Dorian
“Is there some kind of cultural norm I’m missing?” Half the rooms in the house were empty or just felt unfinished. “Why are his bedroom and the living room upstairs the only ones in the house that look lived in?”
Emeric shrugged as he looked around at the large open plan living room on the lower level that the pack used as a meeting room. “We never had an indoor space for meetings because blood is hard to get out of carpets, so I don’t know.”
Good grief.
A therapist was moving to the top of the to-do list.
“They don’t seem to have that problem here.” Thankfully. “I think he might’ve been underestimating how many hours he’s been working. That’s the only thing that makes sense.”
“Alpha Braun’s mother said she’s not a babysitter but the kids said she volunteers a lot.” Emeric had picked up a lot of information in his short visit to Braun’s mother’s house, but it still felt like we were missing pieces. “I think she meant she wasn’t going to babysit the Alpha because I’m pretty sure watching us was technically babysitting even though we’re not little kids.”
Me too.
“We’ll figure it out.” At the very least I’d see what kind of budget I had to fix up the pack room. “Let’s go look at the rooms upstairs again. There might be some things we can bring down here and we’ll look to see what we can find to make your room nicer until your aunt gets back.”
Emeric gave me a side-eye before he started wandering around the room. He probably thought he’d been very subtle, so I played dumb as I waited to see what he’d say. “Alpha Braun said I was pack.”
“Yes, and until we figure out what’s going on with your aunt, you need a comfortable room here.” Frowning, I looked around what was supposed to be a bonus room. “And even if you move in with her officially, I think Braun would be disappointed if you didn’t hang out here. So we’re going to need a comfy space for you.”
Sighing, I shook my head. “He doesn’t even have a good space for you to hang out or get homework done besides the kitchen table.”
Looking relieved, he nodded and stood straighter. “You need to grade papers and he’s got the only office.”
My groan got a laugh out of him. “Don’t say that word.”
My weekend adventure was going to put me behind if I wasn’t careful.
“Let’s look for office stuff for you.” Grabbing my hand, Emeric started tugging me toward the stairs. “And stuff to make a place for me too. The guest room is for visitors. I’m not visiting. I’m pack.”
“I think that sounds like a good plan but let’s be quiet going upstairs. Braun’s still on the phone.” The volume of his voicehad gone up and down dramatically, but my hearing wasn’t good enough to know what he’d been saying.
“He’s talking to his mom again, but we’ll be quiet.” Emeric didn’t have the same problem. “She likes attention. We might have to go visit her so he gets work done.”
“Would it be rude to just show up?” I wouldn’t normally do something like that but they did things differently.
Emeric shrugged and dropped his voice to a whisper as we went through the upstairs living room. “She’s not the type to attack you but she’s probably going to feed you.”
How was attacking me something I should’ve needed to worry about?
“That’s good to know.” The way food seemed to be important socially was good to know was well. “We need to make sure we have everything we need to bake cookies soon. It seems like that would make a good impression for visitors.”
“Oh yeah.” He nearly bounced up the stairs taking them two at a time. “Chocolate chip.”
“We’ll start making another grocery list later.” The list of lists we needed was growing by leaps and bounds, but it couldn’t be helped. “We’ve got meals for this week, though.”
Meals.
“Let’s get the slow cooker while we’re up here.” We’d picked out several options that could go in there. “And let me know if anything looks interesting to you.”
I couldn’t decide if it was like wandering through Walmart or some kind of strange boutique store, but it definitely felt like going shopping. “And then we’re going to work on lunch.”
It felt like it had to be later than that, but the clock was disagreeing with me.
“Wow.” Emeric stopped in the strange junk room. “Then we’re going to have to start organizing again.”
Unfortunately.
