“What kind of moment?”
I move my arm up a crack so I can see his face. “One where it feels like my axis just shifted, and now I don’t know what to do.”
I feel the moment his body stills. Voice hesitant, he waits for a moment. “About us?”
Something in his voice squeezes my heart. It sounds a lot like hurt.
The back of my throat starts to burn again. The last thing I ever want to do is hurt this pack, but I seem to be making a real mess of things.
“Maybe,” I whisper. “It feels like I’m at a crossroads, Ax. For the first time in my whole life, I have choices, and that feels too important to ignore. But at the same time, it feels like there’s no choice at all.”
A crease appears in his forehead as he frowns, trying to follow my admittedly very warped logic. “Explain to me?”
Thinking it over, I let the words spill out. “When I was a kid, I always had to follow my mom. We moved around from shitty trailers to motel rooms, to pokey little apartments. Sometimes we’d crash on sofas because she didn’t have the money to make rent.”
His hand pushes at the blankets until he digs mine out and wraps his fingers around it.
“I always wanted to be able to make my own choices. I never had any kind of choice, and I never had a home. They were the only two things I ever wanted.”
I blink, and a tear slips down my face.
“At the Omega Center today… it felt like I made the wrong choice. I chose to run, and I lost the support I could have had to find my own way. If I had, I wouldn’t have to rely on you. I’m so dependent on all of you, Ax, and I hate it. You give me everything, and I don’t give anything back because I have nothing to give.”
I’m crying openly now, and Axel pulls and yanks at the blanket until he can lift me into his lap, wrapping his arms around me and holding me as I sob brokenly into his shoulder.
“You think you don’t give us anything?”
His hoarse voice breaks me out of my pity party. Shrugging, I try to turn away, but he holds my chin gently. “Answer me,” he coaxes.
“Well… no,” I say honestly, frowning. “You’ve given me everything. A job, a home, a nest. What exactly am I bringing to this table?”
“I always wanted a home too,” he admits. I stare up at him curiously. “My mom… she drank a lot. My dad wasn’t around. He had an apartment in the city and pretty much left us to sort ourselves out.”
My heart clenches as I imagine a little boy with bright green eyes, sitting in a lonely house.
“I understand how it feels,” he continues. “But I also understand that a home isn’t made of bricks and mortar, little spoon. Home is a feeling. It’s safety, it’s the people you love, it’s arguing over who gets the last of Hudson’s pancakes and Cade grumbling over coffee. And for a long time, this apartment… it hasn’t felt like a home at all. We’ve all been too wrapped up in our own worlds, barely functioning as a pack.”
He rolls me over, leaning in. “You gave me a home, Gabrielle. Because my home is wherever you are.”
He brushes his lips against mine just barely. My head stretches from the pillow as I move to follow him, a noise of complaint pulling from my throat when he presses a kiss to my cheek and pulls back.
“Take some time,” he tells me. “Think it all over. Take the time to decide what you want. And it doesn’t have to be one or the other, little spoon.”
On that note, he leaves me, wandering back out and leaving me breathlessly turning over his words.
Sneaky, silver-tongued alpha with his beautiful words and butterfly kisses.
ChapterForty-Seven
Nate
My knee jiggles as I sit a little too casually in the living room. Gabrielle is across from me, curled up on Hudson’s lap as she sleeps. Neither of us are even pretending to watch the documentary we put on to fill the silence, both of us completely focused on the rise and fall of her chest.
Cade is down the hall pretending to work in his office, Axel taking a brief break from our mutual omega-watching to have a shower.
All of us are staying close to home, because Gabrielle’s heat could kick in at any time. Her scent has deepened over the last few days, the sweetness maturing into something a little tarter. She hasn’t been able to work, the scent pulses erratically spiking from her enough to keep her within the confines of the apartment.
She’s sleeping more restlessly, seeking us all out through the night until we’re tugged into her nest. We’ve slept together for the last three nights, all of us rotating to be close to her.
