15. Shiloh
Chapter 15
Shiloh
Jonah’s passed out, sleeping hard as the light cracks between the curtains. I don’t have the heart to wake him up, but the fact is I’m absolutely going to pee myself if I don’t get myself to the bathroom stat.
Luckily for me, Cole cracks the door to my room and peeks in.
He takes a look at me and the state of Jonah, and walks around to my side of the bed.
“I have to pee but I don’t want to wake him up,” I whisper and he nods.
He moves the big Alpha, not giving a shit if he wakes him up, and scoops me up in his arms and brings me to the bathroom. Which is equally as gorgeous as the bedroom. There’s a claw-foot tub, an antique golden mirror and soft touches of light pink everywhere.
Jonah’s sister clearly has taste. There’s nothing I would change about the bathroom or the bedroom and part of me wishes I could find a flaw in invading another Omega’s space. I hope she doesn’t hate me for it. I suppose if I’m only here for a short time it won’t matter anyway.
The thought of not staying here and going back to my Gran’s, however, that makes me feel like shit. Not only will I be abandoned again, but that will be two packs who thought I wasn’t worth keeping.
I stifle a sigh and try to stop overthinking.
Cole is gentle as he places me down on my feet. I wince and hold on to his shoulder for support as I move to sit on the toilet. I realize I’m wearing one of their shirts and a pair of panties.
“Do you need help?” he asks.
My cheeks have to be flaming red as I shake my head, but then I stop for a moment and look at the state of my hair framed around my face. I’m a fucking mess.
I swallow thickly and take a breath before I ask my question. “Do you think you could help me shower when I’m done?”
“Of course,” he says with a smile. “Jonah bought you something to cover your foot and a bench for the shower. Let me go grab them,” he says, petting down my messy hair.
When he leaves, I take care of my business and sit on the toilet, waiting for him to get back.
My old pack would have never offered to shower me. I can’t even recall us ever bathing together and it sends a familiar ache through me. What if they realize I’m not a good enough Omega just like Danny, Nick, and Ryan did? What if this is just what the beginning of the relationship looks like and then it’s suddenly ripped away from me again?
Didn’t I just say that I was going to stop overthinking the future?
Cole is placing a foldable waterproof chair in the large glass shower and coming over with this pink sleeve. This man gets down on his knees and gingerly takes my injured ankle before sliding the glove on.
“Thank you,” I whisper.
“It’s nothing.”
“No, I mean for everything. For not emergency landing the plane, for risking your job, for taking care of me during my heat, and taking care of me now,” I say as his green eyes search mine.
“I’m not sure what you’re used to Shiloh, but this is kind of the bare minimum for taking care of an Omega. I’m glad you’re here. I like taking care of you.”
He makes sure the sleeve is airtight, and kisses my knee before turning on the shower, and coming back over to me, helping me remove whichever Alpha’s shirt I’m wearing.
Part of me wants to cry over his words and how sweet they are, but I genuinely am so fucking over crying. Instead, I let him carry me over to the shower, and let him sit me on the cold ass chair.
“Sorry,” he says with a laugh. “Are you okay if I get undressed?” he asks.
I blush, but nod. It’s a weird sensation when someone has knotted you, likely lost their job over you, but you’re still relative strangers.
He undresses and I get to ogle him for a moment, but do my best not to look at his dick that feels like it’s demanding my attention.
“Ignore that,” he says, as he grabs the shower head and touches the water temperature before spraying down my skin.
I moan against the warmth. I don’t think I realized how sore my body was or just how dirty I felt until this moment. My eyes are closed and I let myself enjoy this moment and not overthink it. There’s so much we all need to talk about and figure out.
Sure, they invited me to stay here, which is probably a mixture of guilt and intrigue, but what does it mean? And is this even healthy? I literally just broke up with my pack of two years a little over a week ago.
