Chapter 19
Chapter Nineteen
Hayes
“ W ell, I know Morris had the purest of intentions to come back for you.” I chuckle, patting Gracie’s bum. “But I’m guessing he passed out with your momma.”
The little lady isn’t the best conversationalist. She has fussed her head off for the last hour or two, though. She just got done with a bottle of expressed breastmilk, and as long as she doesn’t destroy another diaper, I’m planning to try to put her down after she burps.
I sway around the room, trying to settle the cranky baby. If this is what Arbor has been experiencing every night, I’m genuinely surprised she hasn’t had a breakdown.
It’s fucking complicated.
The longer I focus on it, the more I’m convinced we handled things the wrong way. That first night, we should have put Arbor in the primary suite. There’s more room up there, and it has an attached bathroom.
There’s also a nest.
Omegas don’t just nest leading up to heats. They also hunker down and build safe spaces during pregnancy, the first few months postpartum, and anytime they’re feeling especially stressed.
I mistakenly thought she would ask if she needed it. At the very least, I thought she would vocalize some interest in being able to nest, but I’m just now realizing how differently alphas and omegas approach problems.
We hyper-focused on the wrong things.
We didn’t want to come on too strongly and scare her off, since omegas are known to run, but it’s not like she has the resources to up and leave.
Now I’m wondering if she has any idea how emotionally attached we are to both of them. My system views Gracie as mine, but I haven’t had a lot of opportunities to show Arbor that.
My head hangs.
I don’t get to be possessive, then only help when Arbor is so overwhelmed that she seeks us out.
We need to be on top of things so she doesn’t have to come to us.
I want Arbor in a way I’ve never experienced. She’s more than a scent match, and it’s more than alpha and omega biology.
Every time I see her, I feel lighter.
When she smiles, my fucking chest gets warm and fuzzy.
And I intend to keep her.
It’s time to get proactive about the issue with her ex too. We’ve been overly cautious, trying to let her lead, but that’s the entire reason alphas and omegas work so well together.
Alphas handle the tough calls that omegas are too soft to make. In return, omegas keep us from going feral, and having them around softens our edges. Well, except in protection of said omega.
There’s not much I wouldn’t do to keep Arbor and Gracie safe, and I have no problem being vicious when the need arises.
Mine and Hael’s older half brother runs a security company down in Vermont. When we were growing up, our parents called him J.R., mostly because he hated his name of Jacob Ryan. Once he moved out, he started going by Easton, which is our last name.
I briefly considered going to work with him at Shadow Security once I got out of the military, but truth be told, I couldn’t stomach the thought of more death.
I was also a little worried that if I wasn’t careful, I’d end up like Easton. It’s not an insult necessarily, but he’s cold and detached in a way I don’t ever want to become.
It’s past midnight by the time I get Gracie settled, and I still don’t hesitate to call.
Easton answers on the third ring. “What?”
“I need your help.”
“Is Hael okay?” he asks, and there’s rustling in the background. “Is he strung out again? For the love of God, tell me he didn’t fuck someone’s wife.”
“Jesus Christ, you are such a fucking dick,” I mutter, swiping a hand over my face. “No and no. He’s fine. You know he was never a full-blown addict; I hate it when you say that shit.”
“Why are you calling me?”
I take a deep breath and exhale it slowly.
Owing Easton isn’t something I prefer to do, mostly because he’s vindictive as hell, but he’s also my brother. At the end of the day, he would never do anything to hurt our mother.
“Hael and I met someone. She was nine months pregnant and running from her abusive ex. I delivered her baby in a snowstorm?—”
“I’m sorry, perhaps I asked about the wrong brother. Are you high, Hayes?”
I growl, shaking my head. “No one is on drugs. Listen to what I’m saying!”
“Go on,” Easton says in that bored, disinterested tone he always uses. “Not you, you get your sexy little ass back in bed.”
I frown until I faintly hear a woman’s voice in the background. “I need your help. If I send you a name and city, can you dig up information on her ex?”
“Just put a bullet in his brain and bury him in a snowbank,” Easton says drolly. “This is why I always recommend living near a large body of water. It greatly speeds up decay, and wildlife does half the job for you, at least in temperate?—”
“I’m fucking serious, Easton,” I growl, freezing when Gracie starts to fuss again. “Motherfucker, I woke up the baby.” I stride down the hallway, into Arbor’s room, and scoop up the now-awake Gracie.
“Oh, you weren’t joking. Does Mom know?” he asks, sounding strangely chipper.
“Not yet,” I grind out, rocking Gracie in my forearm. Holding the phone to my ear with my shoulder, I bend over, scooping up her pacifier and popping it into her mouth. “I didn’t want to get her hopes up until I knew Arbor wouldn’t try to run. The baby isn’t biologically ours, and you know how Mom is. She’s going to try to fly up here the moment she hears. Arbor is skittish. Are you going to help or not?”
“Text me any information you have on him in the morning, and I’ll have something for you in a day or two,” Easton says. There’s some mumbling in the background that sounds feminine. He sighs. “And send me your address. Briar has decided she’ll be taking my credit card tomorrow to buy you a care package. Goodbye.” With that, he hangs up.
