Matteo was snoring lightly on the bed, his arm thrown over his eyes, and I couldn’t help but roll my eyes at his sleeping form.
“Sorry Tibby, he’s a bit like a puppy when he doesn’t get his way.”
“I don’t mind, I wasn’t really planning on going back to sleep anyways.” Well, that wasn’t going to fly with me. One look at Tibby, and you could see how absolutely exhausted she was. She had dark circles under her eyes and she kept yawning; the woman needed to go back to sleep and sleep for a long time.
“You are going to go back to sleep.” I didn’t mean for it to sound like an order, but I could already see the rebellious look forming in Tibby’s eyes. So I tried a gentler approach, “please try, for me?” I added, hoping that would soothe her ruffled omega feathers.
Tibby still looked like she wanted to argue, but after a moment she finally gave in with a sigh, throwing her hands up in the air, “Fine, but if I wake you up with my screaming, I’m going to be the first to say I told you so.” She crossed the room and crawled onto the bed, flopping down next to Matteo who snuggled in closer to her in his sleep, his arm moving from over his eyes to rest on her stomach. Matteo was like an octopus when he slept, always reaching for the nearest warm body to wrap his arms and legs around like he was hugging a teddy bear.
Tibby didn’t seem to mind though, inhaling his scent deeply, and I had to remind myself that she’d slept in the same bed as Matteo before. She was probably intimately aware of his stage five clinger sensibilities when he was asleep.
I moved around the bed to the Papasan chair and began to gather the pillows, tossing them back onto the bed.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea...” Tibby whispered, looking at the blankets as if they were rattlesnakes that were going to bite her. She then rubbed her face on the soft duvet and sighed, she definitely likes soft things just like any other omega. I was determined to get her to sleep comfortably, no one should have to force themselves to sleep without regular creature comforts, especially if that person was an omega. They thrived on being comfortable and it wasn’t healthy to deprive themselves.
“Just try it, and if you wake up with a nightmare, Matteo and I will be there to soothe you.” With that I climbed into the bed, the slope of the bed forcing me to roll right into Tibby’s soft body as I pulled the blanket more tightly around us. I pushed a pillow underneath her head and another under my own and rested my chin on her shoulder.
“Is this okay?” I asked, nervous that I had pushed her too far.
Tibby just yawned, “Yes, but if I wake you up, I am sorry.” She apologized again and I wished she’d stop doing that, I even opened my mouth to tell her so. I stopped immediately, however, when I noticed that her eyelids had already drooped shut and her breathing had evened out, Tibby was already asleep.
I tucked my chin into the hollow of her neck and inhaled her scent as deeply as I could into my lungs, letting the smell soothe me until I also succumbed to sleep.
––––––––
“Ijust wish that Ihad her records so that I could foresee things like this happening.” Cobb and I were sitting in the kitchen, sipping on glasses of whiskey. We’d left the room after Aria had gone into the bathroom, unsure of what to do next. Neither of us was going to be able to fall asleep tonight, so we headed downstairs and did what we always used to do: drink and commiserate. It’s been five years since I’ve done this with Cobb, and a giddy feeling had been bubbling in my chest ever since we had sat down on the high-top stools that were pushed up against the kitchen island.
Unfortunately, that feeling was tempered by his words. I didn’t want them to unseal Tibby’s records, knowing what was inside of them. I wanted Tibby to be able to share her past on her own time without the words written in black and white on paper to make those around her see her differently than the vibrant, young woman she’d become.
She was already starting to fit within our pack like a puzzle piece. Matteo and Aria seemed to always find ways to touch her or be around her, like planets revolving around the sun. I wasn’t even sure if they realized it. A ton of research had been done on pack scent matches and what that meant for alphas and omegas, but I’d never experienced it myself. My instincts were telling me that Tibby belonged in our pack as our omega, but my head was, as always, getting in the way. There were so many issues with Tibby being a permanent part of our pack, firstly, we were older than her—I was the oldest in our pack at thirty-eight. That was a fifteen-year age difference. A lot of life can be lived in fifteen years, and I was worried that it was too big of a gap to bridge. Secondly, we were supposed to be protecting her, and I didn’t want that to be tied to any budding feelings.
I’d already been through a relationship that was complicated, and it had ended with the bang of a gunshot. That had nearly broken our pack, and I didn’t know if we could survive something like that again.
“Theo?” The subject of my dark and twisty thoughts asked and I realized that I had never answered Cobb’s questions.
“Sorry, lost in my head.” I apologized and sipped my whiskey, letting the burning liquid fill my chest with heat and give me a second to get my thoughts in order. “I don’t know if having her files will be of any help to you. We just need to keep her safe until the trial, there isn’t any use going back in time.”
It sounded like a bullshit answer. I knew it, and judging by the flash in Cobb's eyes he knew it too. Any good FBI agent worth their snuff knew that you had to look at the entire situation, past and present, so that you could even have a chance at predicting the future.
But luckily for me, he seemed to see that I wasn’t going to elaborate and just sighed, “I’m not going to pull my request from the court system. I don’t know what you are trying to protect her from, but I’m not going to do anything to hurt her, Theo, I promise.” With that, he rinsed his now empty glass out in the sink and headed upstairs with one last look at me.
My phone buzzed on the counter with a message from Owen, letting me know to call him when I woke up. I immediately dialed his number.
“That was fast,” Owen sure sounded chipper for seven in the morning, and something told me he hadn’t gone to bed yet. “Did I wake you?”
“No, I was already awake, what have you got for me?” I was hoping it was good news about our security system. I was constantly checking and rechecking it, and I hoped that my paranoia was going to pay off.
Owen didn’t leave me in suspense, “Everything looks good on my end. I had a bitch of a time getting into your system and, even then, I don’t think I could break in fully. You’ve got rabbit holes on rabbit holes built into your system that have given me the worst migraine, so thank you for that. The only thing I noticed that might be an issue, but not one you can really fix, is the emergency unlock system you’ve got in place to unlock the apartment in case of a fire or other natural disaster to let first responders in.”
“Should I shut it off?” I didn’t like having any openings, even ones that were in place to protect us if we needed them.
Owen was silent as if thinking it over. I could practically hear the gears turning in his head as he mulled over the issue, “I wouldn’t turn it off fully. I’d maybe add a failsafe that will alert all of your mobile devices to the cameras so you can check and see if there really is a fire or other issue and manually let the fire department in from your phone, I can set it up if you let me in?”
I inherently knew that Owen was safe and would do anything in his power to keep Tibby from danger, or else he’d have a very unhappy omega on his hands, but I couldn’t help but look at everyone and everything with extreme criticism now that we had Tibby in the house.
“...It’s okay to say no, Theo, I get it,” Owen finally offered after I waited too long to answer, trapped in my own indecision.
My breath wooshed out of me with relief, “Thanks Owen, I don’t mean to be an asshole but I would feel more comfortable tinkering with the system myself.”
