Chapter 25
Chapter Twenty-Five
WILDER
It’s official. Liv needs a nest. The guys and I have decided, and we’re supposed to be putting a plan together, but they’re all looking to me for guidance. Like my being creative means I’m some type of nest guru.
“I’m a tattoo artist, not an interior designer.” Three sets of eyes stare at me expectantly. “Seriously, guys, this is what Pinterest is for. I told you all to search for inspiration. You can’t expect me to come up with the plan all on my own.”
“Yeah, but you understand color theory and composition,” Liam says.
“Sure, and that would be helpful if I was planning to paint a mural on one of the walls, but that’s about the extent of it.”
My brother lifts an eyebrow. “Actually, that’s a great idea. What if you painted a mural on one wall? Nothing over the top—maybe some linework flowers?”
It’s not a bad idea. In fact, I kind of love it.
I suppose it would at least give us a jumping-off point.
When Sawyer suggested we convert one of our rooms into a nest for Liv as a surprise, we all agreed immediately.
We only have four bedrooms, and while Sawyer has a big bed, it’s not enough.
Our omega deserves her own space. A nest. It only made sense that I offered to give up mine.
Hayes and I have shared rooms before. I can handle his snoring if it means Liv is happy.
We’re all in agreement. Soon, we want to officially claim Liv, and that means our instincts to provide everything an omega could need or want are in overdrive. It’s almost like we can’t do anything until we build her a nest.
“The colors should be dark and cozy,” Sawyer says, eyeing the little cardstock squares of all different colors we have spread out on the hardwood floor.
The room we’re in has only one window, and it’s mostly shaded by the large oak that covers the backyard.
It keeps the room cool in the summer and ensures the light is always diffused and muted, which is why it’s the perfect choice for a nest.
“What about this one?” Hayes points to a brown paint chip.
“Dude, no.” I wrinkle my nose. “The whole room would look like actual shit.”
“It would not,” Hayes grumbles. But the rest of the guys wear various appalled expressions, and I know they agree with me.
“Who even picked that paint color?” Liam plucks it off the floor and tosses it behind him and out of the room. “Vetoed.”
“Assholes,” Hayes growls.
“No, an asshole is what that color would make this room look like it popped out of.” I laugh as I dodge my brother’s punch.
Sawyer pinches the bridge of his nose. “Children. Can we focus here? We only have a couple of days to get this done if we want to surprise Liv.”
That gets us to focus. We spend an hour debating between colors before we finally settle on a purple that’s somewhere between a dark lavender and gray.
It’s muted and feminine without being over the top.
Liv would hate it if we painted this room pastel pink or something.
I pick out a purple a few shades darker to paint the linework for the flowers, and then we pile in the car and pick up the paint and supplies before making our way to a nest boutique I read about online.
The bed and mattress are being delivered later tonight—that was an easy decision. It’s the largest mattress we could find, and a bed frame that’s low enough to the ground that our omega can easily crawl into bed while keeping the mattress off the floor.
“Good afternoon and welcome to The Omega's Nest,” a chipper female beta greets us as we file into the boutique. “My name is Anne, and I’ll be happy to help you find whatever you need. Is there something specific that brings you in today?”
“We’re designing a nest for our omega,” I offer when none of the other guys speak. Hayes is already overwhelmed—I don’t need twin telepathy to know that, since his face says it all—and Sawyer and Liam are looking around with wide eyes.
“How wonderful,” Anne says, offering me a genuine smile. “Well, you’ve come to the right place. My pack outfitted our omega’s nest here, as well, and it turned out beautiful. Do you need any help?”
“Probably.” I chuckle when Hayes wanders toward a shelf full of pillows and starts holding them to his chest and squeezing, testing out the softness. “But I think we’ll just look around at first.”
“Well, give me a shout if you need me. When you find something you like, feel free to bring it up to the counter and I’ll hold on to it for you. Have fun!”
With that, the sales associate leaves my pack to browse.
“We need pillows,” Hayes says, frowning as he holds up two different options. “But how many pillows is too many? And is this one supposed to be shaped like an exhaust pipe?”
Liam chokes out a laugh, grabbing the cylindrical pillow out of my brother’s hand. “That’s called a bolster.”
“How the fuck do you know that?” Hayes asks.
Our beta shrugs. “My mom.”
Right. Liam grew up relatively well-off.
He doesn’t talk much about his family—outside of Cici and to tell us what a dick his father is—but I suppose it would make sense that he’d know all the fancy names for things like the different shaped throw pillows.
People with money care about stuff like that.
“Just grab some that you like. We can always buy more or get rid of things Liv doesn’t like.” Sawyer picks up a velvety pillow made out of silver fabric. The material has a crinkled look, and I can’t help reaching out to stroke it. It’s soft and plush. Perfect for a nest.
“You guys pick the pillows,” I tell them. “I’m going to find some blankets.”
There’s a whole wall of shelves filled with different blankets, and I wander over, imagining my smarty-pants burrowing into a pile of plush throws.
I want her to feel safe and cozy. To have a sanctuary she can escape to when the four of us get too loud or overwhelming.
Or when her big, beautiful brain demands space to puzzle something out.
Soon, there’s a pile of pillows, blankets, soft washcloths, fairy lights, candles, dimmable lamps, a thick, wooly carpet, and a huge stack of velvet curtains that are the perfect shade of purple behind the counter.
