Chapter 17
17
I open my eyes and smile when I see Nathan’s phone charging on my bedside table.
The battery was nearly dead, and I kept forgetting to ask Nathan if I could borrow a charger so I could call my sister. He must have brought the charger over when I was sleeping.
I poke his side. “Nathan?”
He lifts his head from the pillow and blinks blearily at me. “Peach, you broke my brain, my body, and my ability to function for the next twenty years. Please tell me you don’t want more sex. I don’t think I have it in me to give it.”
“Really?” I arch a brow.
His expression is thoughtful. “I guess I could dig out a little energy from…”
I laugh. “You have to go back to the house. I need to speak to my sister.”
He kisses me and rolls to his feet. “I’ll be back tonight.”
“Maybe try saying it without an air of expectation, Blackshaw,” I mutter, unplugging the phone from the charger as he pulls on a pair of gray sweatpants. He must have grabbed a change of clothes as well as the phone charger from the house while I was asleep. I don’t remember it being there before.
The phone hasn’t fully charged yet, but one bar should be enough for a few minutes to catch up with Martha. We’ve texted every now and again, but I miss her voice.
“I understand that you miss me and would like me to come—” He laughs as he catches the T-shirt I aim at his head.
“Thanks. I was just looking for this.” He salutes me with his shirt and heads for the door.
“You’re not putting your shirt on!” I yell after him.
He grins at me as he backs up. “You like me out of it.”
I flop onto my back, but I’m still covertly watching him because he’s right. I do like him out of his shirt.
As he pulls the door open, I sit up. “Blackshaw?”
He halts. “Peach?”
“Come back tonight. Maybe I can make us dinner.” Burn it more likely because lord knows I’m no cook. Whoever dished out those life skills skipped right over me when it came to knowing how to throw a meal together.
He grins, his expression happy and surprised. “I’ll see you tonight. You look beautiful, by the way.”
“I look like a mess.” My hair will be a bird's nest and I’m all sticky and sweaty, in desperate need of a shower. I don’t need a mirror to confirm it.
Nathan winks. “But my beautiful mess.”
“ Go ,” I order him so I won’t tell him to stay.
When Martha doesn’t answer the phone, I’m relieved and disappointed. I’d wanted to catch up with her and to talk about me and Nathan.
It’s probably a good thing I don’t talk to her about Nathan. She’ll think I’m staying, and I don’t want to disappoint or worry her when I inevitably call her a few days or weeks from now and tell her that my feet are itchy and I’m moving on.
I return the phone to the charger and get up so I can have a quick shower, brush my teeth, and make myself a cup of coffee.
I take the coffee and phone outside with me, sitting with my back to the wall as I take advantage of Nathan’s cell phone by scrolling through the contact list to call someone I hadn’t thought I’d be calling today or ever.
The phone rings three times.
“Hey, Nate!” Regan’s cheerful voice greets me. “What’s up?”
“Hey, Regan. It’s Clara. Do you have a minute?”
“Sure, I do. Give me a sec’.”
Footsteps sound across hardwood floors. A door creaks open, then clicks shut. “Okay, no one is liable to interrupt me here.”
“Jackson’s office?”
She laughs. “Uh, a closet. Nowhere else is safe. When you’re in charge, someone always needs you for something.”
I briefly smile.
“Is this about Nate?”
My fingers tighten around the phone and I blush for literally no reason. “Uh…”
She laughs. “Talis has the biggest mouth in case you didn’t know. She and the rest of my packmates have been delighted as they fill me in on you and Nathan.”
“And Martha…”
“I don’t think she knows.”
Martha hasn’t brought up Nathan once in our brief text exchanges. Mostly because she knows I’ll clam up until I’m ready to talk about it. “I see the anguish in him, and he keeps triggering my abilities,” I tell her quietly. “My omega ones.”
I immediately hold my breath as I wait for her response. She’d briefly hinted that she knew what I was, though I was very quiet about it. This is the first time I’m admitting to anyone outside of my dead pack that I’m an omega. It always seemed safer to keep quiet about what I was, especially because I don’t have a pack for protection.
“Hmm,” Regan’s tone is thoughtful. “The same thing happened with Jackson when I first met him.”
