28. Hazel
Chapter 28
Hazel
“ Y ou’ll be back in a few days, right?” I asked anxiously as Phillip packed his duffel bag. I was standing in his room, my arms crossed, as I watched him.
“It’s one night,” he assured me, coming around the bed and planting a kiss on the top of my head. “You know you can come with us, if you want? Our away game is only one night and we have a hotel booked. We will be back by lunch tomorrow.”
“The thought of a long car ride…” I groaned. While my nausea had lessened significantly, the idea of hours in the car was far from appealing.
Phillip grimaced. “Yeah, probably not the best idea, especially when your bladder seems to have shrunk to the size of a pea.”
“Blame Peanut.” I pouted. “I swear, something is wrong with me.”
“The doctor said this was normal in your appointment last week, didn’t he?”
“He did.” I sighed.
“They’ll be worth it,” Phillip said, pulling me into a hug. “I’m pretty sure Seb went to that Polish place and got you those pierogies you like.”
Before I had the chance to answer, my stomach let out an almighty rumble. He pulled back, shooting me a knowing grin.
“I heard that stomach grumble from the next room,” a laughing Seb said from the doorway. He wore sweatpants and his favorite California Chargers sweatshirt.
“Well, someone told me there were pierogies.”
“I would never joke about pierogies!” he declared.
Turning back to Phillip, I rose onto my tiptoes, kissing his cheek. It had been a busy week, so he had some stubble.“I like this,” I said, reaching up to lightly scratch the facial hair.
“I’ll wait until I’m back to shave it, then. I’ll miss you.”
“I’ll miss you more.” I smiled up at him like a loon.
“Seb?” Phillip raised his eyebrows at him, and he took a step forward, gently extracting me from Phillip’s arms.
“Come on, Hazelnut, you need to let them go. We’ve got pierogies to eat… and cheesecake.”
“Cheesecake?” I turned to him, my pout melting away.
Phillip snorted from behind me. “Pregnant omegas, so easy to please.”
I cocked my head to the side thoughtfully. “Knots and desserts… that’s the way to any omega’s heart.”
Thirty minutes later, Seb and I stood in the doorway, waving as Phillip, Cormac, and Roman drove off. Once their SUV was out of sight, he turned to me with a grin.
“Well, we’ve got this big fancy pack house all to ourselves. Whatever shall we do?”
I turned to him with a barely suppressed grin. “Blanket fort?”
It didn’t take much to turn my nest into the best blanket fort ever. There was already a canopy, so soon enough, Seb and I were leaning back on a pile of pillows, a movie marathon lined up.
As the opening credits started, Seb handed me a bag of hazelnut popcorn without a word. We had spent many hours together binge-watching things in my nest. There was something comforting about the familiarity of it.
“Your nest is smelling so different, now that it’s full of other people’s scents.”
“Good or bad different?” I asked. In my opinion, it was a good different. It was a medley of all my guys. Roman’s dark and fruity, Phillip’s apple cider, and Cormac’s root beer. With Seb’s rich cherry wine scent, it was perfect.
I giggled to myself.
“Why are you laughing?” Seb asked, cocking an eyebrow.
“I just realized that we all smell like drinks—we are a regular beverage bunch!”
Seb burst into laughter. “Oh shit! You’re completely right. We are, aren’t we? I suppose all the guys smell decent. Imagine if you got stuck with alphas that smelled like citrus!” He shuddered dramatically.
“I’m not that disgusted by citrus… usually. Now that I’m pregnant, all bets are off!” I groaned. “Having my already sensitive omega nose ramped up to a thousand hasn’t been the most fun.”
“Just how bad has it been?”
“You decided to use a new deodorant today. It’s the same one Cormac uses.”
Seb’s eyebrows rose. “I ran out, and he had a spare bottle. That’s a little creepy.”
“I can also smell arousal from a mile away.”
“Really?”
I nodded.
It didn’t escape my notice that Seb had been turned on regularly since moving into the Kingswood pack house.
“Oh yeah, the nose can be useful at times.”
He cleared his throat. “So, you’ve been smelling me?”
“Yeah, but I can’t blame you. Pregnant omegas give off so many pheromones.”
The TV paused, and Seb sat up, gawking at me. “You think I’ve been aroused solely because of you perfuming all over the place?”
I sat up, frowning at him. “Yeah… what else could it be?”
He stared at me with wide eyes for a moment, opening and closing his mouth, like he couldn’t believe what I had just said.
“One of us is dumb. Possibly, both of us!” Seb declared, looking at the heavens for strength.
“Seb?”
