I let out a sigh of relief. “Good. Because I’m not ready to deal with it yet.”
“Opal, come on,” she says. “They may not be around right now, but everyone is confused about what happened last week. None of the guys have ever seen Sam look like that, so you know they’re wondering what the truth is.”
I cover my face with my palm. “I shouldn’t have gone after Uriah’s bandmate.”
“You’re telling me! They’re your scent matches, whether they know it or not. Did you really expect them to just let you be with someone else?”
No. I didn’t expect that, especially not from Kit. He has been very adamant about his feelings towards me, and I feel horrible for even trying it. With how things are now, I can’t imagine even thinking about it, let alone doing it.
“I want them, Rory,” I admit, my omega griping in my chest.
“Then you need to tell them,” she says. “And newsflash, Opal, they want you too.”
The front door opens, and I turn to see Sam, his coats layered and his hair a little bit disheveled from the wind. When he goes to put his coat on the rack, the whole thing falls over and makes a loud reverberating sound against the wood flooring, making me flinch.
Rory gasps. “What was that?”
“Sam just got home and had a tussle with the coat rack.”
“Oh.” She makes a little insinuating noise in response, which causes me to laugh.
“Shut up,” I whisper. “I’ll call you back, okay?”
“Yeah, sure. Or don’t. Whenever you’re done having quality time with your scent match, you get back to me.”
My skin quickly turns red. “Bye, Rory,” I say playfully.
“Aw, no silly nickname? I miss when you would call me blueberry pancake.”
I snort. “Goodbye, Miss Wednesday.”
“I don’t know what the fucking means.”
“WatchOne Piece.” I hang up before she can respond and turn to see Sam finally getting the rack back into place. When he sees me, his face is red, but I’m not sure if it’s lingering from the cold or if he’s embarrassed about his fight with an inanimate object.
“Can we talk?” he asks, his voice velvety smooth despite his embarrassment.
Amusement fades as his question processes and my heart skips a beat.
“Oh, um, sure,” I say, unable to decline his offer. We really do need to talk things out. We’ve left what happened at the party go unspoken for too long now—so it’s just sitting between us, bubbling and rotting, both of us determined to ignore its presence. Anything is better than this weight we’veplaced on ourselves, so an honest conversation is long overdue.
“Would you like to come to my room?” he asks.
My eyes widen and my heart pumps a little bit faster.
I’ve never been in his room, but it’s something I’ve daydreamed about in the recesses of my mind. My omega and I have wondered what it looks like, how the combination of his and Kit’s scents smells in their bed. And now, if his serious tone is anything to go by, it sounds like he wants to have animportantconversation in there? I’ll be lucky if I can even concentrate enough to hear every other word.
If he detects the uneasiness in my response, he doesn’t allude to it, just leads me up the stairs and into his room for the very first time. As we enter, an immense calm suddenly falls over my body, like his doorway is a portal to some kind of studious sanctuary. There are built-in bookshelves lining the two walls that connect in the corner. His window is covered in a dark green curtain, the same color as his comforter, which looks like the softest thing I’ve ever seen. My hands flex as I fight the urge to burrow inside it. Or potentially steal it for some impromptu nesting.
“It’s not much.” My head whips toward him as he stands with his hands in his pockets. The insecurity in his eyes is plain to see. “Do you want to sit?”
He motions towards his bed. A tiny part of me eyes the desk chair in the corner, but the omega inside of me overrides that decision quickly. Luckily, my scent isn’t at risk of getting on anything, and even if it was, I don’t think Kit would mind. When I sit on the edge of the bed, I notice the snapshots lined up on the wall, hung by little clips over some string lights. There’s a ton to see there, photos of Sam and his frat brothers, a couple of him with a sweet older lady, and a ton of Kit in various states of laughter. When I look closer, I see one of me,my eyes shut and my head thrown back in laughter. I remember exactly when Kit took this of me on his Polaroid camera.
“Oh my gosh,” I say, pointing at it.
Sam smiles. “Kit puts up photos sometimes, but I have to say, I really like that one.”
My cheeks feel hot at how pointed his statement feels, so I drop my hand and turn to give him my full attention.
