“Hey!” Maeve exclaims. She’s skimming through my bookshelf while I organize clothes in the dresser on the opposite wall of the bed. “You have the cat mystery books! Hold on. You haveall of them?” she turns to me incredulously, delight all over her face. “Logan, there’s like twenty books here.”
“Oh. You and Ivan had mentioned you were reading it, and you made it sound interesting,” I say evenly. “I thought it would be nice to read something fictional, for once.”
Maeve opens and closes her mouth.
“Told you,” Ivan calls from the other room.
“Why do you have two copies of each one?” she asks.
“In case you wanted to read them, too. I mean, I didn’t want to assume. Or maybe the spine on one got cracked. Or something.”
Maeve stares and stares at me until tears fill her eyes.
Horrified, I rush to her side. “Maeve, what’s wrong?”
But she just cups my face in her hands, stands on her tiptoes, and kisses me softly. “You. Are. Adorable,” she breathes.
At the confusion on my face, she just laughs. “I would love for you to join our book club,” she says.
“I wasn’t trying to invade on your book club, I promise.”
IswearI wasn’t. I wanted topics to talk to Maeve and Ivan about, and if Maeve or Ivan ever lost their own copies, I was happy to share.
But Maeve still looks at me with those lovely eyes that I could swear see right through to my soul.
I love you, I scream in my head.I love you.
“You don’t have work today, right?” she asks softly.
I shake my head.
“I don’t either, but Ivan and Fang do. Are you okay with just me for company?” she asks, grinning.
Fang says something, but I’m too busy being mesmerized by the look in her eyes.
“It’s more than okay,” I say earnestly.
Finally, I’m about to have my Omega to myself.
“Youmaketheir food?”she asks in disbelief.
“It’s easy, once you have the right supplements to go along with the meat,” I shrug, motioning to my open fridge. “They also have freeze dried kibble.”
Maeve insisted on an in-depth house tour, and I’m happy to give it to her, answering any questions she has. Now, she’s poking around in my fridge, inquiring about numerous pre made cat food containers.
Having a conversation is never difficult with her. She’s happy to talk, and I’m happy to listen. Also, her questions always have a purpose. They’re never just to fill up space. I never have to worry that she’s bored, because we’re both genuinely interested in what we discuss.
She’s a dream. An amazing creature that life somehow placed right in front of me after forty years.
“Do you want me to make you something?” I ask. “I can actually cook human food, too, pretty well.”
“You don’t have to,” she says easily.
I chew my lip and close the refrigerator. “I…I don’t know how to explain this,” I say quickly, and she tilts her head curiously. “But…doing things for you? Providing for you, it…it makes me feel good.”
There has to be a better way to explain it, but I don’t know how.
Just taking care of her makes my body thrum and pleasure shoot up my spine.