Cole keeps spraying my body with the water before he sets it to the side and his masterful fingers are scrubbing shampoo against my scalp. Truly, he could be a shampoo boy if he can’t be a pilot anymore. Scratch that, he can be my shampoo boy. I don’t like the idea of his fingers touching someone else.
This is all well and truly fucked. I’m feeling possessive over these Alphas who’ve shown me more kindness than I deserve, and I don’t even know if they have any intention of keeping me.
Everything about my heat is such a blur, and while bits and pieces are coming back to me, all I really remember is most of the plane ride, when Heat Haven gave me the medication to make me lucid, and when I woke up from sedation.
Cole sprays the shampoo out of my hair and moves on to conditioner. While it sits in my hair, he gently scrubs my body and I almost want to have a slight breakdown over his delicate touch. He didn’t know me, but he helped me when I needed it most. The way he’s taking care of me now is something I’ve never experienced.
My Gran is very maternal, but she’s my family. She had to take care of me. Right now, Cole is choosing me, and I’m not sure how to handle it. His warm hand grabs my chin, and I blink open my eyes.
“What’s wrong?” he asks.
I blink at him, holding back tears, and his thumb rubs soothingly against my cheek. He bends down, so that his erection is no longer a focal point and I don’t even worry about my naked body sitting in this collapsible chair. Instead, I just stare at him while steam whips around us.
His hand slides from my face, and he rests them on my thighs.
“I might be way out of fucking line for saying this, but I have to ask. Did your previous pack abuse you? Do you need us to back off a little?” he asks, and I quickly shake my head. “It’s just you were traveling alone across the country, and the doctor said that your previous heats were likely unfulfilling.”
My brows furrow as I really take in his words.
“They never hit me,” I reply.
“Physical abuse isn’t the only kind of abuse. Emotional abuse is just as damaging. If they were withdrawing affection, holding bonding over your head, that’s abuse. It’s not okay.”
A few tears fall away, and I wipe them with the back of my hand.
“Fuck. I’m fucking this all up and being invasive. I just…I don’t know, I want to make sure we did things right, that you’d tell us if anything we did upset you.”
I’m not sure what to say, so instead, I wrap my arms around his neck and bring him in for a hug. He accepts it easily, holding me tightly and not saying a word. I’m sure his knees hurt against the pretty pale tile, but he holds me back, not complaining in the slightest.
Is he right? I mean, here I thought something was wrong with me. What was it about me that they couldn’t give me their full attention? Why wasn’t I good enough to bond? Why wasn’t I important enough that they all spent my entire heat with me?
I don’t think I ever took a moment to consider it wasn’t me.
I wasn’t the problem.
I’m not broken.
Cole squeezes me tighter. “We’ll take care of you. You’re safe with us.”
There aren’t words to explain how I’m feeling right now, so instead I just hold him tightly and let his scent soothe me along with his promises.
I’m safe, and that’s all I ever wanted.
After the shower that somehow turned into a revelation for myself, Cole dressed me in one of his shirts, dried my hair, and brought me to the living room. Jonah is still passed out in the bedroom I’m staying in, and we let him rest, he’s been awake for God knows how long.
“Do you want me to bring you anything for your room? Are you hungry?” Cole asks, after propping up my leg and handing me the remote to the TV.
The living room is tastefully decorated, and I like that it isn’t ultra modern, it has personality. Whose personality, I’m not sure? But I enjoy all the plants, art, and soft textures around the room.
“Could you grab my phone and iPad, and something small to eat would be great,” I reply, feeling how uneven my voice is.
Cole doesn’t question it, but I swear a look passes over his face when I mention my phone. I ignore it, and turn on the TV watching The Real Omegas of Beverly Hills, easily the best franchise, and an episode I’ve already seen, so it’s just background noise.
When Cole comes back into the room, he kisses the top of my head and leaves my devices next to me.
“Thank you,” I say, picking up my phone with dread.
The amount of notifications is concerning to me, and when I open my texts, I see why.
Ryan, Danny, and Nick have been texting me non-stop. There must be around two hundred messages, which is actually pretty crazy the more I think about it.
