8. Blaze
Chapter 8
Blaze
“ S unshine! What about this?” I asked, holding out the box of cereal.
It was Sunny's second day at the fire station after she spent the first day eating and sleeping as she recovered from her ordeal.
Rune had hovered around like a mother hen, constantly feeding her snacks anytime she appeared. I would have made fun of him if I hadn’t been feeling the urge to do the exact same.
We were at the grocery store. I had asked her to join me after I got back from her apartment. I had managed to grab a few of her things, but they were still on the truck. She had hung back, not wanting to take Luka to the remnants of their home. We had salvaged a few items, but it wasn’t much. Her phone had been waterlogged, so it refused to turn on—we would find her a replacement, but it would take a few days.
Technically, we were still on shift, but Walker had allowed me to go out for a quick grocery store run.
Firefighters had to eat, after all.
Our shift was also ending in like forty-five minutes, so that didn’t hurt.
Thankfully, we had a car seat that worked for Luka, so he had come with us to get food. Sunny had popped him in the cart and started pushing him around, and the boy was having the time of his life. Now that he was more rested, he was getting far more adventurous.
Sunny had managed to find a pair of women's leggings in the donation pile and was wearing them with a large firehouse hoodie that belonged to one of us. In my opinion, she looked downright adorable. I wanted her to wear my clothing regularly. She’d thrown her long blonde hair up in a messy bun on top of her head, with several tendrils falling loose.
I had been thrilled at the prospect of a little one-on-one time with her while shopping. She had kept to herself most of the day before, which I totally understood, given the stress of her situation. She needed to sleep, but now I wanted to get to know the beautiful omega staying with us. Within minutes of getting into the store, though, I realized that Sunny was being very minimal when it came to her purchases.
“Those are expensive.” She frowned, her nose wrinkling at the cereal I held up.
I wasn't an idiot, despite what my pack mates often thought. It didn't take a genius to figure out that Sunny was hard up for cash. If only she realized she didn't have to worry about that anymore.
“But does he like this kind?” I asked pointedly.
“Yeah, but ? —”
I cut her off by throwing the box of cereal into the cart. “It’s for the firehouse, so it’s on me,” I said simply. I also grabbed a box of the wheat cereal that Gil loved, even though I thought it tasted like cardboard.
Usually, Rune gave me a strict list before grocery shopping, seeing as he was the cook of the house, but he had been so distracted lately that I was being left to cause some chaos with Sunshine.
“I can't let you buy food for him!” she whispered indignantly.
Yes, she could. It was simple, really. Her son liked the food. I was going to get the food for him. Figuring out what foods made her happy was clearly going to be a challenge, but I welcomed it. She wasn't going anywhere for a few days, and I could find out a lot in that time.
“Look, no one is going to care about a few boxes of cereal, especially for a cutie like this,” I said, grinning down and blowing a raspberry at Luka, who giggled wildly. The little guy turned to the cereal lined up on the shelf. The cart was close, so he was able to reach over and easily grab one of the boxes.
“Well, he’s claimed that one now!” I grinned, happy it was a semi-healthy cereal.
I liked kids. I loved it when we took the fire engines to schools and the little kids wanted us to blare the sirens or sit in the driver’s seat. That joy and enthusiasm was infectious. I always imagined I would have some kids of my own in the future. We’d discussed it as a pack once or twice, but we were waiting for the right omega to come around.
In all my time imagining, I had never thought that an omega would come along who already had a child, but I didn’t hate that idea. I wasn't one of those alphas who was so possessive that I needed my omega to only know my touch. Sure, no other alpha will touch my omega once we're bonded, other than my pack mates, and I could be possessive when the occasion called for it. But any omega we met would have had a life before us, and I would be a jackass to ignore that.
“Only if you’re sure…” she said, trailing after me as I pushed the cart toward the dessert section.
“I’m completely sure, sunshine. Now, are either of you allergic to anything?”
“Not that we know of. I haven’t given Luka anything with peanuts in it yet. I wanted to wait until he’s a bit older.”