I brighten. Maybe she can help me figure this feeling out. “It did?”
“Yes. He was hurting, and I wanted him not to hurt.”
That’s it. That’s exactly how I feel when Nathan hurts.
“And did you?”
“Yes, but not in the way I thought I would.”
“Could you tell me how? Because I don’t know how to be an omega.” This is the true reason for my call. The bone deep fear I’ve had all these years.
If Mom was still alive, she could have taught me, but the only omega I know is Regan.
“You know what Jackson once said to me when I said something similar?”
I shake my head, though she can’t see me. “What?”
“You speak about yourself like you’re a defective battery. That’s what he said. I’d wanted to help Riley, who was alone and hurting, and I was afraid if I couldn’t, he would die because he had no one else in the world.”
I recall Riley, the quiet, dry humored teenager in Dawley. Although he didn’t smile often, Regan always had a way of pulling a smile out of him.
“How did you help him?”
“I was just me. Because being an omega isn’t something we do. It’s who we are. We have this incredible ability to untwist the knots in a person that only we can see.”
“But how?”
“There’s no one way, Clara. It’s how you read a person. Everyone needs something different, and only you can see what that something is. Talis told me Nathan is smiling a lot.”
I snort. “We’re sleeping together. Any guy would go around with a smile on his face when he’s having sex.”
Regan is silent for a beat. “And is that all you’re doing?”
I sip from my almost forgotten cooling coffee.
“He jokes, he laughs, but he’s distant,” Regan says when I don’t respond. “The Nathan that my packmates are telling me about is something new. If I had to guess, I’d say it went a lot further than him having sex.”
Someone yells in the background and Regan yells back, “I’m coming!” Then she says down the phone. “I better go. Jackson needs me. We have new arrivals.”
“More?” I ask, surprised.
The house was busy before Martha and I turned up nearly two months before. I hadn’t thought there was more room for new arrivals until the cabins that Jackson was looking to build were up.
“Just a couple. Not sure we have much more space left, but if anyone needs a home, we’ll do all we can to help them.”
I know.
We say our goodbyes and I hang up, setting the phone down on the ground to pick up my coffee, not ready to go back in yet.
I’m sipping my coffee, enjoying the quiet forest as the cool wind dries the damp ends of my hair, when footsteps head this way.
A beautiful, dark-haired woman appears with a grin, and I smother my disappointment that it isn’t Nathan. It’s Hallee.
“Hey, Clara! I thought it was time I came to thank the woman responsible for making my best friend so happy.”
“Best friend?”
“Nate. Mind if I join you?”
“Sure. I’m just having a coffee. Want one?”
“No need,” she interrupts, sinking to the ground beside me. “Kier is taking me to dinner in town, but I’m helping him deliver a carving to someone first, so I can’t stay.”
“A carving?” I frown.
“He’s a carpenter. If you ever want anything made, he’ll be happy to make it. Anyway, I insulted Nate before and he just grinned and waved at me.”
“You insulted him?” I blink at her.
She nods. “Everyone jokes that even if there’s nothing to argue about, we’ll find a reason, no matter how small. They don’t know that I sometimes do it on purpose.”
“You find reasons to argue with Nathan on purpose ?”
She looks away. “I worried about him a lot. All the rest of us dated, broke up, dated someone else, you know? Nathan never did. For the life and soul of a party, he sure was determined to stay single.”
I study her profile as I recall what Nathan said.
Someone hurt him. It wasn’t intentional, but it still hurt.
“Did he ever have anything with someone?” I ask, watching her closely.
She laughs. “Me.”
“ You ?”
“We kissed. It was… awkward. Like kissing my brother. He agreed it was awkward, so we just went back to being friends, relieved we both felt the same way.”
“ Hallee !” a male voice calls out from the direction of the house. “You ready to go?”
“My mate.” She scrambles to her feet and yells back, “ Coming !”
Then, waving, she takes off at a jog.
As I watch her go, I realize what must have happened.
They kissed. He felt something. She did not. And lucky for him, she told him first. I can imagine him faking a smile and agreeing it was awkward as hell, and maybe they should just agree to be friends and forget all about it.
But that isn’t how he felt. Maybe he loved her and that kiss was going to be the start of something special.
