Chapter 21
Percy
Mable
It’s late, I’m tired, so tell me why all I can think about is sour candy?
Mable
I don’t even like sour candy!
Percy
Maybe the baby is a big fan of sour candy?
Mable
Well, someone needs to tell the baby that cravings are only allowed between the hours of 10am and 4pm, when I can easily get to a store!
Percy
How rude of them!
Ityped that last message as I was putting on my shoes and grabbing the keys to one of the cars. We owned two cars that were considered pack cars, not anyone’s sole property.
“Hey, Bear,” I said as I entered the lobby.
Our security guard was relaxing behind the counter with the building’s concierge, reading a newspaper.
“You want to go out?” he asked with a frown. “I assumed you would be dead to the world after that game. You did good.”
I nodded. We had won, but it had been a close one. When I came off the ice, my legs had been like jelly. “Thank you. I’m just going to swing by the grocery store, then go over to Mable’s. I’m going to drive myself. No need for security.”
Bear raised his eyebrow. “Isn’t it my job to decide that?”
I pouted at the security guard. “Come on, we both know I’m not the pretty face of our pack. It’s Saint who attracts all the crazies.”
Bear nodded. “I’m not even going to disagree with that.” He sighed. “Your location on?”
I waved my phone in the air. “Yep.”
In the past, when I had gone on a late-night grocery run, usually for study snacks, I would take one of the security guys with me.
They were good company, but I doubted Mable would feel the same.
I was the pack mate with the least security risk, so if I wanted to, I could forgo security entirely unless I was at a game with my pack.
With security notified, I got back in the elevator to go down to the parking garage. The small market on campus wouldn’t have enough choices, so I drove twenty minutes away to the mega-store that had a large variety of candy.
Once there, I was in and out in ten minutes, grabbing everything she could possibly need. Pulling out of the parking lot, I smiled to myself.
By the time I was standing outside of her door and knocking, less than an hour had passed since she sent her message, mentioning her craving.
The door swung open, and Mable’s face morphed into one of surprise. “Percy?” she asked as a wave of sweet maple hit me. So sweet, feminine and utterly her.
“I bring sour candy!” I said, holding up the grocery bag.
Mable was wearing a pajama set that consisted of shorts and a T-shirt that were pale blue with little clouds all over them. Her hair was mussed, her eyes heavy with sleep.
She was adorable.
“C-come in.” She opened the door wider.
“I got sour worms, Skittles, and these watermelon gummies I’ve tried before and liked,” I said as I followed her in, placing the bag on her small kitchen counter and pulling out the bags of candy.
She gaped at me. “I don’t think any alpha has ever been so handsome!”
“I also got you a few other things I thought looked good,” I said.
Mable hovered by my shoulder, watching excitedly as I took out some electrolyte drinks, chocolate, and extra candies.
“This is too much… but thank you,” she said sweetly as she took the bag of watermelon bites from me, ripping into it excitedly.
Her pleasure was everything.
The happy moan that escaped her lips at the first bite was music to my ears.
“Oh my word—I cannot thank you enough for this. You totally didn’t have to, but I appreciate it so much.”
“I’m here to serve,” I said, wrapping my arm around her in a loose side embrace so she could continue eating her candy gleefully.
“I don’t even like sour candy—actually, I usually hate the stuff! I much prefer sweet treats.” As she spoke, she held up one of the little candy watermelons to me, and I accepted it.
“Don’t worry, we will keep you stocked with all varieties of treats. Sour, sweet, gummy, chocolate, salty… I think that covers all the bases.”
“You’re talking downright filthy now.” She giggled around a mouthful of candy.
A smile bloomed across my face. “I’ll remember that, candy talk is the way to woo you.”
Mable sat on the edge of her nest, crossing her legs, chewing happily. “You can sit down if you want,” she said, gesturing to the nest next to her. There wasn’t exactly any seating in her tiny dorm, other than at the desk chair in the far corner, so offering to let me sit on the nest made sense.
Still, it felt oddly intimate, considering the things we had done in that very nest a few months ago.
“Do you have class in the morning?” I asked as I took a seat. It was getting late, and given her pregnancy, she needed all the rest she could get.
She nodded sleepily. “I don’t, given it’s a Saturday tomorrow. You?”
“I’m free to sleep in all I want.”
Mable cocked her head to the side. “What’s it like being a hockey player? Saint told me a little about it, but I don’t really know much about your job. Do you just play at the rink? Do you travel? What does it all entail?”
