Harlan #3
There are blankets draped all over the living room, mostly across the worn sofa where Cassidy likes to nest, their edges trailing onto the rug.
A basket of clean washing sits untouched at the bottom of the stairs, containing blankets from the nesting room.
Someone’s hoodie is hanging over the sitting-room door, and multiple pairs of shoes litter the hallway.
I continue downstairs and go into the living room rather than following the voices to the kitchen.
It doesn’t just smell like me anymore. Harlan’s honeyed citrus clings to the hoodie on the door, Evander’s coffee and dark chocolate linger near the kitchen, Isaac’s caramel hangs around the stairs, and beneath it all is Cassidy.
It smells like all of us.
The bookshelf along the wall that was half-empty is now pretty full. I have no idea when this happened, but little pieces of my pack have migrated here.
It should bother me.
It doesn’t.
I move through to the kitchen and stop in the wide doorway, one shoulder resting against the frame as I take in what each of them is doing.
Harlan’s on a work call at the dining table, his laptop open and the sleeves of yesterday’s shirt pushed to his forearms, sounding every inch the terrifying director again.
“No, move the meeting to Monday after Christmas.” He’s got his headphones in so I can’t hear who is on the other side of the line, but he shakes his head. “No. Tell legal we’ll review that tomorrow.”
You’d never know he spent the last week sleeping in a nest fucking his mate over and over.
And over again.
Evander’s standing over the hob, broad shoulders filling the space between the counter and cooker as he hums to himself, while Isaac leans beside him and reads instructions from a recipe on his phone.
“That’s not what it says,” Evander says, snatching the phone.
“It’s what it means,” Isaac mutters.
“It literally says medium heat,” Evander snaps. “You were going to ruin our breakfast. Stop making edits to the fucking recipe.”
Isaac flips him off before catching sight of me.
“Morning,” he says with a grin. “Coffee?”
“I’ll grab it,” I tell him. “You guys been up long?”
Isaac shakes his head. “Half an hour or so. Cassie’s still out, though.”
A sleepy voice drifts in from the hallway, and I glance over my shoulder as Cassidy appears in the doorway, blanket trailing behind her.
“No, I’m awake,” she says through a yawn. “Morning.”
It’s not directed at anyone, and the ease of it makes me smile.
How comfortable they all are.
We never actually talked about moving in together.
Not properly.
But I think… I think we’re all already there.
“Morning, little daisy. Breakfast will be done in twenty,” Evander says, blowing her a kiss. “Want some tea? Si’s making a coffee.”
“Um, please.”
She sounds half asleep and instinctively reaches towards Isaac before she even realises she’s stumbled. Isaac catches her beneath the arms, lifting her onto the bench instead, and she immediately nuzzles into the scent gland beneath his jaw with a sleepy sigh.
For months, she’d acted like she had to earn every inch of this place.
Now?
She’s happily accepting food and tea without feeling guilty. She’s not upset that it’s nearly lunch time, and she’s still in pyjamas—pyjamas that aren’t even hers—wrapped in a blanket.
She isn’t helping us, or fixing a problem. She’s not trying to earn her place.
She’s just… here.
A grin creeps across my face before I can stop it. I fucking love my life.
My pack.
My mate.
A spoon flies across the room and smacks me square in the chest.
I gasp, glaring at Evander, who shrugs and gestures to the whistling kettle.
“Make your drink and get out of my way,” he says with a shrug. “You’re lucky it wasn’t a knife.”
I roll my eyes, the smile firmly in place.
Once I’ve made Cassidy’s tea for her, Isaac gets her settled at the island, and I take my coffee over too.
I grab my tablet from the middle of the table, opening up my crossword app. It’s a Sunday, I deserve to take it easy.
I fill in the answers and drink my coffee while watching my pack move around one another without thinking.
Nobody asks where anything is or complains about another being in their way.
Harlan finishes his call, grabbing a mug from the cupboard without even looking.
Isaac opens the cutlery drawer with his hip while he’s still reading whatever recipe he and Evander are butchering.
Cassidy steals a strawberry from the punnet on the side, catches me watching and sheepishly offers me one too.
I take it. Not because I particularly want a strawberry, but because she’s offered.
When did this happen?
The thought hits me so suddenly that I laugh.
“What?” Evander asks suspiciously.
I shake my head. “Nothing.”
“Well it’s clearly something,” my brother says, raising a brow.
I look around at them all and blurt it out. “Are you all moving in?”
Cassidy freezes halfway through biting into her strawberry, the juices dripping down her chin.
“Um…”
“I don’t remember agreeing to any of this,” I continue, struggling to keep a straight face.
“There’s your work.” I point at Isaac’s pile of folders.
“Your coffee.” I nod at Harlan’s ridiculously expensive beans that he has imported from somewhere.
“Your food.” Evander snorts around a mouthful. “And somehow every blanket in the house now belongs to Cassidy.”
“They do not,” she protests weakly, hugging one a little closer.
“They absolutely do,” Harlan says without looking up from his laptop.
“No, there’s that really uncomfortable one that anyone can use,” she says before gasping in horror.
We all laugh, but she covers her mouth as if she said something wrong.
Evander grins. “I thought that the plan was to move in, not going to lie.”
“So did I,” Isaac agrees with a shrug. “I’ve already cancelled the grocery delivery to the flat Ev and I share. It’s been redirected here.”
I blink. “You what?”
“It made more sense sending it here,” he repeats.
Harlan coughs lightly, and I raise a brow at him.
“I put my place on the market before Cassidy’s heat,” he admits.
The kitchen falls silent apart from the faint bubbling of Evander’s porridge, and I don’t know who is most surprised.
“You what?” Cassidy squeaks. “You… you…”
He smirks at her. “This is where you feel most comfortable, little luxury. We’re a pack—I want to be where you are.”
“Wow, clearly we didn’t do enough, Isaac,” Evander says with a laugh.
“It seemed efficient.”
I bark out a laugh. Only Harlan would treat permanently moving in with his pack like a diary entry he’d forgotten to mention.
Cassidy shakes her head, smiling into her mug. “I… I suppose I could tell my parents, if that’s what… if we want to…”
“I wasn’t upset about it, little moon,” I say with a smile. “It’s the most amazing thing in the world. Please do. I’ll help you move.”
“We all will,” Evander interjects.
We settle around the island as Evander serves some kind of porridge that should probably come with a warning label. Spoons scrape against bowls while Cassidy tucks her blanket around her feet.
Home hadn’t arrived with some grand decision or dramatic declaration. It had arrived one familiar scent at a time.
Mug of coffee by mug of coffee. Blanket by blanket. Morning by ordinary morning, until one day this just… became home.
My entire life I thought I’d never earn a pack, and yet, I did.
We all did.