Chapter 28
The party wasn’t anything like I’d imagined at all. I’d had fun, so much fun. Ell had made a spicy plantain and rice dish—seriously, those three were fancy when it came to food—and there’d been enough coffee cake for breakfast the next morning too.
I kind of settled into a routine after that day. I’d always been pretty disciplined when it came to my work, but I’d mostly been alone at my place, and for the past couple of years, I’d fitted my schedule entirely around Steven’s.
Here, people fit their schedule around me. Or rather, everyone arranged their schedules to work together.
Ell had his shifts, usually the early ones, but he said he did later ones too sometimes.
Dom was totally flexible and made sure not to do noisy stuff when I was lounging on the couch with my laptop.
Linc stuck to his office most of the time, which was kind of nice as he had extra room and didn’t mind me doing the training with Naja there.
It was also a good place for quiet coworking, and despite me thinking otherwise at first, he didn’t try to distract me with lovey-dovey stuff at all.
Something about the new job was definitely tiring me out though.
Pretty much after the first day, I found myself gravitating to the couch or the cuddle puddle to take breaks.
In fact, I’d started napping. It was embarrassing.
It made me feel old. I was totally blaming the damn fresh air.
It didn’t help that Dom had picked up on me turning into a sleepy ass fast, and he got me snacks and tea ready as soon as my naps were over.
Really, it was so embarrassing.
On top of that, while there was still another week or so to go, my vacation was coming to an end. Once it was over, I’d have to make a decision about whether I wanted to stay here.
I’d been staring at my laptop while working in Linc’s office for a good ten minutes thinking about that. The words wouldn’t come as I went round and round in my head about…about leaving.
Did I want to leave? My plans for not running headfirst into a new relationship felt stale and half-forgotten, like a New Year’s resolution in July.
Linc, Dom, and Ell made everything simple.
They talked stuff through, they said nice things, and they were clearly in touch with their emotions, hugging and touching each other as much as they hugged and touched me.
They had no moods that made me feel like I had to walk on eggshells around them.
All of that was refreshing. Going back to my apartment by myself was unappealing in comparison.
The apartment was cold and dark. Not literally—I had functioning lights and central heating.
Also a new security lock now. But in my imagination, this little place out in the middle of nowhere was like a hearth, warm and inviting me to come in from the cold and lonely outside.
My apartment, the place that should’ve been home, had become distant and full of memories of a relationship that had led nowhere.
I bit my nail. Was it really going to be as easy as saying I’d stay? Or was this like going on a beach vacation where everything was lights and fun, only to discover after moving to that place that living there was pretty much as difficult as life anywhere else?
Not to mention, what was I going to do about the polycule situation?
Interestingly, no one had ever pressured me into sex. It was almost the opposite. Everyone was casually intimate with each other—with me as much as each other—and that was just so new to me.
I made the swivel chair roll almost into the trash bin next to the desk when a hand landed on my shoulder.
Linc made a surprised noise. “Sorry, honey. I talked to you, but you were zoned out. Is everything okay?”
“Yes, totally.” I looked around, hoping to find an excuse on my screen, but I’d not gotten anything done. “I just, uh…”
Linc had this really kind, annoyingly pretty smile. “Want to take a break? An early nap can’t hurt.”
I gave him a flat look. It was hard to hide my newfound napping problem from them, true. It hadn’t helped that I’d accidentally done it right on the couch downstairs a few too many times, all out in the open where anyone could see.
Perhaps it was time to give coffee a try.
“I don’t nap,” I said.
Linc’s eyes twinkled. “Right. Sorry. But how about taking a break anyway? You’ve been doing a lot. You can take a break.”
I scrambled out of my chair. “Well, you’re the boss.”
“I try to be good at that. Want some tea? Or some of the walnut coffee cake Dom made?”
That was another thing. Dom had made the in-law’s recipe a few times, then decided he was ready to put his own spin on it. I really liked the nuts, but he’d made a lemon poppy one the other day, and that had been to-die-for.
“No, that’s okay. I’ll just take a quick break, and then I’ll be right back and finish up, okay?”
Linc brushed his knuckles against my cheek. “Sure. Don’t feel rushed, hmm?”
