his hand. “And now they’re sitting side by side on Duke’s couch, playing Xbox. Whatever it was has blown over.”
“Until next time,” Zane said bitterly.
And there would be a next time. With no omega around to smooth their rough edges, sparks were going to fly, tempers were going to fray.
“You guys make any new friends last night?”
Zane snorted. “That town is not the place to pick up an omega, you know that better than I do. Besides, of all of us, shouldn’t you be the one making a match and not playing matchmaker?”
“I—” Seokmin didn’t have a good answer to that. He was never meant to be their leader, but when Suho died, he’d been the one to pull it together, to get them all out of there. Before he knew it, the job had been his.
No one envied him. He didn’t think he could be making a worse go of it if he tried. Though he was equally as sure none of the others would do any better in his place.
“We’re doomed,” he admitted with a groan.
“Hey, at least we’ll all go down with the ship,” Zane said lightly, turning his attention back to the paperwork to hide the worry in his eyes.
Seokmin just shook his head and walked away, escaping to the cool quiet of his father’s study. The others stayed out of there mostly, so it had gone from the room he couldn’t wait to escape in his youth to his adult refuge. It was funny how things changed like that. When he’d been a kid, the study had looked imposing. He’d spent hours sitting at the mahogany desk, under the watchful gaze of his father, wishing he was outside on an adventure in the woods and not stuck there studying. But his dad had always had ambitions for him.