To me, the week after Thanksgiving flew by in a blur. Zander and I got together only once to discuss our plans for the upcoming trip to Connecticut. We discussed what roads we'd be taking, when we'd head off, when we expected to be back. It was all very... matter of fact.

Zander seemed nervous about something. I couldn't pinpoint why, but my presence clearly unnerved him in some way. It was too bad, because I wouldn't have minded spending more time with him.

As it was, I filled my days chatting with Kade and Shane and visiting my brother, his mate, and my nephew. And then in the evenings, I read. I wasn't a fast reader by any means, so I only managed a few pages each night, but I still made some progress on that book Zander had given me. It wasn't bad.

A little bit troubling, though.

A little too relatable.

Maybe I should have read the whole thing before suggesting to Zander that we copy the characters in it. Too late now, though.

Truth was, I couldn't stop thinking about Zander. Not while I was chatting with my family and friends, not while I helped Conner walk the dog, and certainly not while I was reading. I used to mock other omegas for feeling like this, but now it turned out I wasn't so different from them after all.

Served me right.

The day before the trip, I asked Kade to help me pick out some new clothes. I got a haircut too while I was at it. I kept thinking about that picture Zander had kept of me, from my modeling days. I had them cut my hair a bit shorter and spike it up, the way I had in those days.

If he kept the picture, he must have liked that.

To be honest, I'd only grown my hair out a bit because it required more styling to look good when shorter, but now I figured it might be worth the trouble.

I hoped it was, anyway.

For all I knew, Zander was long since over me and I was getting my hopes up for nothing. I only hoped that by the end of this weekend, I'd be able to tell.

Early Saturday morning, Zander drove up to Kade's house in his Jag, which still looked every bit as shiny as it had for Thanksgiving. I gave Kade a hug, he told me good luck, and then I went outside to get this road trip started, my heart beating way faster than it should.

“Good morning!” I said, getting into the car, trying to be my most cheerful. I wanted my friend to relax around me and not be as nervous as he was the last time we'd met.

“Morning,” Zander said, glancing over at me. Then he stopped. “Did you get your hair cut?”

I shrugged, aiming to appear nonchalant. “I haven't seen my brother in a long time. I figure it's a special occasion.” I touched one of my spikes between my fingers. Zander didn't have to know that I did this for him.

“It looks good on you,” Zander said.

A natural smile found its way on my face. I didn't have to work on being cheerful anymore. Zander liked my haircut!

Yes, maybe it was a little silly to be so happy about that, but whatever.

“I'm glad you like it,” I said while fastening my seatbelt.

Zander returned my smile, but on his face, the expression looked almost a little shy. When he started the engine again, music came on. I recognized the song almost instantly. Matching Mates. I hadn't thought of it in years now, but I'd loved that song when it was new. It couldn't be a coincidence that it was playing in Zander's car now as we rolled down the road out of town.

He remembered.

I leaned back in my seat, gray light from the winter sunrise shining on my face through the window. Without conscious thought, I found myself singing along to the lyrics.

“You're in a good mood,” Zander noted.

“I love this song. Do you have more like that? Old songs, I mean.”

“A whole bunch of them. You might say I made a mix tape for this trip.”

A mix tape! I laughed. In this car, I truly felt transported back in time. “Who listens to mix tapes anymore?”

“You and I in this car, I guess.”

“Okay then, turn it up.”

With a smile, Zander reached for the dash and turned the volume up.

I let myself relax. In six hours or so, we would reach my brother’s town, but until then, I had nothing to be nervous about. No matter what confusing feelings I had for Zander, he was still my friend. It was comforting to know that some things never changed.

Although, something about this felt entirely too familiar. It was as if I’d listened to this exact mix tape before. Then it dawned on me. “I used to have this tape!” I exclaimed. “You destroyed it, didn’t you?”

Zander laughed. “I wondered when you’d figure that out. It’s not an exact replica, I’m afraid. I couldn’t remember every song that was on that tape, but I gave it my best effort. I don’t think I ever properly apologized.”

“Nah.” I waved him off. “We’re even.” Smiling to myself, I nudged his elbow. “If we had a fake wedding, these songs would be playing at our reception.”

Zander coughed so hard I kind of feared he’d drive us into a ditch.

“Hey, I’m only joking! No reason to freak out!”

“I’m not freaking out!” My fake mate gave me a sharp look, and for some reason, I just had to laugh. This whole situation was so ridiculous, like we really were trapped in some sort of romance novel. Maybe Zander could see how absurd the situation was too, because it took him only a moment to join in my laughter. It felt good to be laughing with him. Liberating. For the next hour or so, we fell into easy chatter. I asked him what had changed in Oceanport since I'd moved out (not much) and he asked me how many jobs I'd had (way too many) and how much I enjoyed them (not too much.) When I told him about getting fired this month, his face drew into a scowl.

“I can't believe people treat you like that.”

I shrugged. “It happens all the time, really. Everyone seems to believe omegas are fair game.”

Zander shook his head. “I knew it was bad, but all this time I had no idea how bad it really was. Not until I started research for my new book anyway. It's horrifying.”

“Wait.” My eyes snapped to Zander. “That's what your research was about? You're writing a book? A new book? That means it's not your first!”

“Why does that surprise you so much?” Zander asked. “I was writing stories even when we were children.”

“But that was different!” Even though I wasn't sure how. “I mean, it's awesome that you stuck with that! Are your books published? How many are there?” I was intrigued.