He liked her, and she didn’t like him back.
I think about that for a long time.
Then I get to my feet and go inside to rummage around in the refrigerator while I decide what I want to make Nathan for dinner.
Something fancy.
I watch Nathan closely from across the dining table. “It was Hallee, wasn’t it?”
Nathan’s face freezes and his fingers tighten around his fork.
“You fell in love and she didn’t feel the same way back. It was Hallee, wasn’t it?”
“She broke my heart,” he softly admits, all the pain right there to see in his eyes.
I put my fork down, get up and round the table, straddling Nathan. I slide my arms around his shoulders and kiss him.
He’s not smiling as he circles my waist and gently pushes me away. “I don’t want your pity, Clara.”
“This isn’t pity.” I chew on my lip as I try to put into words something I’ve been struggling with for a while now. Something monumental shifted in me a few days ago, and I haven’t wanted to face up to it until now. “When Martha and I lost our pack, nowhere ever felt like home. Martha liked to say I have feet so itchy, it’s like I stepped in poison ivy.”
He gives me a searching look. “And now?”
“I don’t want to go anywhere. I just want to be with you.”
He pulls me in for a hug. “You hungry?”
I shake my head. “Not really. I ruined dinner.”
And not only dinner. There’s an explosion behind me that I’m not ready to face up to yet. I shoved pots and pans into the oven so Nathan wouldn’t have to look at the epic mess I made. But I have to deal with that mess sooner rather than later.
I really tried, but I guess I’m just not cut out for this cooking business.
“Yeah.” He kisses my forehead. “It’s pretty fucking terrible.”
I pull back and glare at him. “But you were eating.”
He nearly cleared his plate of charred pork chops so tough it was like chewing jerky, lumpy mash, and broccoli so soft you could have cut it with a spoon.
“You cooked dinner for me, peach. I’d have eaten gravel if that’s what you served up.”
I bite the inside of my cheek to hide my smile. “You have strange ways of making a girl fall for you, Blackshaw.”
The amusement in his gaze fades. “Is that what’s happening here?”
“Maybe.”
His lip quirks as he studies me. “You blow that feeling out of the water.”
“What feeling?”
“I thought I was supposed to be with Hallee. That’s why it hurt so much, and why I struggled to move on. I thought I would never feel as strongly about anyone as I did about her. But I was wrong. I think I was always meant to be with you.”
My eyes prickle. “That isn’t what you say to a girl who just served up the worst dinner in the world. You make her swear to stay out of the kitchen in case she gives you food poisoning next time.”
“We’re shifters.” He rises from the dining table bench, lifting me easily. “I don’t have to worry about food poisoning, so I’ll survive whatever you serve up next time.”
“You make it sound like it’s going to be Armageddon.” I fake scowl as I loop my arms around his shoulders, holding on when I don’t need to. Nathan’s arms are pretty damn secure around me.
“You used up every pot, pan, and kitchen implement. If it’s not Armageddon, it’ll be pretty close to it.”
“Where are you taking me, Blackshaw?” I assumed the bed for obvious reasons, but nope,
Nathan is bypassing the bed on his way toward the couch.
“It’s going to rain later. How about we snuggle up on the couch and watch a movie?”
“Another stage in romancing Clara Vincent?” I ask as he places me on the couch and snags a check blanket he throws over the both of us.
“Nope.” He presses the TV remote into my hand. “Pick something.”
I raise my eyebrow. “After I nearly killed you with my bad cooking?”
He draws me against his side and kisses the top of my head. “After you cooked for me when you clearly hate it.”
I peek up at him through my lashes, muting my smile when he glances down at me.
As we snuggle on the couch, Nathan asks if I want popcorn.
I pause my search for the perfect movie. “I guess. Want me to make it?”
He looks down at me. “Do you know how to make popcorn?”
Can I open a bag of popcorn from the store? No question.
But can I make it?
I stare at him. “You need a pot, right?”
“I’ll make the popcorn.” He gets to his feet. “Let’s save Armageddon for another night.”
Nathan was wrong when he said this wasn’t another stage in romancing Clara Vincent. Because snuggling with him as we eat popcorn and watch a movie?
Consider me romanced.