I nodded and hurried out of the office to avoid embarrassing myself any further.
Out in the hallway, I started toward the stairs but…
almost as if on autopilot, I headed toward Linc’s bedroom instead.
I’d basically moved in there. Or maybe that was a poor choice of words.
I slept in there. They all did. I didn’t know if it was because of me or something else, but to date I had yet to see Dom or Ell use their bedrooms for sleeping.
At any rate, I felt pulled that way, and I followed the pull stopping at Dom’s room on the way. He’d changed into painting clothes earlier to give the deck its second coat, and his normal shirt was on his bed.
I had no idea what drove me to do it, but I went in there and grabbed that shirt.
It wasn’t flannel, just a regular T-shirt, but that barely registered.
I’d only gotten brief glimpses of Ell’s room, and the door stood open to the neatly organized space.
For a moment, I wanted to stop and hole up in there instead, but I managed to resist that urge.
In Linc’s room, I looked around for something instead of lying down like the good little napper I didn’t want to be.
I had no idea what I was even looking for, except when I spotted the sweatpants Linc had slept in on the dresser in the corner, I grabbed those too, and with the stolen shirt and pants, I finally dropped on the comforter, gathering both garments in my arms.
They sort of smelled like Dom and Linc, but I was missing Ell.
I could imagine him on the pillow next to me, big and warm and protective.
It was upsetting me a lot right then that he wasn’t here.
That was probably on account of the stress thinking about leaving here had induced.
That alone should probably tell me a good deal about how I really felt about leaving, but staying here went against all reason.
It went against everything I’d learned it took to be a grown person.
Also, if I stayed, they would probably want to bite me at some point. It hadn’t come up again, but if it was really part and parcel of being their mate, then they probably expected it. Like how people expected certain things once they got married and moved in together.
That launched another spiral. Was me moving in here like that? Aside from the legal stuff, would they think of me like a spouse? There had been comments about them being family to each other. They certainly acted like it.
I sighed. Family. I could almost trick myself into no longer remembering what it was like to have one.
I’d considered reaching out to my parents a few times over the years to see if maybe they could be okay with me not being as high achieving as they’d wanted me to be after all, but I honestly didn’t think that would lead anywhere good.
But Dom, Linc, and Ell? Thinking of them as family was easy. Really easy.
I squeezed my eyes closed. Maybe a nap would help with all the thinking.
There was always a chance I’d dream of something nice.
The other day when I’d napped in the cuddle puddle, I’d had this vivid dream about finding a goldfish in a pond and catching him in the cup of my hands.
He’d been speckled black and red and white, and he’d looked up at me through the water with big round goldfish eyes. I’d woken feeling all warm and fuzzy.
Drifting off was easy, and before long, I was asleep.
I had no idea how long I was asleep for, but I was woken by a weight making the mattress dip, and then a large canine face right in mine when I opened my eyes.
Big golden-brown eyes looked at me, but this didn’t seem to have anything to do with soul gazing. Dom was sniffing me.
“Hey, what’s up? I showered. Come on, this is borderline rude.”
I shoved at his big head halfheartedly, but he was sniffing along my neck, then all over my chest. Luckily, he didn’t seem to have noticed that I had stolen some of his clothes.
He started sniffing my belly and crotch area too though.
“Dude, if you think this is foreplay—”
But before I could even finish the sentence, he raised his head, looked me right in the eyes, and ran off.
“Okay, rude again.” I wiped the sleep out of my eyes.
I checked to see where he’d gone, and it looked like he’d dashed into Linc’s office. Huh. Was I still dreaming?
I was still wiping at my eyes when Linc came out of his office and all but jogged into the room, eyes wide. Dom was still a wolf.
“Did I do something wrong?” My grogginess shifted to annoyance. “If it’s about the clothes, I don’t know what came over me, okay? You can take them back.”
Linc stared at the rumpled clothes I was holding out to him.
“You…took those to sleep with?”
I shrugged. “I mean, it sounds weird when you put it like that. I’m gonna say no. No sounds like the right answer.”
His mouth ticked up in one corner, but his eyes were still pretty wide. Was he sniffing the air? Okay, he was sniffing the air.
“Why’re you acting like I ate garlic and you didn’t?”