Zander gripped the steering wheel a little more tightly. Was he embarrassed? He'd always been weirdly shy about his stories. When we were kids, I was the only one allowed to read them. In a way, that had made me feel special. Like Zander was sharing his deepest secrets with me. Out of all the children in the neighborhood, Zander picked me to trust with his stories.

But I hadn't heard of his books at all.

How could you have, when you broke off contact?

Yeah, that was entirely on me. I slumped in my seat.

Zander turned the music down a bit to make conversation easier. “A couple of them are published,” he said. “But I write under a pseudonym. Not a lot of people know. My parents don't.” He scoffed. “They think I'm actually relying on the bookstore. They have no idea it's a passion project, which is funny considering they don’t think it’s profitable.”

“Why don't you tell them?”

Why did you tell me?

Zander kept his eyes on the road. “I suppose even if I told them they would never believe me. It doesn't matter. They've always dismissed my literary ambitions as a silly little hobby.”

“Your stories were so good, though.” I loved listening to them and not only because it felt like Zander was sharing something secret with me. Even as a child, he had a way of telling stories in a way that transported me. “If all stories were like yours, I'd read more.”

Zander blushed. He actually blushed. Laughter bubbled up in me.

“What?” Zander finally looked at me.

“It's so rare to see an alpha blush.”

“Alphas are human too!” he muttered. “Honestly, it’s all these stereotypes and expectations that are the real problem.”

I continued laughing, I couldn’t help myself. The grumpier he looked the harder I laughed.

Zander frowned at me and shook his head, but he couldn’t entirely hide stop a smile from taking over his lips. “Seriously, now,” he said after a moment, “don’t you want to be treated as more than an omega?”

“I guess you have a point there,” I conceded as I managed to regain my composure. “But anyway, tell me about this book you're writing.”

“The one I'm writing right now is a bit... different from what I usually write about.”

“How so?” He had my rapt attention. What did he usually write about? I had no idea.

“For one, it's aimed at children. Kids like Conner.”

“Aw, did he inspire you? That's sweet.”

Zander seemed to mull this over in his head for a moment. “In a way, yes. I guess you could say that. There needs to be more books with strong characters that young omegas can relate to.” I could tell he meant what the said by the way his forehead creased, by the fervor in his voice. He was passionate about this. About helping young omegas. What kind of alpha was he?

One of the good ones.

But I'd always known that.

“Will you let me read your book when it's done?” I asked.

“If you'd like to.”

“I think I'd like it a lot.”

He smiled at me and butterflies danced in my stomach. I had to make myself rip my eyes off him before I said or did something stupid. Looking out the window, I watched the other cars on the highway and took a deep breath. We had a couple hours left to go before we reached Connecticut. Confessing my crush to Zander now might make them really uncomfortable.

“Are you hungry, by the way?” Zander asked.

“Not super hungry, but I guess I could eat,” I said, turning to him again. He still had a smile on his face. I sighed. Why did he have to be so damn handsome like that?

“There's something for you in the basket on the back seat.” He gestured behind us. Indeed, there was a basket there with a blanket over it. I'd figured that there was some sort of food in there, but now Zander made it sound like he'd packed something especially for me. What could it be?

Stretching a bit, I managed to reach the basket and put it on my lap. Something smelled good. Like chocolate and... coconut?

Oh, could it be?

When I lifted the blanket, I found a batch of brownies sprinkled with coconut flakes. I’d loved these when I was younger. My mother used to make them all the time whenever we had something to celebrate.

Well, until I became allergic to coconut anyway. But Zander couldn't know that.

“I can't believe you remember these,” I said. “Did you make them?”

“I did. It wasn't too hard.” He gave a little wave with his hand. “I mean, they're just brownies with coconut flakes, but I thought you might enjoy them.”

“I would! If I could eat them!”

“You can't?”

“No, I became allergic to coconuts when I was about sixteen.”

“Really?” Zander glanced at me, eyes wide. “I'm sorry! I had no idea.”

“It's okay. It's not like you were trying to poison me. Not deliberately, anyway.” I added a little bit of laughter to my words to make him see that he hadn't upset me. Still, I looked wistfully at the brownies in the basket on my lap. It had been such a long time since I'd been able to enjoy the taste of coconut mixed with chocolate on my tongue. If I wasn't careful, I was gonna start drooling. Suppressing a sigh, I put the basket back where I'd found it. “By the way, you can't eat these either.”

“Would that be too painful for you to watch?”

“No, you idiot, it's because you can't kiss me with coconut on your lips and tongue.” Breaking out in rashes was decidedly not sexy.

Zander's eyes snapped to me, brows climbing up.

“You don't have to act so shocked. We have to kiss, right? To make people believe that we're married.” Was he forgetting why I'd needed him for this road trip? Or did he already suspect that there were other reasons I wanted to kiss him? “Anyway, no brownies for you.”

“Oh. Okay.” Zander fixed his eyes back on the road.

“You can give the brownies to my brother, but not to his husband. He's an ass.”

“All right. I shall secretly feed your brother brownies without his husband noticing.”

“Oh, don't be silly. You know I didn't mean that.”

Leaning back in my seat, I closed my eyes and listened to the music as the car continued to zoom over the highway. I didn't want Zander to feed my brother brownies. I wanted him to feet me brownies. Allergies be damned. He could feed me brownies without coconut flakes. He could feed me anything.

I sighed to myself. I was in deep, wasn't I?