“How can you be so certain?”
His smile turns coy. “We may have talked about it some when we woke up. If you don’t believe me, we can ask her.”
“Ask me what?Fuuuck, that smells good.” Ruby’s moan is pornographic, and the robe she’s wrapped around her barely closes in the front, exposing her luscious thighs and the swell of her breasts.
A confusing mix of anxiety and arousal swirls in my gut. I look back down at the pan to hide my blush, thankfully in time to catch the bacon before it burns.
Archer turns to face Ruby. “We were talking about what comes next.”
One of her eyebrows lifts. “Oh yeah? What’s the verdict?” Her posture is relaxed, but for all her seeming casualness, there’s a thread of tension in her voice.
“He’s in.”
Ruby’s face lights up with a brilliant smile at Archer’s words, and my heart soars. “Told you he would be, sweetheart.” She reaches out and pulls Archer into a hug, scent-marking him with her cheek. The sound of their combined purrs has mine coming to life, and Ruby reaches a hand toward me with a grabbing motion. “Get in here, handsome.”
I go to them, wrapping my arms around the two omegas snuggled together, basking in the rightness of us all together and the relief that it doesn’t have to end yet. Maybe never if things go as I hope.
When we eventually separate, Ruby tugs me to her and plants a kiss on my lips that leaves me a little dizzy. “In case it wasn’t clear, I want to see where this goes.”
“I do too,” I say hoarsely.
She pats my cheek. “Good, then we’re all in agreement. Nothing to worry about right now.”
Archer huffs. “Uh, sorry, but I’m a pro at worrying. I think I’ll be worried until we’re bonded and officially packed up.” Hischeeks grow pink. “Not that I’m assuming that will happen. We’ll go slow. Make sure that we’re compatible beyond…the physical.” His blush deepens. “Crap, now I’m worrying even more.”
Ruby and I each take one of his hands, in an unspoken coordination that we’ve perfected over the past few days of caring for him. “I’ll be right here worrying with you.”
Ruby chuckles. “Me too, but I think that might be a good thing? Worrying means we care. That this means something to us and we don’t want to fuck it up.”
This means more to me than I can express. A chance to have what I assumed wasn’t in the cards for me, with two brilliant omegas.
I thread my fingers through Ruby’s, completing our hand-holding loop. “Yeah, this means something.”
It means everything.
epilogue
. . .
ARCHER
4 months later
I’m beltingalong with the latest pop song that’s been giving me dopamine when there’s a sharp rap on the bathroom door.
“Shit!”
I’m running late. I knew I only had a minute to hop in the shower to wash off the scents clinging to me from a day of making candles, yet here I am, only half clean because I decided I had to listen to that song.Again.
“Uh, sorry to bother you, but Ruby said you weren’t answering your phone. She said Beau is running a little late.” The harried voice of my new hire, Rowan, makes me cringe. The thirty-something beta is such a nice person, and they’ve already made running the store a million times easier, but they’reveryearnest. To the point that they thought they needed to knock on the bathroom door to give me a message right away.
I think they’re a little traumatized from their former employer, who would’ve screamed at them for any delay, so I try to make my voice as friendly as possible as I shout back overthe music playing from my phone. “Thank you! I’ll be out in a moment.”
“Do you want me to box up those custom orders so I can drop them off at the post office tomorrow morning?” Rowan yells, clearly unbothered by this unconventional chat setting.
“Uh, that’d be great, actually. Thanks!”
I was planning on coming back to the shop later tonight and doing it myself because I’m still not used to having help. Before I hired Rowan, I was up until 2 in the morning packing orders. That is until Ruby and Beau realized what I was doing when I fell asleep during a movie date for the second time.
