Chapter 19 - Roland
ROLAND
We’d been pack members for two weeks, and in some ways, it felt like we’d always been here.
I had friends and people to chit-chat with during meals.
I’d been called in to help heal a couple of times.
Once was for a young child who had a fever, the second when an alpha hadn’t been too careful as he was using a nail gun.
It was different, though. My unicorn wasn’t overworked, and he was willing.
He felt like he belonged, and he wanted his packmates to be well.
For the most part, I focused on the life I was building with my mate and my job at the general store. It was so different than life back in my herd. I was valued and looked at as an equal.
I’d been pretty tired lately, and this morning, I just did not want to get up.
“Come on, sweetie,” Bryden said, brushing the hair from my brow and pressing a small kiss there. “It’s time to get up. I’m going to take a shower now, and if you want to join me, you have to get out of bed.”
“You don’t play fair,” I grumbled, climbing out of bed and joining him.
We spent a little too long under the hot water, getting ourselves dirty before we got ourselves clean.
When we came out, I was running a little too close to work time.
I grabbed my cooler bag and threw random things from the fridge in there: some cheese sticks, a whole cucumber, a carrot, cream cheese, and cottage cheese, because it was easier to do that than to put it in a dish, and some crackers.
It was hardly the lunch of champions, but it would do.
If worse came to worst, I could take part of my lunch break to go get some pie.
My mate and I had been going through the pie menu.
I’d taken to bringing home a different flavor every two days, and each one was better than the last. The current favorite being the coconut cream. We’d see how long it stayed on top.
So far, I loved my job. It was great. Our regulars came in every day, people from town who were bored or grabbed one of our sandwiches.
There was also a guy who picked up the same frozen burrito for lunch one at a time, instead of just buying them all for the week.
It was nice, though, building connections in town as well as with the pack.
Today, Creven was the one driving me. It wasn’t always the same person, depending on what other people’s schedules were, but it was always a pack member who had something to do with the security of the pack lands, and today that meant the Alpha.
The first week of being driven had been rough.
It brought back my insecurities from my herd days when every move I made was watched.
But this wasn’t that. They were watching out for me.
They weren’t watching me. Once I saw the truth of that, my worries over my daily rides were more that I felt bad they had to take time out of their day than feeling bad that I was always under watch.
I arrived at work a few minutes early, put my cooler bag in the staff room, and grabbed my apron.
Today, I was making sandwiches for the grab-and-go fridge, something I only did when Susie had the day off or if we ran out too early.
Making the sandwiches was her favorite thing and had been for the past decade.
She’d been so worried I was going to take it over after I mentioned I enjoyed making them.
That was when I saw what a treasured part of her routine it was and quickly assured her the job was hers as long as she wanted it.
Today, the tomatoes hadn’t smelled right. I asked my boss, but he told me they looked fine, they smelled fine, and they tasted fine. So I went with them, but I kind of wished Susie was there to finish them up because I was starting to get nauseous.
After the sandwiches, I was on stocking duty. It was easy work, not always physically, but not brain-taxing, either. On most days, that was good. But some days? Some days that meant my brain wandered where it shouldn’t.
Today was a good day.
I clocked out and picked up a few foods that I had been craving, including green olives, cream cheese, and challah bread.
For whatever reason, I got it in my mind that making a grilled cheese out of those would be the world’s best sandwich.
We’d find out tonight because I finally had all the ingredients.
Creven stepped in and waved to my boss. I told my co-workers I’d see my next shift, and we left.
The first few times someone came to get me, I think my boss thought they were dates, and since it was the same alpha the first couple of times, possibly cheating dates.
My boss was quick to head straight to soap opera land.
Now he knew it was just friends giving me a ride, so he often just waved, sometimes giving them a sandwich if we had made too many.
On the ride home, I told Creven all about the sandwich I had on my mind, and he laughed.
“What? You don’t think it’ll be good?”
“No, I think it’ll definitely be good. It just reminds me of my mate when he was pregnant. He would dream up weird foods, too.”
“Hey, this is not a weird food!” Then his words truly hit me. “Are you saying I’m pregnant?”
He didn’t answer me, and the word “pregnant” kind of sat there.
His mate was waiting for him when he pulled in. At first, I thought there might be something wrong, but then he was handed a huge chocolate chip cookie, fresh from the oven. It was just an “I miss you.” I got that, because I couldn’t wait to get back to my mate.
I hated how my brain always went to the worst-case scenario first like that.
“Thanks, guys. I’m gonna go take a nap. I’m kind of tired.”
Creven mouthed “pregnant.”
I was halfway back to my cabin when I figured it out. He wasn’t teasing me. He was hinting.
Running straight to the healing station, I grabbed a pregnancy test and ran home with it. Bryden’s library shift ended early on Tuesdays, which was good because I really needed to pee and was waiting to take the test until he arrived.
The first thing I did when he came in was run to the bathroom and take it. I hadn’t even finished washing my hands when one line became two. So much for a three-minute wait. I brought the test out and held it out to him to look.
“Does this mean what I think it means?”
“We’re gonna be dads.”
“Dads!” His voice cracked.
I tossed the test in the garbage. As I came back to my mate, he went to his knees and put his face near my belly. “Hey, I hear you’re in there. I just wanted you to know your father can’t wait to meet you.”
Our little one was just the size of a pinhead and probably didn’t have ears yet, I wasn’t sure on that part.
They were just beginning their journey to birth, but I didn’t stop Bryden from having a full-on conversation with them.
It was all kinds of adorable to hear him going on and on, about how happy he was that our little one was coming.
I was, too.