We may end up needing a few more things once we put it all together, but it’s a good start.
“I think your omega will love all of this,” Anne says, beaming at us. “They’re so lucky.”
“We’re the lucky ones,” I tell her honestly. “Thanks for all of your help.”
We’re significantly poorer when we leave The Omega’s Nest but one step closer to having the one thing that will always make us feel like the richest bastards on the planet. Liv.
Dipping my brush into the dark purple paint, I ignore the chatter of my packmates as I move my arm in sweeping arcs.
The peonies are familiar. They’re a common floral tattoo design, after all.
But these are the largest flowers I’ve ever created.
The tightly packed petals and broad leaves create a pattern that somehow both adds interest and dimension to the room, and makes it cozier and calmer at the same time.
“Looks great, Wild.” Liam’s eyes wander over the wall, appreciation clear on his face. “She’s going to love it.”
“I hope so. Somehow I’m more nervous about this than any of the tattoos I’ve done, and those are permanently on someone’s skin.”
“Because you care about her.” He says it with a shrug, like it’s no big deal. But it’s a huge deal. I do care about Liv. A whole hell of a lot. She’s changed the trajectory of all our lives in a huge way. I don’t know that any of us considered settling down until she showed up.
“What was she like when you took ballroom dancing together?” I ask Liam.
Somehow, I can’t see my friend or my omega twirling around the ballroom.
But that’s not the kind of life my brother and I lead.
Our parents weren’t poor, but they weren’t well-off, either.
We had plenty, but it wasn’t ballroom dancing kind of plenty.
But knowing Liv the way I do now, I can’t see her enjoying some stuffy dance class.
Liam’s face breaks out in a smile. It’s the kind of smile that tells me he’s remembering something important.
Something precious. “She was quiet at first. I could tell she felt out of place. While so many of the other omegas were preening and prancing around, the females flipping their hair and giggling at all the alphas in the room, she watched it all. This slip of a girl stood there, analyzing everything and everyone.”
Our beta pauses his hanging of velvet curtains along the entire length of the wall with the window and stares off into space. “I was the only beta in the class. None of the other girls gave me the time of day. Even at that age, they were focused on earning the attention of an alpha.”
Sawyer reaches out and squeezes Liam’s shoulder.
While our beta is pretty tight-lipped about his family life, he’s made some comments that lead me to believe his bio-dad has expressed disappointment in Liam’s designation on more than one occasion.
It’s difficult not to internalize that kind of shit, even if none of the rest of us see him as lesser in any way.
Hell, he’s far more levelheaded than the rest of us, and he’s kept us out of trouble many times. I don’t know where we’d be without him.
“But Liv . . .” Liam’s smile turns wistful. “The way her little nose wrinkled at all the puffed chests and simpering giggles told me she wasn’t impressed. I was still nervous when I asked her to dance, but when she looked up at me with this relieved smile on her face, I was a goner.”
“I remember her talking about those lessons when she’d tag along with me and Henry. She hated almost everything about them. Except for her dance partner.” Sawyer grins at Liam and shakes his head. “Didn’t have a clue you were that dance partner.”
“Her mom didn’t let her have a cell phone at that age, so we lost touch. But I never forgot her.” Liam rubs a hand over the back of his neck, his cheeks flushing scarlet. “And I may have, uh, kept an eye on her social media when she was old enough to set it up.”
“Stalker,” Hayes says with a chuckle.
Liam shrugs, not denying it. “Wouldn’t you do the same in my shoes?”
My brother grunts his agreement. Hayes is just as gone for Liv as I am. He probably wouldn’t have only watched her movements online, though. He would have built a blind in a tree by her window to watch over her at night or something. Obsessive fucker.
“Who would have thought you’d be courting that same omega, huh?” I go back to painting, more determined than ever to make this nest perfect for the woman who saw one of my best friends when no one else in the room did.
“Yeah.” Liam smiles broadly as he slides another curtain over the rod. “Who would have thought?”
We work quietly after that, each of us lost in our own heads. Each of us thinking about our surprising, brilliant, beautiful omega. And by the time we’re finished with the nest, I can see the pride and hope on each of my packmates’ faces.
The room is cozy. It’s filled with decadent fabrics, a wall of velvet curtains, and the fairy lights we’ve strung up in strategic spots catch enough on the glossy paint of the flowers that they pop on the more matte finish of the rest of the wall.
The plush shag carpet is soft under our feet, and the massive bed in the center of the room is piled high with pillows and blankets.
I’m not an omega, but even I want to burrow under them and never leave.
It’s perfect. Or it will be, when her delicious scent has seeped into all the blankets and the walls and everything smells of her.
Soon, we’ll ask her to move in. We’ll mark her, claim her, and make her ours forever.
We’ll give Liv whatever she wants, because she’s become the center of our pack.
Hell, even before Hayes and I met her, she was interwoven in the fabric of our family.
Liam has pined for her for years. Sawyer always thought she was cute but off-limits.
She was always top of mind. We just didn’t realize.
“Think she’ll like it?” Hayes asks.
I don’t even hesitate. “Of course. We did all of this with her in mind. She’ll love it.”
And if, for some reason, she doesn’t? Well, we’ll paint over the walls and try again. Because she’s worth the effort. Our omega. She’s worth everything.