The messages are mixed, some of them are sweet, asking me to come back, saying how much they miss me. While others are downright threatening, telling me I’ll never find another pack of their caliber and that if I don’t respond soon, there will be consequences. Most of those messages are from Nick, who constantly showed me the least amount of affection. He was usually the one to leave during my heats as well.
Danny’s messages are down right pleading, but most of them center around himself. How he feels sick without me around, how my scent is no longer lingering around the house and how he needs it. None of it is really about me, all his messages are about him. It truly never was about me, and it never would be when it comes to them.
A desperate part of me feels like I need to respond, that I’m in the wrong if I don’t. But then I think back to Cole’s words and what he said makes so much sense. I don’t owe them anything.
I’m not their Omega anymore. Now that I got a little taste of what it feels like to be treated like a real pack Omega, there’s no way I’m going back.
My hands tremble as I do it, but I scroll to each of their contacts and hit the block button. It feels freeing in a way I didn’t expect. It’s short-lived as I move to my different social accounts, filled with even more messages. The same good cop, bad cop bullshit, but I block them all on every platform I can think of.
I take a deep breath and look through the rest of my messages. It’s not surprising that there aren’t many besides my Gran, asking me to call her as soon as I’m up for it. I didn’t make many friends in LA and I cut off a lot of my friends I had here in Philly as soon as I moved.
I feel lost, but as Cole brings us both sandwiches, water, and chips on the couch, I don’t feel so alone.
“Everything okay?” he asks.
“More than okay. Do you think I could have my Gran come over soon, when she’s free?” I ask.
His face gives him away. That he’s confused by my question, but it quickly fades away.
“You’re staying here. This is your house, too. You don’t need to ask for permission for someone to come over. I do ask if you want to go somewhere you ask one of us, but only because I don’t like the idea of you going out alone. It’s dangerous.”
“Trust me, I’m not running off anywhere, anytime soon,” I say, pointing to my ankle.
“We want you to be comfortable here. Anything you need, you’ll tell us?” he asks.
“I’ll try,” I reply.
I’m happy that Cole doesn’t push it, that he doesn’t bring up what he asked in the shower, or even ask me about what was on my phone. He seems pretty straightforward and open about wanting me here. Even so, I don’t ask him what all of this means. I don’t ask if this is temporary, or if I’m some sort of charity project.
Cole clears his throat, and I look at his handsome face. How did I get so lucky that he was the pilot on my flight, that he took care of me?
He looks like he wants to say something, but stops himself, instead leaning forward and kissing the side of my face.
“I think you should probably have our numbers, huh?” he says, glancing down at my phone.
I hand it over to him and he adds their contact info, first names only, and starts a group chat with all of us. No one immediately responds and I assume Mack must be sleeping, too.
Should I be concerned that I haven't seen him since my heat? I know I should speak up and ask these questions, but I just don’t have the capacity to right now. These past few days have been a lot to process and even though I have an inkling about what I want, it feels crazy to say it outloud.
“Is there anything else you need?” Cole asks.
Yeah, to know if I’m here over some guilt, martyr complex, or if this could be more. Could they possibly want to court me after just knowing me for a few days? It took a year before my exes were officially courting me, which was a secret. Not to mention that after a year of dating, and a year of courtship, they still wouldn’t commit.
I feel needy thinking about it. They don’t owe me anything, they’ve done more than enough. Yet, my little Omega heart is bursting at the seams wanting answers. They have to know that the ball is in their court right? That I’m interested but I don’t want them to feel obligated to court me because they helped me?
Now would be an awesome time to have a girlfriend to talk through all this with.
Instead of saying any of that, I give him a polite smile. “No, I think I’m going to call my Gran if that’s alright?” I ask.
“More than alright; invite her over, we’ll get take out. I’d love to meet her,” he says with a smile before giving me privacy.
Gran will be able to get a better read on the situation. I need to get her over to this house immediately.