The fact that she wanted to know more about my job made me inexplicably happy.
“Well, we typically train five days a week in the off-season, like we are now. Sometimes that training is on the ice, sometimes it’s in the gym.
We have several games per week during the season, which is typically between the months of October and April, although there are always outliers and exhibitions. ”
“So, you’re doing a degree at the same time as the hockey season runs?”
“Yeah, it probably wasn’t the smartest move on my part, but I really wanted to have a backup career.”
She tilted her head to the side. “How come?”
“I have a family member who was a player. He injured himself in his early twenties, and after that, he was totally directionless. He never found something he enjoyed after the accident and never really settled into another career. Professional athletes don’t have the longest shelf life, and while we’re being smart and investing our money so that we’re set up for life, I still want a career, a purpose to fall back on. ”
“That’s really smart—and you’re the only one studying?”
I shook my head. “Saint and Jasper take a few online classes. The university offers them for free because of who we are. Devin has his hands full managing our careers. I think Jasper wants to look at coaching kids.”
Mable snorted lightly. “That would suit Jasper, considering he’s a giant kid himself.”
“You’ve got him pegged. However, Saint is also a child himself. During our last team skate, he practically kidnapped the daughter of our team doctor and spent the entire time racing her on the ice. Joey loved it.”
“Joey? As in Joey Noble?”
I frowned. How did she know her name? “Yeah?”
“That’s Bethany’s stepdaughter!”
I racked my brain to remember the last team skate, and Jensen had, in fact, brought Bethany to meet the team. She was pregnant and they were blissfully happy. “Yeah, they bonded last year, didn’t they?”
Mable nodded. “Before she started babysitting Joey and bonded with her pack, she used to work at the same coffee shop as me.”
“Small world.” That little bit of information pleased me more than I thought it would, because it meant that when we took Mable around the team, she would have a friend.
Most of the wives and girlfriends were wonderful and friendly with each other, but having someone she knew from before meeting us would probably be a bit more comforting, considering how shy she was.
A yawn escaped her, pulling me out of my train of thought.
“I can leave if you want to sleep,” I said. She was swaying slightly, clearly exhausted.
“No… stay,” she said, nestling down into her blankets.
Mentally, I was already thinking about what kind of nesting materials she would like at our home.
Her nest in the dorm was an explosion of pastels–would she want the same at our place?
Hopefully, she would be spending more and more time at the penthouse as her pregnancy progressed, and I wanted her to be as comfortable as possible.
Jasper would probably want to take her to a nesting store and buy out the entire shop just to spoil her. But our Mable was stubborn, and I got the impression that it would be a while before she felt comfortable with that.
Until then, I would make our home as welcoming as possible for her.
We had a shocking lack of blankets at the penthouse, so the first thing on my list was a large, fluffy throw for the sofa. Of course, I would be the best heat source, but sadly, I couldn’t stick to her side like glue.
“The doctor mentioned… It’s kind of embarrassing, really,” she muttered sleepily.
“What is?”
She huffed softly, looking up at me. “Omegas who are pregnant need physical touch—cuddles with alphas. It helps reduce how sick they are. It has something to do with evolution, and it sucks.”
Did that mean she needed my touch?
A smile graced my face as I lay back in her nest, pulling her into my arms so she was half resting on my chest. “I’m happy to provide cuddles whenever you need them. I’m pretty sure the others will as well.”
As I spoke, she melted into my embrace.
Her nest and the omega herself made for a very comfortable environment. Within a few minutes, she was snoring lightly, and I could feel my eyelids getting heavy.
With one hand wrapped around her, resting on her little bump, I grabbed my phone with the other and snapped a quick photo of her snoozing on my chest.
Percy
I brought Mable some candy she was craving, and she mentioned that omegas need snuggles while pregnant because of their hormones. So guess which lucky idiot is getting omega cuddles?
Jasper
No fair!
Saint
Lucky shit.
Devin
A quick look on the Internet, and it seems that being deprived of alpha presence during pregnancy is actually quite bad for pregnant omegas. We need to make sure she’s in physical contact with us regularly.
Jasper
I can make a snuggle schedule. That way, one of us is always around for her cuddling needs!
Saint
No way. You’ll give yourself all the time slots and leave no cuddles for the rest of us.
Jasper
I’m just so much more snuggly than you guys…
Devin
Should I let the security team know that you’re probably not going to be back tonight?
Percy
I think that’s for the best.
Silencing my phone one-handed, I threw it across the nest and returned to focusing on the sweet woman curled up in my arms.