10. Brennan
Brennan
I’ve never seen so many fucking pillows in my life.
Ted and I walk into the pristine building that is Nesting Co., the lighting soft, and the noise low. We aren’t the only alphas in here without an omega, but we are the most clueless looking ones.
“Excuse me,” I approach the customer service desk as Teddy grabs a shopping cart and starts piling soft shit into it, “I have an online order to pick up?”
The customer service rep—a smiling, blonde beta—nods once. “Sure! What’s the name on the order?”
“Brennan,” I tell her, glancing back at Teddy, “Brennan Madford?”
“Oh yes,” she smiles, typing my name into the system, “they are still pulling the items from the floor. Would you mind waiting just a moment?”
“Sure,” I nod, pointing my thumb over my shoulder, “I’m just gonna join my, um…” Shit. What exactly is someone that works for you but is also scent-matched to the same omega as you and your boss?
I don’t know if the beta woman gets that a lot, or if she just wants me to leave her counter, but she nods either way, an understanding smile on her face. “No worries. It should be ready by the time you’re done shopping for your omega.”
That sounds weird.
My omega.
But…she is. Mine, I mean.
And Teddy’s, and Maverick’s.
I can’t believe I…I have a true scent match.
Gods, the way my alpha reacted when her scent reached me, I nearly murdered Victor Caruso right then and there.
But then Maverick ordered me to grab her, and…she felt so right, being held in my arms.
I’ve been entranced by the idea of Wren Messina ever since we were first planning on using her birthday party to investigate Pack Caruso.
It was part of the job, looking into the person the party was actually for. I could hardly find anything on her, besides a few pictures of her photographed with her family, forced and strained smiles.
A beautiful little bird, being kept in a cage.
But, seeing as she had no tangible connection to Pack Caruso at the time, I didn’t look further into her—it would have been a waste of resources.
Of course, that was before the party—before we recorded them being disgusting pricks about the omega.
She was just a little speck in the crowd, politely declining Jasper Caruso’s requests to dance as Victor and Kellan talked shit about Wren.
It made my blood boil at the time, but it was all pretty standard douchey-alpha stuff.
But then…Teddy didn’t turn off his mic and camera during his smoke break.
The little omega burst into the alleyway, and I couldn’t look away.
Neither could Maverick, though he’ll never admit it.
Not even Ethan realized we were watching—he had rerouted the feed to our computers so we could observe, while he was recording from his apartment.
Pretty girls have caught my attention before, but nothing like Wren. She is beautiful, sure, but…hauntingly so.
The omega I thought was a little bird trapped in a cage, was actually a sweet, determined little thing, desperate to break out.
“Oi! Brennan! Which one of these is softer?” Teddy’s loud voice has a few shoppers startling, and I give them an apologetic glance before making my way to the newly presented alpha.
Now that we know Wren is his true scent match, it makes sense that his alpha made an appearance after she was put in danger.
“Which one?” he asks again, holding up two identical pillows. They’re both covered in little pandas, same plush fabric covering each one.
“Ted. They’re the same.” I cross my arms.
“Fuck off. They aren’t. Feel ‘em.”
Huffing a breath, I do. They feel the exact same. “They are equally soft.”
“You’re fucking useless, you are,” Teddy grumbles, adding both pillows to his nearly full cart. “She’ll hafta decide for ‘erself.”
I find myself scanning the cart for what he’s already grabbed. There’s at least six blankets, four pillows besides the ones he just threw in, three soft-lighting lamps, a white noise machine, and a rabbit stuffed animal.
“What is all this, Ted?” I sigh, running a hand through my hair. I mean, I get she needs shit, but doesn’t she want to pick any of it out herself?
“This,” Teddy says, moving the cart to the next aisle as I follow behind him, “is me courtin’ gift.
She spent ‘er whole life finkin’ she was a beta, and then she presen’ed.
Well, her parents,” he grabs a box labelled “string-lights—fifty-count bulbs”, before tossing it in the basket and grabbing five more, “never let ‘er do anyfin’ too omega.
She ‘ad to be ‘dignified’. Even when forced inta clothin’ she ‘ated and put in situations that made ‘er sick.” We go into the next aisle.
“I’ll be that safe space for ‘er. I love ‘er.
She can ‘ave as much omega shit as she wants as long as it makes ‘er ‘appy.” He pauses, sighing as if just served with a good dose of defeat.
“She can ‘ave…as many alphas as she needs, as long as she’s ‘appy.”
Well, fuck.
“I guess once everything settles down and we figure out what the fallout with her parents is going to be like, we can bring her back if she needs more stuff.” I shrug, my eyes catching on a weird-shaped pillow. “Does she like to read?”
Teddy snorts. “Oh, yeah. She’s obsessed with fan’asy books. Or roman’asy…wha’ever the fuck they call it.”
I grab the weird pillow and hold it up. It’s shaped like the letter c, with a strange, almost triangle-like shape protruding from the middle. The label reads “Nest Reading Buddy”. “I think this is meant to prop up a book or an e-reader while fitting around your waist.”
Teddy gives me an impressed look before snatching it and tossing it into the cart. “We need to see if we can find an e-reader or a book section. We dunno how long she’s gonna be stuck in bed for ‘til we get ‘er checked out by a doctor.”
I frown as we make our way to the entertainment section. “Twenty-four hours. That’s how long it usually knocks them out for.”
“Right,” Teddy concedes, going to a wall with books and grabbing ten at random. “But she clearly ‘asn’t eaten in days, and she suffered a physical al’ercation ‘fore we got there. All that is gonna affect how she recovers.” His voice is hard as he recounts all the ways that he thinks he failed her.
Teddy is usually such a little shit, it’s easy to forget how smart he is. That he had applied and been accepted into Oxford University, but declined it to come to the US.
He was a drummer in a band when he moved in with Ethan, and caught us talking one night on the phone. Corrected me, since I was apparently on speaker phone, about a compound we were using to make our own smoke-bombs.
We got to know him more, and his knowledge was surprising, to say the least. Apparently he has a photographic memory and a healthy curiosity about explosives.
He can also read people incredibly well, which is why I shouldn’t have been surprised that he deduced our true scent match status with Wren without a single word from us.
“Alright, I fink we got enuff.” Teddy eyes the now-overflowing basket proudly.
We take the cart to the check-out, the cashier only grinning as she rings up our items and grabs the online order with all the onesies. “Your total is nine-hundred eighty-seven dollars and twenty-three cents.”
Running my card through the machine to pay, I don’t worry too much about the money. I’m not loaded, but I’m comfortable, and my omega needs these.
I just wish I didn’t have to hear Teddy singing a horrible rendition of “For he’s a jolly-good simp” all the way back to the car.