“Do you have feelings for me, Hazelnut?”
My heart stuttered. “You’re my best friend.”
He rolled his eyes with a long-suffering sigh. “Hazel, I care about you as more than a best friend.”
…excuse me?!
“Sebastian Coombs, what the hell are you talking about?”
Surely, if he had feelings for me, I would know?
He sighed, swallowing before speaking. “I think I’ve been in love with you for a while, Hazelnut.”
I burst into laughter. “Is this like last time?”
“Last time?”
“You’ve declared your love for me before,” I said.
His brow furrowed. “When?”
“Well, it was the same night that you were convinced a tree was your best friend and insisted on giving it all the hugs before you promptly vomited over my shoes and passed out, so I assumed you didn’t mean that.”
Seb ran a hand through his hair, the look of utter confusion on his face almost adorable. “I-I don’t remember that.”
“No shit.” I laughed. “You were drunk as a skunk.”
“I’m not drunk now, but it was the truth then, and it’s the truth now. I was just a chickenshit and afraid of ruining our friendship, so I never said it out loud and tried to be happy with other people.”
“Did you eat one of Cormac’s special brownies?” I asked.
“No!”
My chest tightened. He had made plenty of jokes over the years about us being together and perfect for each other, but they were just that—jokes.
“Wait, you’re being serious?”
“Of course, I’m being serious, Hazelnut!”
With a huff, I grabbed the nearest pillow, throwing it at his face, full force. “You have shit timing, Sebastian Alexander Coombs! Why didn’t you admit this months ago? I’ve had feelings for you since I was twelve years old and you accidentally pushed me out of a fucking tree! We would’ve been dating in a heartbeat if you’d said something. You know I would have told my parents to fuck off to be with you. You goddamned idiot!”
Seb couldn’t suppress the grin tugging at the corner of his lips as he did nothing to stop my pillowy assault. “I only pushed you out of the tree in revenge because you did it first. I am an idiot. When we fought after you told me you were pregnant… I realized what an ass I had been. For the first time ever, I was really faced with the reality that I could lose you forever. All this time, I thought you wouldn’t go for a pack, because your parents would never have allowed it, and that was the life I desperately wanted.”
He had never shied away from that topic.
“I always knew you wanted a pack, and I knew my family wouldn’t be okay with that idea. Though I liked the idea of a pack, I resigned myself to never having that,” I admitted. “I assumed they would set me up with some idiot of their choosing. I never let myself think about what could be, and then when I met the guys, it just kind of clicked.” I shrugged, running my hands through my hair. It wouldn’t have been a fun life if I did as my parent’s wanted, but it was the path of least resistance, and it wasn’t like I had anything better to fight for… until now. “We’re having a great time together, but other than Roman declaring I’m it for him every other day, we’ve had no real discussions about our future. I know they’ll be there for the baby, and by extension, for me as the mother of the baby, but otherwise?”
“Hazelnut… those guys are madly in love with you. I could never realistically stand in their way, and I wouldn’t want to. They clearly want what’s best for you, and that’s what I want too.”
“But you hate them.”
Seb sighed. “On the ice, they weren’t exactly my favorite people, but getting to know them? They’re not that bad.”
My breathing increased as I glared at him. “What am I supposed to do now that I know you love me? I can’t betray the others because you’ve decided to speak up finally.”
“They know how I feel.”
My entire body stilled as I gawked at Seb, my mind trying to process his words.
“What do you mean they know ?”
“We discussed it. I wasn’t going to tell you, because it didn’t seem fair, given your current situation. I was just going to stay quiet and support you from the sidelines. It was actually Roman who convinced me.”
“Oh.” I wasn’t sure what to do with that information. My lover had told my best friend to confess his feelings to me…
“I’m going to be honest here, Hazel. I want to try this. I would always regret it if I didn’t at least lay my cards on the table and ask. I know my timing sucks, but we have the chance to be together and we’d have a pack. It’s a dream I never thought would come true to have a chance at both.”
My entire body tingled with excitement. A future not only with the Kingswood Pack, but with Sebastian as well? They had slowly been getting along better with every day. Could they really get along well enough for us to be a proper family unit?
“Will you let me court you, Hazel Giltbrook? While I may not have as much spare cash as Roman, I can still plan a good date.”
Regardless of the others… this was Seb.
My Seb.
The man who knew most of my thoughts before I even realized them.
The one who hid my favorite candy around my place for me to find while going about my day.
I owed it to myself to try.
Leaning forward, I roughly grabbed the front of his shirt. His eyes widened as I pulled him close, crushing my mouth to his.