Free Loving the Omega by Carrie Ann Ryan

just hurt to hear it in the first place.
    She’d rather have buried it forever and not looked back, but she knew that would have been weak.
    Weaker than she’d been acting already.
    “Oh crap, I’m so sorry, honey.” Tears filled the normally strong-willed woman’s eyes, and Nadie immediately forgave her. There hadn’t been any true damage, and all Faith had done was tell the truth.
    “It’s okay.” She raised her hands at her friends, and they quieted whatever words they were about to say. “No, really. You just got dumped. It sucks, so you lashed out, and I’m a pretty good target at the moment.”
    Faith shook her head then got up and walked around the circular table where they always sat when they came to Dante’s Circle. Normally, it was a place that had become a sort of home to them, and right then, it was nice to have that familiarity. Faith wrapped her arms around Nadie and Nadie hugged her back. Hard. “No, it’s not freaking okay. I’m hurt and in a pissy mood, but that doesn’t give me the right to act like a cruel bitch.”
    “Just a normal bitch then,” Becca, deadpanned, then flipped her fiery red curls over her shoulders.
    “Hey, don’t call Faith a bitch,” Lily added in then came up to wrap her arms around Nadie’s other side. “Well, she might be one, but we’re trying to change that. And Nadie honey, I love you. Don’t listen to what Faith said.”
    Soon, Amara, Eliana, Jamie, and eventually, Becca moved to join the group hug. Nadie could feel Faith’s tears seep into her shirt and knew that her friends weren’t there to comfort Nadie, but Faith. The woman wouldn’t accept the comfort otherwise, and everyone knew it.
    Sometimes she and her friends just had to be sneaky about things like hugs and showing Faith they loved her just as much as they loved the rest of the girls.
    “Okay, break it up. I can’t breathe under all of you,” Faith snapped.
    Nadie just shook her head as Faith wiped her tears, straightened her shoulders, and then sat back in her seat on the other side of the circle.
    “So, we hate Chadwick,” Amara said as she pulled her auburn hair into a ponytail. She smiled prettily at Faith who rolled her eyes.
    “His name was Chad, not Chadwick,” Faith answered. “Stop making him sound like some dweeb who loves his mom and the country club.”
    Nadie tilted her head then took a sip of her lemon drop. “Um, but he did love his mom and his country club. Wasn’t that the whole point? That he wanted to be with mommy and her money rather than stand up for something more? I thought you said something about the snooty mommy and her leech of a son.”
    Faith narrowed her eyes. “You’re not supposed to throw my words back in my face.”
    “On the contrary,” Amara put in. “We’re you’re friends. If he’s a right bastard with mommy issues, that’s our job. You’re the one who told us that dear Chadwick was a limp neck—and probably had limp other things too—mommy’s boy. Or should we call him mother’s boy. He seemed like the guy who would raise his eyebrows all haughtily and call for his mother .” Amara tried and failed to use a British accent—which Chad, not Chadwick, did not possess, and the girls fell over in giggles.
    “Oh sweet baby Jesus, stop making me laugh like that. I think I’ll start leaking,” Lily said as she pressed her hands to her breasts. The new mom had control issues sometimes. Lily. A mom. So weird yet perfect at the same time.
    “Oh God, you leak when you laugh?” Becca asked, her eyes wide before she turned to Jamie. “That’ll be us in a few months.”
    Nadie just smiled and took another drink of her lemon drop as her now-mated friends talked about babies, leaking, and growly mates. She didn’t want to feel jealous, but the little green monster wrapped its spindly arms around her, and she winced. It wasn’t Becca’s, Jamie’s, or Lily’s fault that they had met their true halves and something like a perfect life