38. Greer
greer
“He worked hard on this, okay? Let him have his moment,” Lain says, and Callum sits there in a confused state as I connect my laptop to the television.
“This all feels very corporate,” Callum says.
Maisie, who’s squished between the two Alphas, wearing one of my shirts, smiles.
“I love a presentation,” she says, and I give Callum a look that says I told you so.
“Now, keep in mind I made this before the whole scent match and spontaneous heat thing.” Frankly, finding out she was my scent match altered my whole life.
I don’t care that she didn’t tell us right away.
I get why she did what she did. Maisie isn’t impulsive, and she needed all the information.
As soon as she knew we were all her scent matches, she did what she thought was best.
“We’ve already cleaned out the spare bedroom. That is your own private space to do with whatever you like along with the nest. However you’d like to decorate or change it, we’re here to make it happen,” I tell her, and her cheeks pink when I mention the nest.
“Maybe let’s make a no fire in the nest rule,” Lain adds helpfully, and Callum reaches over Maisie and smacks him on the thigh. “What? That’s actually a pretty solid rule. This house is like old as fuck.”
“As insensitive as that rule may be it actually isn’t a bad one,” I say, and I’m looking at Maisie.
“Why are you looking at me? Callum is the one who lit that disgusting eye mask on fire,” she says.
This has Lain peppering kisses against the side of her head.
“In the moment it was really scary when you were throwing shit, but now that we’re past it, it was kind of a turn on,” Lain says.
“Shut the fuck up, Lain,” Callum says and I pinch the bridge of my nose.
“We’ll make a list of nest expectations with Maisie’s approval. Now, can I move on to slide two?”
“It’s your presentation,” Callum says.
Lord give me fucking strength.
“Slide two is all about finding what would fulfill you in Scotland. We support you in whatever endeavor you choose. If you don’t want to work”—Maisie makes a distasteful noise—“right. That’s what I thought.
We want you to be happy and whatever that looks like in your career, we’re here to support you. ”
“But you wouldn’t want to work in London, right?” Callum asks, and I almost completely forgot about her job offer.
“No. I want to stay here. I’m not 100 percent sure what I want to do, but I have some ideas, most of them involve the Heather Beag for now.”
That has all of us puffing up with pride. If she really wanted to work somewhere else, do anything, we would support her without hesitation. But the idea of her working out of town, not sleeping in the same bed as me night after night, makes my stomach hurt.
“Slide three is all about getting your sister to stay and what it would be like if you were both to live here. And about how close knit the community is and how well you already fit in.”
“We’ll need to have a talk with Alan about how friendly he’s being,” Callum chimes in, and this has Maisie biting her lip and turning to him.
“Are you really jealous of Alan?”
“Jealous, no. Annoyed by the old bastard, yes,” Callum tells her and Maisie shakes her head.
“None of you have anything to worry about. I think a pack of four is way more than enough. I’m not interested in adding anyone else. I mean, my heat was manageable, right?” she asks.
“You do not need another Alpha,” I say sternly, and I’m not even mad she baited me into the question.
“Or Beta,” Callum adds in.
“I’m too needy for you to add anyone else,” Lain says, and she rests her head on his shoulder.
“Moving on. The next slide is…Fergus,” I say, looking at Lain, who clearly added the dog into the slide show. I knew I shouldn’t have given him editing access.
“Do you think he’ll accept me as his new mommy?” Maisie asks Lain, and he blinks at her. Meanwhile, I’m adjusting where I stand because the thought of Maisie being a mother is like a whole new realization for me.
“Aye. In fact, I think the sly dog knew you were our scent match all along. I’ll have to ask him about it when he gets home from his grandparents’ getaway.”
“I didn’t have time to put together much else, but the last slide is for questions, which I think we all have a lot of after the past five days,” I say, and Maisie’s lips part in an O.
“It was five days?” she questions, her phone still on the charger.
“Best way to spend a week, honestly,” Lain says.
“Well. Where do we even start? There’s so much we don’t know about one another and what are pack expectations?
How soon do we want to bond? What’s everyone’s position on children?
Do we need a sleep schedule? Is there a chore chart?
Who usually feeds Fergus? Is there a specific day of the week we want to set aside as a pack day and other days scheduled so everyone gets equal attention? ”
Maisie blinks at me after she tosses all those questions at me. Callum and Lain are also unhelpfully quiet as they turn to me, too. I rub the back of my neck and list out her questions in my head so I can give her every answer she needs.
Would it be too much to tell her that I’d always envisioned myself with children but never considered it with anyone else before? That the thought of getting her pregnant actually excites me? No, that’s too much for the moment. Let’s start small.