I snort, shoving my phone into my back pocket. “See, Gracie Girl. I told you, we’re going to take care of you and your momma.” I’m not sure who called her that first, but it’s become a nickname among the three of us.
“Where’s Arbor?” Hael asks from the doorway.
I spin around, quirking an eyebrow. “Maybe try not staying out half the night and you’d know.”
He raises a tattooed hand, flipping me off. “Fuck you. I signed a three-bike deal that, if I play my cards right, will more than cover Arbor’s hospital stay, but the guy wouldn’t shut the fuck up. I’m beat. Seriously, where is she?”
“She’s with Morris in the pack bedroom. Change and come back. It seems like we’re on baby duty tonight, and Gracie is fussier than I’ve ever seen her.”
Hael glances down the hallway and back into the bedroom. “Is Arbor okay?”
I sigh and shrug. “I hope so, but I’ll fill you in when you get back. We need to make some changes in how we’ve been handling things.”
The next morning, Morris has me take Arbor to her old cabin to collect the rest of her things. There isn’t much, so it doesn’t take long. I carefully pump her for information on her ex, but I still don’t have a last name by the end of our conversation. What I do have is all of Arbor’s information, and considering she lived with him, I don’t foresee Easton’s tech guy having any trouble linking them together.
We head to the gym after, so I can handle the one training session for the day that I can’t get out of. I only have four employees, but I’ve been counting on them more than ever lately. They’re opening and closing regularly without me, which is fine. They’re capable personal trainers with their own clients, and I’m happier only going in for necessary things, like training and payroll. If I could afford to cut back on my training clients, I would do it in a heartbeat, but babies are expensive.
Arbor seems happy to be out of the house, and Gracie snoozes in her stroller as I walk through the paperwork I mentioned Arbor could work on while I’m busy.
“Okay, I take the total amount they owe you.” She points at the invoice total. “Then subtract anything written in the margin and/or highlighted in green because that’s already been paid.”
“Yeah,” I agree, leaning around the back of her chair. “Then just note the balance somewhere here on the bottom and list the date next to it, so I know it’s recent.”
“I’ll handle it, but I swear there has to be some better way to keep records moving forward.”
“Probably,” I admit, laughing.
I wouldn’t mind if she wanted to take over completely and come up with her own system. I enjoy the physical aspect of owning the gym, but the admin side is stuff I’m forced to do to keep the doors open.
Her head tilts as she smiles.
It puts our faces close since I’m still stretched around the chair. She looks so much healthier today; just from a single good night’s sleep, the dark circles under her eyes have lessened. Not to mention the impact it’s had on her overall demeanor.
That electric scent of hers sits heavy in the air, tinged with cherry blossoms. It hits my nose all at once, and my nostrils flare. Everything in me aches to kiss her, but I’m not sure she’d be open to that.
Arbor licks her lips and pats my arm. “I think you’re about to be late. It’s three minutes to eleven, and you mentioned that you need to change.”
“Shit, yeah, I better go.” I shake away the haze that was creeping in and step back to pull off my jacket. Tossing it onto the filing cabinet, I head for the door. “If you need me, I’ll be out in the ring. Other than that, you know where the bathroom is. If you get bored in here, you can head out and explore, but it’s not much.”
Jesus.
Way to ramble things I’ve already said.
When she smiles and waves, I finally force myself out of my office. I very nearly set her up at the check-in desk, but I didn’t like the idea of all the guys trying to flirt with her as they were coming and going.
Time to knock out this hour session so I can take the rest of the day off.
My focus is shit once Arbor makes her way out of the office. She rocks around the gym with Gracie and even sits behind the welcome desk for a while. I spend three or four days a week with most of these guys.
Hell, sometimes more.
I would consider most of them friends.
Dax misses the pad completely and clips me in the chin, all because I can’t take my eyes off Arbor. She’s across the gym, talking to Ray and Matt. Ray is a regular, and Matt is one of my employees. He’s also worse than Hael used to be. If there’s a woman within five miles of his general proximity who’s single, he finds her, then he proceeds to woo her with his easy smiles, California accent, and promises of free Pilates lessons.
That motherfucker doesn’t even do Pilates.
He sure must want my fist introduced to his face. There’s no other reason for why he’s holding my baby and smirking at my woman that way.
“Ahh, man, I wondered what was up,” Dax says, pulling off his wraps. “You’re so fucked.”
I snort, tossing the pads in the corner of the ring. “Not even close, but I am about to fuck him up if he doesn’t take several large steps back.”
Dax continues to chuckle. “ So incredibly fucked . She is pretty, though. Not sure I could wrap my head around taking on someone else’s kid, but if the mom looked like that…” He shrugs. “I’d put in some effort to at least try .”
I flip him off and climb through the ropes.
It takes everything in me not to stomp across the room and lay Matt out. Instead, I roll my shoulders back and swagger over, faking the look I’ve seen Hael give Arbor. It’s some combination of a lazy smile and natural confidence that always earns a smile from the little omega.
I make it to her side, toss my arm around her shoulder, and nod at Matt and Ray before focusing on Arbor. “Ready to grab some lunch?”
“Yeah,” she agrees, nodding. “I’m starving.”