I shut off the water, my mind still going over what sort of date we can take her on, she isn’t super social, so maybe a picnic and projector type movie. The truth is, we don’t know that much about her. I mean, Jacks is already in love, he was gone as soon as he saw her. Gabe and Leo too.
Fuck, ok, fine I’ll be honest, so am I.
Which freaks me out a bit, because I’ve always been the logical one, but Candice doesn’t make any sense. The pack wasalready perfect…now it just feels…more perfect? Like, something was missing and I didn’t even know about it until she was suddenly here. Maybe Leo’s right, and she is our scent match, because every time I’m close to her I just wanna pull her into my lap and purr until she’s nothing but a puddle of omega mush. I want her in the shower between Jacks and me, at least sometimes. I just feel like I need to be whatever she needs, and that freaks me out because I feel the same way for Jacks.
The introspective part of my brain wonders for a few minutes if my reaction to her is Jacks, he reacts to her, I react to him, so therefore I react to her…but I don’t think so. I knew she was somethin’ special before he picked her up and carried her into the house that first day.
Clean and dry and redressed I head back down the stairs to see Jacks standing by the table, hugging a sleepy looking Candice. I wrap my arms around both of them and have to stand on my toes to bite the back of his neck. I’m not expecting him to go down and take her with him, but he nearly does, and I have to catch them both before they hit the floor.
“You ready for tonight?” I growl against his ear. He turns his head enough to look at me, we’ve always understood each other. “Yeah, I got the truck all packed up. Thanks for grabbing that stuff, I already put it in the office to work on later.”
Candice’s eyes ping-pong back and forth between us. “What’s tonight?”
I lean over Jacks to kiss her on the nose, “Nothin’ to worry about, Pretty Lady. You are gonna stay here after dinner withour pack lead and veterinarian, and Jacks and I just have a few errands to run. Lots of time for snuggles when we get back, ok?”
She nuzzles her face against mine, kissing my chin, and then pretending she got a hair in her mouth, gasping and flailing…murmuring something about chin pubes…ew. Maybe I do need to shave, or commit fully to a beard. I’ll worry about it later.
Jacks makes an excellent burger, and I love it when he goes all out with a burger bar, so we can each do something custom. Gabe almost always goes basic toppings with no veggies, but will always add bacon if it’s an option. Leo enjoys a gardenburger, but decks all his options out with excessive lettuce, tomato, onion, and pretty much any other vegetables that are out. Candice asked for feta cheese and diced black olives to put together a Greek burger, and Jacks makes one for each of them. Sounds tasty, especially the garlic butter, so I slather that on and then put a little of everything else on mine…I can barely open my mouth wide enough to fit it in by the time I’m done, but I’ve never met a challenge I didn’t meet head on.
After dinner we get Candice settled on the couch with Gabe and Leo. She and Jacks are both super clingy and he only lets her go after several hugs and scent marks. With what went down today, I don’t blame him for not wanting to be apart, but we have work to do.
He already loaded up the truck, and I grab a spare sheet of plywood and some 2x4s out of the shop to toss in the back of the car before we head out, over to Candices’ house.
Time to do some cleanup.
We talk a bit about date ideas, I wanna make sure he’s good with taking her on a date. I understand he wants to take her out, but I also know our time together is special, so we decided to roughly alternate. We can plan a date with her this week, and for just the two of us next time. We don’t want to monopolize her time, especially since I’m sure Gabe and Leo also wanna get to know her better.
When we get to her house, Jacks helps me unload the wood, tools, trashbags, and gloves. He goes inside to start picking up glass and cleaning up papers. I’m not sure how much we’ll be able to salvage, but I wanna try to save as much as we can.
I carry the wood around back, and start measuring to cover the door. It’ll just be a patch job, but until we can get a professional over here, it’ll have to do. By the time I get everything cut down and need Jacks to help me secure it, he’s already collected all her papers in the office. He’s also taken photos of things that are gonna need replaced, like the make and model of her office chair that’s on the label attached to the frame.
He helps hold the wood in place, while I screw a brace on the back to secure it through the hole that used to be glass. Then we get to work on the inside. We get trash bags for the broken picture frames, and sweep up glass from the living room. Locate her vacuum in the broom closet, to clean up in there. The desk doesn’t look damaged, but we load the busted monitor and drawing tablet and chair in the back of the truck to dump or recycle.
He looks furious cleaning up her nest, and I can’t say I blame him, this is her special place, where she’s supposed to feel safest. I leave him to it while I go start emptying the fridge and cabinets. The food is probably fine, but since we don’t know if the guy tampered with any of it, I won’t feel safe leaving it there. Jacks takes more pictures of things that need to be replaced, trying to make sure we keep anything special for repair, like a patchwork quilt that was torn open, or what looks like a handmade photo frame of young Candice and an older man, I am guessing is her Grandpa. The glass is shattered, and some of the tchotchkes around the edges are broken off, but it looks special enough to try to repair it.
By the time we finish, it’s almost one in the morning, and her house looks empty. The bed of the truck is loaded with bags to go to the dump. Jacks is still fuming, and I can’t really blame him, but I pull my broken boy in for a kiss and rub my hands up and down his back.
“You ok, love? I know that’s a stupid question, but how’re you holding up?” I grab his hair, tilting his head so he has to meet my eyes.
He looks tired, but better than he did at dinner, and he tries to smile for me.
“Ok, let's get you home, cleaned up, and then omega snuggles, yeah?” That, at least, does earn me a smile.
We’re both dragging by the time we make it home. I send Gabe a text letting him know we have an impending dump trip, and asking if we should just rent adumpster so I can start renovations on the house. He can see it tomorrow, if I forget. Another speedy shower and I come out to find Jacks passed out in our bed, waiting for me. My heart lifts a little. I’m not jealous of the time Jacks spends with Candice, but I still need to feel needed for me. I crawl into bed behind him, kiss my bonding mark on his neck, and don’t remember anything after that until Leo is knocking on my door telling me it’s time to get ready for work.
Chapter 27
Iwake up sandwiched between Gabe and Leo, and it looks like it’s still dark out. My bladder is full, and I need to squeeze out from under what feels like a two ton arm pressing me into the mattress. No one is around my feet, so I shimmy down the mattress, and ok, I stop to gape at the deliciousness in briefs and boxer briefs that I’ve been sleeping between…but fuck. Bathroom first.
When I finish washing my hands and come out, the room is pitch black, and I worry about stumbling around in the dark and hurting myself on unfamiliar furniture. It seems like as good a time as any to get a drink, so I meander downstairs to the kitchen, get a glass of water and now I’m awake…fuck
I napped too much earlier.
To be fair, I’ve been kinda fucking stressed.
I hope Jacks and Xan made it back ok. I check out the front window and see the truck, so at least they made it home safe. It feels strange to be worried about two grown men, but I can’t help it, they’re important to me.
It's weird standing in the middle of the living room alone, so I head back up the stairs, noticing now that there is a big lump in Xan’s bed, so I tiptoe as quietly as possible back to the nest, and crawl up the center. My vision has adjusted enough that I can see Gabe and Leo now. Gabe has his arms wrapped around Leo’s waist and Leo is rubbing his face on top of Gabe’s hair. I kinda wish I had my phone on me so I could take a picture of this for posterity, or at least to show Jacks tomorrow to get a smile out of him. He seemed almost as broken as me today.