“As for bonding, I’m pretty sure we would all bond you right here and now, so the bonding pace is in your court.
We would like children, but we understand we’re a few years older than you and that you might not be ready for this anytime soon.
If you think a schedule for all of those things would ease your concerns, it’s definitely something we can do.
And we do not have a chore chart, since we are all pretty clean.
Lain takes care of Fergus,” I speak quickly, hoping I answered all her questions but not knowing if they were sufficient.
Maisie takes in all my words, processing them in her pretty head before speaking.
“I think I don’t want to wait on the bonding part. I hadn’t really considered children to be honest, so I’d like time to think about that. Would that be a deal breaker?” she asks, biting on her nail, looking at me for the answers.
“No, you’re our scent match and it’s your body and your life.
You can take as much time as you need to think about it, and we’ll respect your decision,” I say, which has Lain and Callum both nodding in agreement.
I think Callum was on the fence about kids along with Lain.
Out of the three of us, I was probably the most enthusiastic about the idea of becoming a father, but I could also see myself without children.
Either way we would be a happy pack.
“I’ll work on a schedule of things next week. We’ll have to get my things from Chicago, including my digital calendar so everyone always knows what’s going on, who’s working, all of that good stuff,” she says excitedly. “Should I keep my plane ticket for the end of the month to go get my things?”
“You won’t be traveling there alone,” I say, maybe too quickly.
I expect some pushback, but don’t get it. Maisie just gives me a small smile of agreement.
“We’ll all look at our work schedules and one of us will come with you to collect your things.”
Maisie yawns, and I realize that all of this is enough for now. All the big stuff is out of the way. The rest can wait.
Lain’s phone keeps going off and he curses. “Fucking Rory. I’ve got a bunch of pissed off tourists. I need to make things right. I’ll be back later tonight, okay?” Lain tells Maisie, before giving her a kiss.
“I need to relieve Ginny. She’s been working nearly a week straight. Can you add me to your calendar for Tuesday?” Callum asks her and she nods. Callum is tentative for a moment, but still leans forward and gives her a quick kiss.
Maisie stretches my shirt that’s huge on her, tugging it over her knees and looking up at me. “Do you need to go too?”
“Nope. Come on, let’s go take a nap,” I say, holding out my arms.
“Oh, thank goodness,” she replies, quickly getting off the couch and wrapping her arms around my neck.
“My room or the nest? We’ll have to order all the furniture you need for both rooms.”
“Your room. I haven’t seen it, you know?” she says and I’m not sure how I missed that. We did always end up in Lain’s room when we were at the house. Mostly because it was downstairs, and we were impatient. Finding out she was our scent match made all of that make perfect sense.
She insists on walking up the stairs and I let her, following her up to my bedroom. She looks around at my different things before climbing into my bed. The second I’m next to her, I’m pulling her against my body and holding her tight.
“This still doesn’t feel real,” she whispers against my chest. “Like I feel like this is all some sort of dream and it’s going to be pulled away from me.”
“We’re real. It’s all real. We’re going to figure this all out. Whatever you need, Maisie, I mean it. You come to me and tell me, always.”
Her swallow is audible, and she licks her lips. “I think you should bond with me right now.”
“What?” I question maybe a little too loud and I’m automatically leaning on my elbow so I can look at her face.
“You said you’d bond with me right now and you’re my scent match and it’s inevitable, right? I-I well, wow. I didn’t think this would be so hard to say.”
“What, Maise?” I ask, cupping the side of her face.
“Well I love you and—”
I don’t let her say anything else before my mouth is on hers. I know we just had a marathon of sex and easing her out of heat, but I don’t think I’ve ever wanted someone more than how desperately I want Maisie right now.
“I love you, Maise. Fuck. I love you,” I tell her in between kisses. “Knew it the moment you danced with me at the tavern. Wanted to say it to you when we were together the morning before your heat, but I didn’t want to scare you off.”
“I’ve never said that to someone before,” she whispers and that makes my grin wider.
My thumbs caress the soft skin of her face and I just get lost looking at her because I never imagined I’d have an Omega who wanted to bond with me, let alone someone like Maisie, who’s perfect for me in every way.
She’s soft but solid, gentle but doesn’t take shit. She wants me, but doesn’t need me.
“We don’t have to rush anything,” I tell her, wanting to make sure that she truly knows what she’s getting herself into.
Her hand is warm and soft as she grabs my forearm, drawing patterns on my skin.
“I know. I just think bonding with you would be what makes this all real. It would calm my anxiety. I think it would be the ultimate comfort.”
I’m not an overly emotional man, but her words might be the most precious anyone has ever said about me and in the next moment I’m on top of her with my mouth at her throat.