Asher calls out to his brother, “Hey, come join us. I got lasagna cooking. We just started a movie.” He sounds only a little awkward, and that’s probably because he’s still a bit skeptical about whether or not his brother is dealing with anything.
“No,” Mason harrumphs as he makes a beeline to the kitchen. My guess is he wants to grab something quick and then go back to his room and hide himself away while he does whatever he does when he’s locked in there by himself.
It can’t be fun, staring at the ceiling while making friends with shadows on the wall.
I get up and wander through the living room, ending up in the kitchen just as Mason starts to look in the cabinets for something easy. I lean on the island as I say, “Come on. Sit with us. You don’t have to sit with us all night, but don’t you want a change of scenery from that room?”
He doesn’t even glance over his shoulder at me. “No.”
Pushing off the island, I walk around it and stop only when I stand directly beside him. “Your brother is making lasagna. There’s plenty enough for all of us. Come on—”
“No,” he says again, and this time he looks at me. The über’s shoulders are slouched, and frankly he’s the opposite of intimidating right now. His blond hair is a bit greasy, like he needs to shower, and for the first time, I see the faintest traces of bags beneath his eyes, like he isn’t sleeping well.
Why didn’t I notice it before? I guess I was so wrapped up in my own stuff that I didn’t see any of the signs.
“Here’s some advice,” I say, not letting his icy exterior get to me, “I’m not the kind of girl who takes no for an answer when I want something, and right now I want you to come sit with your brother and me on the couch, watch the silly action movie we put on, and eat dinner with us.”
He glares at me, and that glare is accompanied by a sigh that sounds like a half-hearted growl. His wordless way of trying to get me to back off, but it’s not going to work this time.
“And then you can retreat back to your bedroom and pretend we don’t exist,” I finish. “I won’t stop bugging you until you agree, so you might as well save us both some time and come with me.”
Before he can say anything, before he can try to give me a negative again, I reach for his hand. I don’t think he was expecting it; the moment my fingers glide across his palm and curl around his hand, he tenses up.
For an alpha, he has a much softer hand than I thought—not that I care about the level of softness to any part of him or anything. I don’t. It’s just… an interesting tidbit of information.
I pull Mason out of the kitchen, not letting myself linger too long on the softness of his hand. He’s so caught off-guard that he doesn’t resist, and he lets me pull him around the island, through the kitchen, all the way to the couch in the living room.
Asher sees my hand in his as I lead the way and deposit the über on the couch near him. He arches a single brow, but hedoesn’t say a word as I finally release his hand and reclaim my spot.
“There,” I say, settled right in between the two brothers. I glance at them both. “This isn’t so bad, is it? We can hang out together while we’re all here. Why not? There are no rules saying we have to stay out of each other’s way. This is nice.” Might’ve laid it on too thick there.
“Yeah,” Asher says, trying to show support, “this is…”
“Weird,” Mason finishes for him in a huff, but still, he doesn’t get up. He remains right where I put him, though I do notice he fiddles with his hands on his lap, running his other thumb over the pad of the hand I’d been holding.
I can feel the awkwardness in the air, a strange kind of heaviness that only gets worse due to the two alphas on either side of me. Before either of them can say anything else, I say, “It’s only as weird as you two make it, so shut up and stop making it weird.”
Under his breath, Mason mutters a single word: “Bossy.” Asher, on the other hand, nods and takes the order seriously.
I want to say things become less weird after that, less awkward, but that would be a lie. I can still feel Mason on edge to my right, while Asher is not good at hiding the would-be discreet glances he keeps tossing his brother over my head.
Sitting there, between them, not overly close but close enough, I feel… a strange sort of peace inside. If this is how omegas feel when surrounded by their alphas, I can see why they’re okay with it.
It’s not bad. No, actually being so close to them gives me an odd kind of satisfaction. Like, I might not be able to smell them, but other omega parts of me aren’t broken or incomplete. My inner omega wants this, craves this.
Really, she wants more than sitting on the couch with two alphas, but I never let that particular side of me escape. Whatwould be the point? Losing myself in another, in multiple alphas, never sounded like fun to me.
Besides, without a sense of smell, attraction is a lot harder to pinpoint.
That isn’t to say I don’t find the two alphas around me attractive. I do. I obviously do. It’s just… different with me. Less instinctual. More over-thinking behind everything.
As night falls outside, the movie actually gets good. I think both Asher and Mason get into it, and it’s the only reason things start to feel easier, less heavy. I always figured I’d want to crawl out of my skin when I was around alphas like this, but it’s actually not bad at all. I could get used to it, provided it was Asher and Mason making the alpha-omega sandwich.
“How much longer until dinner is ready?” I ask as my stomach rumbles with hunger. Turns out, dealing with multiple alphas is exhausting. Who knew?
Asher checks his phone. “A few more minutes.”
Ugh. Another thing I didn’t know until now: lasagna takes forever to cook. Or maybe it’s due to how hungry I am, that time has ceased to work correctly. I’m about to voice my complaint when a sound echoes in the house.
