“I’ll be fine here,” I said. “Hopefully, it won’t be for too long, and then I can go back to my own place.”
“Are you sure? They made it sound like your apartment was condemned.”
“Well, there isn’t a concierge,” I said defensively, “but it’s a perfectly good building.”
I was lying through my teeth. My apartment was lousy. But I desperately wanted to go back to living by myself—to the peace and serenity of my own space. While the guys had been doing their best to make me feel at home, I still felt out of sorts.
It didn’t help that I was surrounded by alphas I barely knew.
Then again, they made me feel safer than I had in years.
“And the guys are being good to you?” Percy continued.
“They are,” I nodded. “Don’t get me wrong, sometimes I want to strangle them, but when I’m here, I feel safe.”
Percy laughed. “I’m sure Mable wants to throttle us occasionally. I'll take your word for it and leave you to it, but please feel free to call me if you need anything.”
“I will,” I confirmed.
“Good.” Percy nodded. “I’ve got to rush back, but I’ve left some cookies on the kitchen counter.”
As soon as he was out of the room, I hightailed it to the kitchen to grab the cookies before the health monster known as Spencer could throw them away.
I could forgive a lot of things but not throwing away perfectly good cookies.
After a quick dinner, consisting of two amazing cookies I had pilfered from the kitchen while Spencer wasn't around, I finally needed to settle down for the night. Several hours of studying later, and I was peckish.
With a yawn, I closed the textbook and leaned over, placing it on the bedside table. I was still wearing my jeans and T-shirt. Normally, I would refuse to wear jeans in my nest, but I had so little clothing with me that I didn't have much choice.
After rolling out of my little nest, I padded toward the door. I needed to grab a bottle of water and potentially another cookie.
Hopefully Spencer wasn't around, because if he saw me eating another cookie, he was likely going to make me drink a kale smoothie, or something equally gross and healthy.
The apartment was dark, given the late hour. I had to walk through what I thought was the empty living space to get tothe kitchen. Only, there was a lamp on in the corner of the living space, and the room wasn’t empty.
Bear was sitting on the couch, a basket in his lap, and what appeared to be several balls of yarn. He had a bulky set of headphones on, but as I approached, his head shot up. He took the headphones off, his face breaking into a grin. His smile made the scarred side of his face crinkle, the eye closing ever so slightly. The force of it hit me in the gut, and all I wanted to do was crawl into his lap.
“What’s this?” I asked, cocking my head to the side as I padded over to him, refraining from clambering all over him like I wanted to.
He looked between me and his project. Once I was close enough, I could make out these small squares of fabric and the hook he was holding. “This? Just a little hand-eye coordination.”
“Are youknitting?”
Bear nodded. “Crocheting, actually, but it’s kind of similar. I do both. I know it’s not the most masculine of hobbies, but after my accident, I saw a physical therapist, who suggested knitting as a good way to work the muscles in my hands and my eyes. For a while after it happened, my depth perception was slightly off.”
“That’s really impressive. What are you making?” I asked, taking a seat on the sofa next to him.
Initially, I sat a few inches away, but he placed his arm on the back of the couch, opening his side, a clear invitation to get closer.
Well, I wasn’t going to say no to that.
“This is going to be a throw blanket,” he said. “I thought these colors were good for fall, but now they’re making me think of a seventies Thanksgiving dinner… I’m not sure why.”
I bit back a chuckle. The blanket consisted of stripes of dark teal, mustard, russet red, and brown.
“It looks like the perfect fall color scheme,” I said. “I love it!”
He preened at my praise. “Thanks. Both Chase and Spencer have throw blankets on their beds that I made. I also made a baby blanket for Maggie upstairs.”
