31. Sour Patch Kids
Chapter thirty-one
Sour Patch Kids
Iprop my head up on my hands. Carter is watching me with lidded eyes, his hand toying with my hair where it’s sprawled against his chest. Much like me. I couldn’t move now if there was an earthquake. “Don’t be mean. Share the goods.”
He shakes a couple more Sour Patch Kids into my hands. Red for me, blue for him. I slide his between his lips and he nips at my fingers. “We haven’t had these for years.”
“Bus dropped me off in the middle of nowhere.” He strokes down my back. “Remember that one service station? Where you got locked in the bathroom? Reminded me of that one.”
“Don’t remind me.” I’d screamed loudly enough to wake the dead, and Carter had almost broken an arm busting the door down while our social worker had yelled at him about waiting for help. “Those spiders had plans, I know.”
“Long time ago,” he says quietly.
I poke at his arm. “Don’t think you’d have any issues with that door now.”
The door was held together by a rickety lock and a prayer, but he was a skinny kid with matchstick arms and an attitude to rival mine. Carter catches my finger, curling his hand over mine and keeping hold of it. “So. Wanna tell me about the bags?”
My lower lip juts out. “I went shopping. Not a big deal.”
“No.” His words are soft. “I like it when you spend our money, Ro. You don’t do it enough, far as I’m concerned. But we’re in here, and not in your nest. Our hall has transformed into a nesting supply store. You can see me joining the dots, right?”
Yeah, well, I didn’t expect him to walk back through the door. My heart squeezes again, and I lay my head against his chest, hiding my face from him. “Wanted a change. That’s all.”
“You did a clear-out?”
“Yeah.” I close my eyes and focus on running my fingers across his chest. “I’ll rebuild it while you’re in Montreal.”
In a few hours, he’ll be leaving again. Back to hockey and the season and practice and physio, a thousand other demands on his time. And I’ll be…here. The others will come back.
Back to our new normal. My grip tightens, as if I could keep him here purely by strength of will.
I could accidentally lose our key cards. I wonder if the garbage disposal works on plastic. Or if I can accidentally-on-purpose seal off the elevator. Trip with a giant bucket of concrete.
I can see the headline now.
Feral omega holds star hockey captain hostage in Blackwater horror.
When he shifts, sitting up and bringing me with him, I have a flash of prickling cold sweat that he’s somehow heard my plan and he’s making a run for it. “What are you doing?”
Carter slips out of bed, tugging on a pair of sweats tossed over the back of his chair and reaching for me. He draws up my green blanket, wrapping it around me before sliding his arms under me and collecting me up like a pile of washing.
“Change of plans.” I lean against him as he carries me out of his bedroom and down the hall.
My throat grows tight as he jiggles me to free up a hand, reaching for the door to my nest. “Carter—”
He pushes the door open. My body wilts, and I find myself pressing back into him without meaning to. I watch his face instead. He takes in the empty space with a stoic expression. His eyes travel over my bed, my shelves, the sheer emptiness of an omega’s nest stripped back to nothing.
And Carter doesn’t say a word.
His body has turned to rock beneath mine. When he finally takes a breath, he inhales in a single, sharp movement. The scent of bleach hangs heavily in the air, but he doesn’t flinch.
Carter steps inside, bringing me with him as he turns, taking in every inch. “Oh, Rosie.”
“I’m sorry,” I whisper. His face has changed, collapsing into lines of devastation. “It’s a refresh. I needed—I needed some changes. That’s all.”
I remember how excited he’d been to show me this room.
How he’d tied a green scarf around my eyes and brought me up in the elevator, swearing the others to silence.
He hadn’t said a word as he’d led me down the hall, his hand tight in mine, so focused on making it to the nest that I’d bumped into two walls and a doorframe, both of us giggling like children.
How he’d tugged the scarf away and backed up a few steps to see my face, his own flushed and boyish and shining.
I’d never had a space of my own. Never had much at all.
Ma Mercer had tried, clearing out a bedroom so I could have a space to try and fix my broken nervous system.
She’d filled it with bedding and blankets and teddies, and I’d never had the heart to tell her it didn’t work for me because all I could scent was other people’s lives.
Their perfumes, their body washes, their scents, and none of them felt safe because nobody else had ever been safe for me before.
But this room was brand new. I could still smell paint, but there was nothing else. A blank slate, just for me. And he’d been so happy to give it to me, as if the work and the injuries and the draft and the money had all been for this one, single moment.
Now it’s a blank slate again. Every part of the last three years has been torn away and scrubbed into oblivion, and Carter isn’t moving. “Carter?”
“A refresh,” he says finally. His eyes lower, dark and deep and blue and filled with something that scares the hell out of me. Because it looks awfully close to understanding. And fear. “That’s it?”
“Yeah.” My fingers tangle with his hair, stroking the back of his neck. I have to make this better. Make him better. The bark pushes me harder, to make him believe… but behind that is me. “That’s it.”
As my lips form the words, understanding settles into me, fresh concrete burying me in a truth I’m only just beginning to see clearly.
If Carter knew the truth, all of it… it would destroy him.
All roads lead to Rosie.
He watches my face for long seconds, looking for the lie. When he sets me down carefully, against the wall, my arms are slow to unwind from his neck. “What are we doing?”
He cups my face, pushing hair back and stroking my cheek before he hands me his phone. “I’m building you a nest. Find us a playlist, Ro.”
Oh.
He carries the bags in, one by one. Sheets, and covers, and pillows, and brightly colored cushions, none of them matching. Drawing up my knees, I sip at the tea he carries in for me as each bag is carefully unpacked. He brings every single thing to me first, offering it up for inspection.
When I nod, he unpacks it, layering the bedding with careful movements until my mattress no longer resembles a clinical cell.