“That makes sense, we can avoid the peanut butter cookies,” I said, snatching several sleeves of chocolate chip cookies. Those fuckers disappeared so damn fast at the station that, if I didn’t grab loads, I wouldn’t get any at all.
Sunny grimaced when she saw all the cookies, her nose scrunching up adorably.
I pouted. “I'm a growing boy, I need my cookies.”
Well, if she didn’t like cookies, then I guessed that was more for me. Maybe she wasn’t completely perfect, but I was okay with that.
She burst into laughter. “I'm not judging you—cookies are glorious—but those cookies taste more like preservatives than actual cookies. They don’t even have real chocolate in them!”
“They’re the only kind I can find around here. When I’m out of town, I always go to the fancy bakeries and get them.”
“Can any of you guys bake?” she asked.
“Nope, only Rune can do the cooking, and none of us bake. Walker can heat up boxed mac and cheese every now and again if he's feeling up to it.”
Sunny’s eyes widened. “When was the last time any of you guys had proper mac and cheese or freshly baked cookies?”
I shrugged. “Probably not since we were children.”
Sunny looked at me, dumbstruck. “Do you want them?” she asked quietly, almost nervously.
I stopped in my tracks, slowly turning to her. She stumbled into me, her soft body pressing against mine and her lemon scent intensifying around me in a way that made it extremely difficult to keep my cock under control. Backing up, she started to apologize, but I simply stared at her for a moment.
“Are you saying that you can make proper mac and cheese and freshly made cookies?” I narrowed my eyes at her. “We don't mess around when it comes to cookies at the station. If you can do that, we will forever be in love with you.”
Sunny giggled, giving me a warm smile before nodding. “Why don't we go to the baking section, and I'll pick up the ingredients I need? The least I can do is bake you guys some cookies after everything you’ve done for me.”
“Yes. Go anywhere you need, get whatever you need in triplicate. Actually, there are a lot of firefighters at the station. Get everything you need to make a batch of cookies times twenty.”
Sunny snorted. “That's a lot of ingredients, and you don't know if you even like my baking yet. Maybe I'm a terrible baker and my offer is a thinly veiled threat.”
I paused. She wasn't wrong, but I desperately hoped that she was a good baker.
“But… cookies,” I whined.
“Come on, let's go get everything we need for a few batches, and then if you like the cookies, we can come back and get more ingredients. How about that?”
I perked up. “Yes, ma’am!” I said excitedly, pushing the cart in the direction of the baking ingredients.
Every time she so much as looked at an ingredient, I placed it in the cart, refusing to listen when she complained. If these ingredients could make me cookies, then I was going to buy them.
The only time I relented was when she nearly threw a block of butter at me, insisting that she was looking at the butter because she wanted the unsalted and not the salted. I was a good boy and put the salted butter back.
Then I proceeded to add eight blocks of unsalted butter to the cart.
“What size diapers is this little monkey wearing now? Rune told me to grab at least three boxes.”
She shook her head. “That’s way too many! I can’t let you get them.”
“Rune told me to do it, and I’m going to do it. Have you seen the size of the dude? He may be a sweet, cuddly alpha with you, but he will throw me in a river if I don’t get the diapers like he asked. Really, sunshine, you’ll be helping me out by letting me grab them…”
She huffed, giving me a disbelieving look. “If he insists, but I will be paying him back!” she declared as she followed me over to the baby aisle.
Twenty minutes later, Sunny bit her lip as we approached the checkout. “This is a lot.”
“I don’t care. I’ll happily pay for it a hundred times over if I get cookies,” I said as we put everything onto the conveyor belt.
“You seem to have a shocking amount of confidence in my baking skills,” she mused as she trailed behind me.
“I just have a sixth sense about these things,” I said as I handed Luka a roll of paper towels for the kitchen. He excitedly clutched it as we bagged our groceries.
If she noticed all the snacks I had snuck into the cart after seeing her eyeing them, she didn’t say anything.
Which was good because the last thing I wanted was for our first fight to be in a grocery store checkout over cereal.