Chapter 13
Chapter Thirteen
Mia
Immediate, terrible silence. No one even seems to take a breath.
Spencer's jaw hangs slack. Zak goes pale. Freddie blinks with the disbelief of a child who's just been told the Tooth Fairy isn't coming anymore.
For a second, I consider pretending I'm joking. Or blaming my mood on hunger. I've been known to be hangry on occasion and say things I don't really mean. This could be one of those occasions.
Then Freddie says, "This is a disaster!"
"Don't say that," Spencer mutters.
Freddie goes to panic-level ten in an instant. "She hates it. She walked into our house and immediately rejected the vibe. She hates everything about it."
"I didn't say hate," I point out quickly before he can spiral any further.
Zak gives my hands one last squeeze before releasing me, turning to the others with the focus of a man ready to make an emergency plan on the spot. "We should skip the rest of the house tour and–"
"Take her to the nest," Spencer cuts in with a nod, immediately sensing what Zak is thinking.
The nest.
My whole body perks up so fast that it's almost embarrassing. My posture gets straighter, and my eyes light up.
The rest of the house might be too big, too cold, and too gray for me, but there's a nest room waiting for me to put my touches on it. A place made to be soft. Safe. Private. Cozy. The heart of a pack. The room that matters most.
A good nest can make my feelings about the rest of the house obsolete. It’s not like I need to hang out in the kitchen when I can tempt the three of them into the nest for round-the-clock sexy time.
So much relief rushes through me that my knees nearly give out. I take a step toward the island and snatch Zak's coat back into my arms, not wanting it to get left behind. "I’d love to see the nest," I tell the guys with a desperate hopefulness.
Spencer is already in motion before all of my words are out. "This way."
He leads us out of the kitchen and toward the grand staircase at the front of the house.
I try not to wrinkle my nose at the idea of a second-floor nest. Not ideal–I'd rather have the nest on the main floor–but it's a small detail to get caught up on. I’m sure there’s a plan in place to get snacks quickly from the kitchen to the nest during a heat. Or I can come up with one.
We walk down the hall in a line: Spencer in front, Zak behind him, me, and then Freddie bringing up the rear.
When we close in on the end of the hall, Freddie rushes past us all to be the first to reach the door to the last room.
He swings the door open with both hands and steps aside, the other guys joining him, all of them watching me take my first look at the nest room they've set up in their home. Waiting for their omega to come.
I stop dead on the threshold, unwilling to go any further.
Oh.
No.
Oh no, no, no.
The room is way too big. That's the first thing I notice with uncomfortable certainty.
The second thing I notice is that the room doesn't even look set up properly to be a nest. The bed is shoved into a corner, which isn't ideal for multiple partners to be able to climb in around their omega.
An uncomfortable cream couch that looks like it's from the same collection as the one downstairs.
One white blanket folded neatly over the back of the couch.
A thin blanket that looks reproduced, not handmade like every single blanket in my apartment.
No softness anywhere to be seen. No stack of comfy, soft blankets wrapped in their scent.
A wave of nausea rolls over me, and I feel physically weak.
"We left the room a pretty blank slate, so you can personalize things however you want," Spencer explains, filling the uncomfortable silence left by my lack of excitement over the nest. "We can add anything you want. More blankets or lights. Anything."
More lights? There's already so much light flooding in that I have to squint, and I don't see a dimmer switch anywhere in sight. All the lights in the house seem to be set with motion sensors, so how the hell do you turn them all off?
I understand they thought they designed this room in a way to leave space for an omega to come along and put a personal touch on it. The sentiment is so thoughtful, and in theory, such an incredibly loving gesture.
But my first look at the room they expect to be my nest makes all the hope drain right out of me.
The nest looks like the rest of the house. Expensive but empty. Carefully designed, but so cold. This isn't a space I can make more comfortable. Everything is wrong. All wrong. This can't be my nest. I can't spend my next heat in this house.
My eyes sting.
All three of them are watching me so closely, waiting. They expect excitement or relief.
Instead, what comes out is pure honesty.
"I hate the house. Especially the nest."