25. Beckett
Chapter 25
Beckett
August, Boston
H endrix and Arlo were not discreet men. Those two were head over heels for Meadow and pawing at her at every chance they got. Hendrix had a pep in his step, and I had caught him smiling like a loon on several occasions.
The dude was happy. It had been so long since we had seen him like that, it felt downright bizarre.
As I had rested in my bunk the previous night, the entire bus could hear what Meadow and Hendrix were up to in the nest.
I had done my best to roll over and ignore it, but those sweet, breathy moans of Meadow’s carried, and before I could think, my cock was in my hand and I was sneakily rubbing one out to the sounds they were making. It was torture to be so close to Meadow and have no clue how to bridge that gap. I’d never had difficulty pulling women, but this woman was way too fucking important, and I couldn’t afford to fuck it up.
It was our second night in Massachusetts, so there wasn’t much preparation to do. I loved when we had multi-day stops and could just vibe between shows and take some time to breathe. Besides a brief scare with the instruments, things had been remarkably smooth, and today we had most of the day to ourselves, other than an early-morning sound check.
That was easy enough, though. I sat on one of those uncomfortable wooden stools while I worked on my instrument, strumming until it sounded just right.
“What should we do with our free time?” I asked as I idly tuned my bass.
“We owe Meadow a shopping trip,” Hendrix said from where he stood next to the mic. “She needs some more nesting supplies. There’s a big box store not far from here that we can use.”
Arlo nodded. “That sounds like a plan! We can even take her for a nice lunch. Wine and dine her…without the wine, because she’s growing our progeny.”
Gary turned to us, a frown plastered on his face. “Hendrix! You’re needed to sign some vinyls. You can’t be going out. What if someone sees you with the omega?”
Hendrix shrugged. “If someone sees us, we’ll just say she’s our assistant. We want her to be comfortable with us. We’re going. Vinyl signings can wait.”
Gary’s face turned red as he spluttered at the simple brush-off. Hendrix had been growing quite the spine with Gary, especially where Meadow was concerned.
“Cool beans. I’ll grab a snack and meet you at the bus?” Phin asked, putting his drumsticks down.
“Sure.’’ I shrugged, packing up my guitar and hightailing it out of the practice room before the others, making a beeline for the bus. I could hear Gary behind me, attempting to chew Hendrix out, but I got the distinct impression that Hendrix didn’t care anymore.
I found Meadow on the bus, sitting on the couch with her laptop in front of her, typing away.
Several of her nesting items had left the nest and made their way onto the couch. None of us complained, though. It was comfortable and smelled like her.
“Have you got much more to do?” I asked.
She shook her head, closing the laptop and placing it on the couch next to her. “I just had a few emails to send. Why?”
“How do you feel about having some outside time today? Hendrix did say we needed to take you to get the soft and comfy things.”
Meadow sat up a little straighter, her eyes lighting up. “Are you sure you have time?” she asked, chewing lightly on her lip.
“Of course. I wouldn’t offer it if I didn’t! Hendrix and Arlo are just finishing up at the venue sound check, and Phin is around here somewhere. Once they’re done, we can have a little pack outing and maybe even grab some lunch. What’s your current craving?”
“Thai food?” she asked.
“I think we can find a Thai place easily enough. Why don’t you get dressed, and we’ll go get the guys?”
Meadow’s nose crinkled with distaste. “Won’t your manager be at the sound check? He clearly hates me, and I don’t want to cause any problems.”
“The guys are on their way here, so you don’t have to see Gary at all.”
Meadow sighed. “Thank you. I’ve got enough going on without dealing with him.” She placed her hand on her belly. “This nugget is growing fast, and my body is aching.”
“When was your last checkup?” I asked.
“A few weeks ago now. I’m supposed to have another one next week, but that’s in Seattle, and we’ll be on the other side of the country.”
“We’ll have to find you a doctor so you can keep getting checkups.”
“I would appreciate that. I guess it would be wishful thinking to get someone who could travel with us on the road?”
“Not necessarily. I’ll let the guys and management know you’re interested in that, and it’ll get worked out sooner or later.”
