Knox slips past me and ducks under the tree limb before vaulting clear over the bar kitchen countertop. Then he turns toward me with a boyish smile and holds out his arms.
“I’m yours to command. What are we packing?”
After talking him through where the things I’m going to need are located in my kitchen, Walker helps me beneath the massive tree limb so that I can get to my room. Shockingly enough, my room hasn’t been completely demolished. The window is busted, but the roof is pretty intact. It doesn’t take me long to shove my nesting things into bags before I toss them out of my room.
Only for Eli and Walker to be there to catch them.
“Knox,” Eli says, “keep an eye on her. We’re going to start taking this stuff across the street.”
“Got it!” Knox calls as I hear him grunting to pry open a cabinet.
It takes us almost two hours to get everything I need out of my apartment. But eventually, we’ve tackled everything we can tackle. Pickles is right at my side, moving with every step I take, his nose bumping against me when I stand for too long, staring at the limb that has crashed through my living room and kitchen.
It’s all too much. There are moments where I have to stop and take breaths, moments where I have to remind myself that this is only temporary. This isn’t my new home. These aren’t my new things. Eventually, my life will piece itself back together.
But when I walk into my temporary apartment for the first time, my eyes water over.
The kitchen is practically a kitchenette. There’s barely any countertop space. Nothing is walled off except for a separate space for the bathroom, leaving the living room space and the bedroom space to bleed together. It’s practically a studio apartment. One bedroom, my absolute behind.
I can’t help the tear that falls down my cheek.
“Hey, hey,” Eli says in that calming voice of his, “none of that on this pretty face.”
The scent of freshly cut grass and honey swirls around me, and for a moment, it’s summer. My favorite season. School is out, bakeries are demanding orders for the kids they’re going to be inundated with, and the faint smell of citrus hangs in the air. It makes my mouth water, and I draw it in by the lungful, no longer caring about how selfish it may be.
I feel the muscles in my face relax before another tear falls.
“You’re okay,” he whispers as he blocks my view of the new space. “You’re just fine.”
“If she doesn’t like it, she can come stay with us, Daddy!”
I whip around to find Amber standing in the doorway. She’s holding two thumbs up with a massive smile on her face, and she’s got imprints in her skin that look very much like she fell asleep in the back of a car. The red lines cut through her skin, her hair bunched up and knotted on only one side.
Eli chuckles as he leaves my side, heading for his daughter. “Did you have a good nap, princess?”
Amber wraps her arms around her father’s waist in a hug. “Yeah.”
“How you feeling?” he asks, stroking his fingers through her knotted hair.
“Better, but still tired.”
“That’s normal,” I say to the little girl. “Emerging for an Omega is hard work. You’ll probably take another nap today.”
Amber beams at me. “I bet Daddy would let you come stay with us if you don’t want to stay here. Wouldn’t you, Dad?”
She looks up at her father like he’s about to bestow upon her the most amazing present of her lifetime. “Pleeeease?”
Eli peers over at me. “It is an option, if this isn’t suitable.”
“What’s an option?” Knox asks as he walks up, breathless. His scent is strong, like rain that has just fallen as you watch with a mug of hot cocoa.
I have to close my eyes and give myself a minute to taste it on my tongue.
“My new friend is going to come stay with us,” Amber says.
“Oh?” Knox asks.
I open my eyes and look up at the Alpha in the overalls. “I’m not going to do that.”
