8. Teddy
Chapter 8
S hit, I forgot to call Mom! Fuck a duck. Snapping awake, I sit up from my toasty alpha sandwich. I’m wedged between Vee and Sam, who has his arms around Kelly’s back, while Garret cuddles into her front. So far, it seems to be the best way for everyone to get cuddles. I can still reach over Sam and touch her, and Garret isn’t pressed up to anybody’s dick, but still gets to cuddle Kelly. Plus, he doesn’t have any chest-hair, and that was starting to be a problem for Sam. After the last week, he was starting to notice thin patches in his front pelt.
It’s not easy to wiggle down the bed and escape without waking everyone up, but the light coming in through the curtain is barely a faint blush on the horizon. It’s not like I can call Mom now. At the same time I feel like an asshole that I forgot yesterday. I can’t really ask Brice if he’s ok right now, but since Gabe says they saw him at the hospital, it worries me. Still, I can only handle one thing at a time.
Tiptoeing across the room, I open the door and nearly wipe out on Jake laying in the hallway. He snuffles briefly at my foot before letting out a loud huff and rolling over on his side. His eyes gleaming in the dim morning light. I fucking hate being awake this early, but now that my brain is running, there’s no way to get back to sleep.
Holding on to the rail with a death-grip, I creep down the stairs and into the kitchen. The wind blasts me with a frigid gust when I open the backdoor to let Jake out. Fuck, I’ll be glad to get the rest of my laundry and stuff from the omega center. My coat is pretty ratty since I haven’t needed it for several years, but it’s better to have something.
Sam showed me how to set up his coffee maker. It’s not hard, but there are a lot of buttons on it. I get a fresh pot brewing for them and fill the kettle for myself before I let Jake back inside. He nearly knocks the door out of my hand trying to get in out of the brisk morning. Then he goes and turns in a circle a few times before laying in front of the stove and glaring at me. Huh, I guess Sam does normally have him fed before the rest of us are up.
“Sorry, bud, I have no idea where your kibble is. How about we just wait for a bit until your dad gets up and he can show me, huh?” He makes a loud grumbling noise, but after a minute lays his chin on his paws and closes his eyes. It probably won’t be long before Sam’s up, anyway. That man seems to rise with the roosters. I really need to look through that catalog on blackout blinds for the nest and get some ordered.
Not that I’m a night owl either, but the closer we get to my heat, the more of a whiny bitch I’m going to be. Also, if they don’t give me proper snuggles as we get closer, I’ll need to drag Kelly in there beforehand and lock everyone else out so I can have proper beta cuddles. I love having Sam and Vee wrapped around me, but I also kind of miss waking up with my nose full of Kelly’s sweet lilac. It just starts the day out calm and relaxed.
Plus, Vee and Garret have made the sleeping situation so much more complicated. Vee doesn’t want to accidentally touch Kelly in his sleep. Maybe he’s afraid he’ll get girl cooties, or some shit. Garret only wants to touch her. It’s a pain in the ass. The layout from last night seems to work best, or Sam and I can switch places, so he’s spooning me and I’m spooning Kelly. Otherwise, there’s whining and drama and I don’t have the patience for that at night.
The kettle starts making little, short whistling bursts, causing Jake’s floppy ears to perk up. He grumbles at me again before getting up and leaving, heading towards the living room. I don’t know if he’ll crash on the couch, or head back up to try to trip the next person out of the bedroom door. If I hear a scream or a crash, I can check.
Turning off the kettle before it gets loud, I rifle through Sam’s tea box, looking for some more of that orange spice I had on the first day. It’s not as good as coffee by a long shot, but the citrus helps wake me up. We all did our packing last night before bed, so hopefully we can be at the courthouse when they open and then be on the road for a fucking twenty-seven plus hour trip.
Fuck, I don’t want to do this.
Better to just get it over and done with.
I’m just pouring water over my tea-bag, having found the orange spice, when I hear a loud thud and, “Gosh darn-it, Jake, you big log. You tryin' to kill me this morning?” No one else is in the room, so I don’t try to hide my smirk—even after Kelly enters, followed by her fuzzy admirer. I nod towards the coffee pot as she stares blearily around. She walks up to me and just leans her whole weight against my chest, face first. “You are a gift from the coffee gods, Teddy. I love you.”
My heart feels like it just skipped a beat. I don’t know if she realizes what she just said, but it swirls in my mind, making my whole-body light up in elation. I doubt she means it that way, the way I think of her. She’s probably still half asleep and talking through the brain cotton.
But I’ll take it. Any sort of affection she wants to give me, I’m more than happy to have. Not that she’s not affectionate, but we only had a couple of days with just the three of us, before we were pulled in different directions, and I miss the simplicity of just us, of Sam and me holding her to fall asleep. Of not having to worry about who I’m making jealous when I touch her. I didn’t think being in a pack would be this stressful, and sometimes, it sucks .
“Hey Pixie, do you have any idea where Sam keeps the dog food? Jake’s not a happy guy right now.” Jake’s ears perk up at our conversation and he starts wagging in full-body circles around us as Kelly continues to lean against me. She takes a deep breath before letting it out.
“Yeah…yeah, let me just…” Her voice trails off before she squats down and starts rummaging through cabinets. The position automatically throwing me back to the day we first met and how she was squatted down in the front yard petting Jake, her dress riding up. I can’t bite back the little whine that creeps up my throat at the memory, and of what I want to do to her while she’s on her knees down there.
It might be a few days before I see her again, and suddenly my inner omega is going nuts, thrashing at my control, needing to make sure no one else touches her while I’m not here. I need to make sure she smells like me, like us , before we leave. My jaw aches from clenching down, and with the need to sink my teeth into her pretty neck and make her mine forever.
It’s well documented that bonding bites are strongest during an omega’s heat, but I don’t care right now. I can’t count on Vee to keep an eye on her, and I don’t know that big alpha she was with at school. What if he tries to lure her away while we’re gone? Kelly wouldn’t go willingly, but she’s so tiny by comparison. Shit, Vee will be the only one here. What if her car breaks down? It’s kind of a piece of shit. No, no, Xan and Gabe would never let that happen, and she’d be smart enough to call them if it did .
My mind whirls with all the possibilities of what could go wrong while I’m not around to protect her. The entire time she’s going from cabinet to cabinet looking for goddamned kibble. Can’t she see I’m having a nervous breakdown over here? Fuck.
A triumphant, “Ahah!” heralds her success, and she stands up, pulling the waist of her pants up and her shirt down, and dragging a huge plastic tub out from under the cabinet by the fridge. I lean over and grab it with one hand, yanking it the rest of the way out before I scoop her up and carry her out of the room. Much to Jake’s consternation, as his eyes flip between me carrying her out of the room, and the unopened bin of his breakfast.