“Really? That would be awesome. Thank you.” She got up and padded over to me, standing on her tiptoes to kiss my cheek and give me a blinding smile. “I better go get dressed!” she declared excitedly before scampering off in the general direction of her nest.
An omega in a nesting store was like a child at Christmas.
“Too many choices. I don’t know what to pick,” she whined, looking at the rows upon rows of blankets and pillows and all things squishy and comfortable.
“Just grab anything that takes your fancy,” Arlo said as he rummaged through a pile of throw pillows bigger than he was. “Next week, we’ll be at our house in LA. We don’t have any nesting materials there, either, so think of it like you’re shopping for two nests. The tour bus and the California house.”
I had been in a nesting store once or twice over the years, but it was a very new experience to take an omega to one. Every surface was piled high with things that I didn’t even know existed for nests: voice-activated fairy lights, more fabrics than I knew what to do with, and over a hundred types of mattresses.
“I can’t let you guys buy me two nests!” she hissed, turning to Arlo with wide eyes.
“Why not?” He shrugged.
“Because that’ll be expensive!”
“You do recall what we do for a job, right?” Hendrix asked with a chuckle, lightly gripping Meadow’s upper arms. “I want you and the nugget to be comfortable…Do it for me?”
He was doing his best to look her in the eye, but like the rest of us, he was wearing incognito clothing. We all wore some type of sunglasses and a beanie or baseball cap to do our best to hide our appearances from any fans who may have seen us.
Our goal was simply to look like your normal, run-of-the-mill pack going shopping for some nesting supplies. Alphas spoiling their omegas was definitely not an uncommon sight, so we hoped we blended in.
Who was I kidding? My pack could never truly fly under the radar. Arlo had jumped into a pile of blankets the moment we entered the store and attempted to drag Meadow in with him.
“But…” Meadow trailed off, eyeing a blanket display near her.
“Go wild, darling,” I said.
Meadow turned to me, a grin on her face, her cheeks turning pink at the term of endearment that fell easily from my lips.
“See? If Mr. Sensible is telling you to go wild, you have to! Come on,” Arlo whined, leaning forward and plucking the blanket off the wall and handing it to Meadow, who was chewing her lip. “Feel how soft this is!”
One touch of the blanket, and Meadow folded. With a sigh, she gave Arlo a long-suffering look before throwing the blanket into one of the two carts we had grabbed on the way in. Once she started, it was like the floodgates opened and both carts were quickly filled. She was clearly going for a green theme.
I turned to Phin. “Why don’t we go talk to the staff about getting some items shipped to the LA house?”
“Sounds like a plan,” he said, so we left the others with Meadow as she made her way slowly though the store, buying whatever made her happy.
It turned out the staff was used to omegas buying for multiple nests. Mere seconds after I asked the question, the staff member had pressed a small tablet into my hand and instructed me to simply list all of the items on their app. It would be as simple as checking out and putting in the new delivery address.
Phin and I trailed through the store, taking our time to get back to Meadow. Several times, we paused to look at items and added them to our list. After the first few items, we realized we could use the camera on the tablet to scan barcodes, making the whole process seamless.
I was prepared to spend thousands in the store with how easy it was, and I wasn’t even an omega.
“Look at this green throw pillow!” Phin declared excitedly, holding it up. “It’s shaped like a leaf! Add it to the list.”
I chuckled and did just that.
We added all the items to the list that Meadow had already picked out, plus some fun things that we liked. If she wasn’t a fan of them when she got to the California house, she could easily discard them. Most likely, one of us would end up using them.
A small section caught my eye as we passed.
“Hey,” I called out, stopping Phin, who was wandering a few steps ahead of me, enamored with a set of doorway beads that were sparkling every color imaginable.
“Yeah?” he asked, turning on his heel.
“Wanna look through there?” I asked, jerking my head in the direction I had just been looking.
The nursery section.
We were going to have a baby soon, and a baby needed a lot of things.
Phin’s face broke into a grin. “Hell, yeah! Meadow will be distracted for a while, so we’ve got time.”