Chapter 24
The loud banging on my front door wakes me up, but my body is too heavy to move. A little light is creeping into my nest—into the cupboard—from where I left the door cracked open.
It must be early afternoon by now.
There's a scrabbling outside as the lock rattles, and some aggressively female swearing. The front door bursts open with a bang. I jump.
"Right," I hear Loz's voice growl, "who do I need to go and fuck up and where the fuck are they?"
She pauses. "Dellie?" Her voice softens a little.
I hear footsteps and another pause. "Oh fucking hell, Dels, not again."
The linen cupboard door swings open. Loz squats down, a silhouette shrouded in brightness, and reaches out to me—but pauses before she touches me.
"Are you okay, babes?"
I wince at the blinding light.
I nod, shrinking back, blocking the light with my hand. She squeezes her way into the cupboard next to me and wraps her arm around me. A small sob escapes.
"No you are fucking not, babes. Don't you fucking dare lie to me. It stinks like a fucking fire in a florist's in here." Her voice is a low murmur. She brushes my hair from my face.
I let out a shuddering sigh. "Not really." My voice is barely a squeak.
"Was it those fuckers from last night?" Her voice holds a hint of a warning growl.
My shoulders hunch as I curl into myself. "Yes. No. Kind of? It's kind of a long story." My voice is thick. It hurts to talk.
"Fucking North Shore prick. I should have fucking known," she mutters under her breath. I snort.
"I swear, Loz, it's not their fault. They didn't hurt me on purpose."
She scoffs. "But you're still fucking hurt, babes. I don't fucking care if it's on purpose or not, I'm gonna kick their arses."
A hint of a smile drifts over my lips. Loz sighs.
"So. Men suck. It's official. So do you wanna stay here, in the bottom shelf of your fucking linen cupboard that would give the fire marshal a fucking heart attack, and mope in the dark, when you have nothing in your fucking fridge apart from half a bottle of soya sauce—" she takes a deep breath, "or, do you wanna come with me and we'll order some serious comfort food—I'm thinking roast chicken and chips and I'll crack out the chicken salt I had sent over, and ice-cream for afters—and watch some crappy TV, ogle some hot alphas, and bitch the fuck out of those fuckers who hurt you? "
A tear slips down my cheek. I pause, then nod. "Ice-cream sounds good."
She nods, backing out of the cupboard, swearing softly as she whacks her head on the shelf above.
"Good. Get your arse out of this fucking death trap, babes."
I wriggle my way back out, clutching the tear-stained shirt against my chest. She raises an eyebrow and purses her lips.
"Grab your shit for the week, babes. You aren't going anywhere 'til we got this shit sorted."
My mouth drops open in protest. "Loz. No. Your heat. Your alphas are coming on Tuesday."
She shrugs. "My omega will get over it. And she fucking will freak out if she thinks you aren't safe." She sighs. "If you're really that worried, just stay in the Annex. Fuck, we can have that Heat Helpers marathon you've been wanting for ages in there if you want."
I bob my head, a hint of a smile creeping over my face. "Thanks, Loz."
She takes a step towards the door, then turns back to me and prods me in the shoulder. "Lancey-boy's waiting downstairs, and he's fucking pissed you didn't call him to come and get you. How did you get home?"
"… took a cab…" I mumble.
"For fuck's sake Dels," she growls. "I swear to fucking god, you have no sense of self protection sometimes." She prods me in the shoulder. "Never. Fucking. Do. That. Again." Each word is punctuated by a prod. A laugh slips out of my lips.
She wraps me up in a hug. "Seriously, babes, you know the horror stories. Please call Lance next time, okay? 'Specially if it's near your heat."
I nod into her neck. "I just… had to go. I didn't have time to think."
She pulls away and glares at me. "You'd better spill the fucking beans properly on this one later, Dellie, 'cause the more I hear, the more I think these fuckheads are in need of a good old fashioned arse kicking."
I give a pathetic half smile. "Chicken and chips first, though."
She smiles, pulling on her oversized Chanel sunglasses. She's suddenly Lauren Treloar again, the picture of elegance, like she wasn't just crawling around in a linen cupboard in a crappy studio apartment in K-town. "Damn right, babes. Let's roll."
"Fucking hell," murmurs Loz, licking grease and chicken salt off her fingers, as the omega on screen waxes lyrical about natural fibre nesting materials. "I thought I was the only one who hated that fake polyester fluffy shit."
A belch escapes my lips before I take another swig of lemonade. "I know, right? Ugh. And it's in every frigging nesting store. Apart from Ruby's of course."