The blankets follow, a dozen at least. I reach out and snag a particularly soft deep amethyst number, stealing it, and he smiles for the first time since he stepped inside and turns, pulling out several packs of fairy lights that I watch him string across my ceiling with several muffled curses as he balances on a stepladder from the utility closet.
And Carter rebuilds my nest for me, piece by piece. He rebuilds me.
When the bags are empty, he disappears. I lay my head back against the wall, waiting until he reappears with a bundle of clothes and approaches me.
Kneeling, he holds up each item in turn.
I sink my nose into them, nodding with every hit of black pepper and bonfire smoke.
Safe scents. Familiar scents. I snatch a t-shirt, adding it to the purple blanket in my hands and eyeing him with a silent warning that he might lose a finger if he tries to take it back off me.
A black shirt is next. My mouth twists in immediate judgement before I can stop it. “It’s fine.”
But Carter’s already pulling it back. He tosses it through the open door to my nest without looking away and holds out another with a silent question on his face.
Leaning forward, I press my nose into his sweatshirt, trying to get the scent of vanilla out of my nose.
Except… this isn’t his sweatshirt.
My head flinches back so violently that it bangs against the wall, a soft whine rippling up my throat and into existence before I can stop it.
Carter’s hand is still extended. My lips part as we watch each other. He draws his hand in slowly, pulling the sweatshirt to his nose and inhaling. His shoulders grow tight, a strange expression on his face.
He turns the sweatshirt over in his hands. “Thought this was mine. It was on the floor in my room.”
But they went to the same college. My leash tightens enough to snap.
There is nothing I can say. No excuse, no words to explain my reaction.
Not without spilling everything out… and I physically can’t do that.
I let the words build up in my throat until they burn as I watch Carter study Liam’s sweatshirt like it holds every answer he’s been searching for.
His head turns, taking in the black shirt I turned my nose up at. I’m barely breathing as he straightens and collects it, inhaling before he drops it back to the floor. “Neither of these are mine.”
The pieces are there. Right there, ready for him to pick up and put together.
But I can’t help him do that.
I stare down at the clothing in my lap until his legs appear directly in front of me. He crouches, his hands finding my knees beneath my green blanket. “This pack structure isn’t working for you.”
I say nothing.
His voice sounds ragged. “This… pack, isn’t working for you.”
My eyes lift to his face. He looks shattered. As if a thousand thoughts are fighting for space in his head, and none of them are winning. “We’re leaving tonight. We’ll find somewhere else to stay. I’ll tell the others.”
For a moment, my heart leaps. “But… What about Montreal?”
“I’m not going.” He leans in to kiss my forehead as my mind reels. “I’ll let Martin know. It’ll be fine, Ro.”
But it is. It has to be. “The team, Carter.”
He shakes his head, but he doesn’t make eye contact. “We’ll make it work.”
It’ll be a crack directly through the heart of the Titans. A broken pack, the gossip, the consequences. The fall out. Everything I tried to avoid by saying yes to this in the first place.
What was the point in any of it if it ends now?
Carter is their captain. Everything he’s built despite the shit start he had in life would be in ruins, because of me. We’d be trying to rebuild amongst the wreckage of other people’s lives.
I’m not sure I can live with that.
This is his team. His family, and mine too. The only family we have. “You can’t do that to them in the middle of the season.”
I can see how torn he is. I reach for his cheek, searching for words I can say without the lock tightening. “I’m… fine.”
“You destroyed your nest,” he says immediately, the words sharp. “You think I don’t know that’s a fucking red flag?”
“See the season through.” God, this is hard. “I… it’s been an adjustment.”
He doesn’t see through my stumbled words. Not anymore, and I don’t know whether the sobs building up in my chest are relief or fear of everything he’s going to throw away.
“For Ryker,” I whisper eventually. “And Benji, and Ethan. For all of them, Carter.”
“And what about Jonas?” He spits out the name. “And Liam?”
My flinch is smaller, but he still sees it.
He’s logging everything now, his eyes taking in every single move I make.
“I made a bad call. You’re not staying in this pack.
I should’ve seen it sooner. But he kept telling me you were adjusting, and I fucking believed him.
There was no way a two-omega pack was ever going to work, and I should have seen it. ”
“I am adjusting,” I say before I can stop myself. “I’m okay, Carter.”
He rakes his hands through his hair. “You keep saying it, but I don’t believe you. Tell me the truth, Ro. Tell me anything, and I’ll believe you. Just tell me.”
Fear. Instinctive, deep and so cold that my stomach feels like ice. As if the bark can sense that I’m wavering against Liam’s orders, as if it can sense my own weakness and Carter’s increasing confusion. “I’m… fine.”
For fucks’ sake. He’s right here, an inch away from the truth, and I can’t tell him how close he is.
There are a thousand unspoken words tied up in a neat web between us, and he can’t see any of them.
Carter spreads out his hands. “So… we stay until the season is done, then. But then we go. I mean it, Ro. All of this with Lauren—I’m done.
This pack isn’t working for you, and that’s not acceptable to me. ”
I take a single, drawn in breath. And it feels suspiciously close to freedom. “Okay.”
I can make it to the end of the season. And all of it—Liam’s punishments, the bark, Jonas’s indifference, Lauren—it’ll be done without Carter losing everything else. Easier and cleaner for everyone involved.
All I have to do is cope until then. And I’ve lasted this long.
I can do this for him.
I go to him immediately when he reaches for me. Carter’s arms band around me tightly, the words muffled. “If you change your mind, we’ll go. Immediately. You’re sure about this?”
No. But I nod in the absence of my own voice.
“Then that’s the plan.” He kisses my head. “You and me, always.”
Finish the season for the Titans.
And we can move on.