Page 107 of All Packed Up

They turned to Arlo, and he paused, caught in the act of eavesdropping—but did it even count if they were right beside him?

“Well?” Wendy asked. “How do you cut carrots, Arlo?”

He blinked.

Oh.

Ohhh no. He was stuck in the middle.

“Uhh…” He eyed the carrots, the disks and the cubed pieces, and tried to politicize an answer on the spot. “I usually cut mine like Wendy, but I can see why you’d dice them for soup.”

“They’ll cook a little faster,” Grif interjected.

“But we have all day to cook the soup,” Wendy pressed. “So does it really matter how we cut the carrots?”

Griffith’s frown said yes, it did matter. But as Wendy turned back to the carrots, he caught the alpha’s eye and shook his head.

Agree with the omega like a good alpha. Come on.

With a sigh, Griffith scooped up the pieces of carrot that were already chopped, disks and all, and dropped them in the pot with a plop.

“No, I suppose it doesn’t matter,” he conceded.

Wendy harrumphed and went back to chopping carrots her way, and Arlo shook his head with a smile as he turned back to the sink to finish his task.

“Am I doing this wrong?” Griffith hissed at Arlo about a half hour later.

The fire from the living room was making his cheeks warm, but he moved closer to eye the pot with all the ingredients in it, so soon that it wasn’t even simmering yet.

It looked normal to him, and as the scent hit his nostrils, he breathed in deeply and sighed out. “I don’t think you’re doing anything wrong, why?”

“Wendy keeps looking at me weird,” he whispered, cranking his head around to make sure Wendy was still in the kitchen.

“Weird? Weird how?”

“I don’t know! Just weird!”

Arlo arched a brow at him skeptically. Sure, man, cute.

“What? You think she’s gonna ask to see it or something like it’s a school paper?”

“It just goes to show she has more faith in you,” Grif pointed out. “She hasn’t looked over your shoulder!”

Arlo tried to keep the smirk off his face, but ultimately failed. How had Grif not been paying attention? Wendy had checked Arlo’s cornbread mixture a few times, but he suspected she just wanted to be included.

The omega probably found the alpha a little too easy to aggravate.

There wasn’t much to do in this cabin out in the middle of nowhere, especially when there was no power. So Wendy couldn’t even distract herself with a movie if she wanted. Yoga only took so much time out of her day. Hanging out with Nic wasn’t that entertaining because the man kept going over spreadsheets and ordering supplies and all that other shit for the gym—all things Arlo thought he could just delegate to someone else. Oh, say, the manager that was actually watching the store?

But Arlo wasn’t going to tell Nic that, because once again, what else was there to do out here?

If Nic wanted to spend this little vacation looking over reports that didn’t really need it, Arlo wasn’t one to judge. But if the beta avoided Griffith any harder, he’d have to leave the house.

His gaze flicked to the alpha, who was adding different ingredients to the big bowl.

Griffith didn’t seem to care one way or another but… something about the way his gaze followed the beta when he thought no one was looking gave him away.

Neither of them was very good about hiding their interest in the other.