We're lying on the carpeted Annex floor, watching Heat Helpers on a TV that wouldn't even get through the front door of my apartment, with roast chicken and thick-cut hot chips, which are almost as good as the ones Aunty Di used to get us from the chip shop around the corner from where we grew up, spread out on greasy paper in front of us.
It's almost enough to distract me from the tight tugging in my chest.
The scene shifts from the nesting phase to the preview of the next episode—the first heat spike.
The alphas on the screen are naked, with a black box censoring the essential bits. They are all chiselled gods. "I mean… I know it's not technically porn, but… fuuuuck," Loz murmurs. "Now I get why you wanted a Heat Helpers marathon."
I nod enthusiastically, grabbing another handful of lukewarm chips, and tap on more chicken salt. "And it's not, like, anywhere near as gross as you expect, right? Like, I read an interview with their pack once, and Zander—"
"Which one's that?"
I point at a wall of dark muscle on the screen. "Him. You were calling him Sir Pecs-a-lot—"
"Oh. Right. Carry on."
"Yeah. Anyway, Zander was saying they started this as a project to, like, demythologize heats—"
She snorts. "Yep. Our biological needs to avoid severe pain and hospitalization and a medically induced coma. Not just for porn!"
I throw a chip at her.
"You know what I mean. Betas who aren't in packs didn't really have any other source of information until they started this—"
"Uh, you mean apart from health class at school—stop wasting chicken salt! It takes a month for Aunty Karen to send more over here!"
I cackle when the next chip I throw at her lands in her cleavage. She fishes it out and eats it, shrugging.
"Anyway," I glare pointedly at her, "he said they also wanted to normalise omegas in the workforce and that heat support wasn't only for those under thirty or a size two—"
She rolls her eyes at me, and wipes her hands on her pants as she stands. "We need ice-cream, babes."
"—and they always give the omegas the final edit!" I call out after her.
She snorts from the kitchen.
"Fuck," she mutters from the other room as the freezer door opens and spoons clink against bowls, "must be nice to set your own heat narrative like that.
" There's a pause as the freezer door slams shut.
"Y'know, babes, the way you're talking about this, is just the way I'd expect the managing director of the foremost fucking heat support research charity to talk—"
"Loz. Not now. Seriously." My tone is flat.
She huffs. I can practically hear her rolling her eyes. "Just saying, babes." She stalks back into the room, plonks a bowl and spoon in front of me and drops a square tub each of Neapolitan and rainbow ice-cream on the floor in front of us. I gape.
"Where did you find those?" Our childhood favourite ice-creams are impossible to find over here.
She shrugs and folds herself down next to me. "Had 'em shipped in a few months ago."
I push myself up and lean my arm around her. "You, Loz, are a frigging classy lady."
Her snort is almost loud enough to rattle the windows. "Damn right. Finish your chicken and chips first. And put the next episode on, I wanna see if Lord Hip Flexors gets the first knot in, or whether Bicep Boy or Master Bater sneak in under the radar."
I laugh and skip the credits. The screen snaps over to the next episode.
The omega on the screen, a chubby Asian woman in her early forties, is curled up asleep in the arms of Miles, who Loz has dubbed Lord Hip Flexor, while Leo, their beta and main interviewer, and Russell, the youngest alpha, tidy the nest. Leo is clad in a pair of tight boxer briefs.
Russell appears to be naked under the black censorship box, his tanned muscles glistening with sweat.
Nate, the quietest of the alphas, wanders across the screen, his dark blond hair mussed, his brow furrowed.
"Master Bater's obviously pissed he missed the cuddle cut." Loz's spoon clinks quietly as she digs around in her ice-cream bowl.
I sigh. They've never shown footage of any of the alphas doing… that. Or any of the omegas masturbating either, for that matter. "He's the only Aussie. Why'd you call him that?"
Loz shrugs. "Ex-cop. Seems fitting."
I roll my eyes at her as Leo bends over to change a fitted sheet, and Loz groans. I giggle.
"Damn that is one fine piece of beta."
"I mean, if Adonises are your thing, sure."
She pokes a rainbow ice-cream coated tongue out at me.
The woman's southern-tinged voiceover murmurs in the background as we eat. "… it made so much difference not wakin' up to a pile of laundry overflowin' out the door. Y'all really made me feel like I mattered by takin' care of that."
The voiceover beta laughs at his embodied counterpart. "Yeah, a good pack will always take care of all those things. It's why ethical heat support is so important."
Loz snorts again. "Not fucking wrong about that one," she mutters into her spoon.