Page 21 of My Begrudging Scent Matches

“Thank you,” she says. What she really means is thank you for everything, for eight days, for helping when the consequences of my decisions caught up to me, but she knows she doesn’t have to say so.

Caleb tilts his head and hesitates, really deliberating over something before maneuvering around the counter to pull her against his chest. She lets him.

Tomorrow she’ll put a stop to all this. She’ll tell them they don’t have to pretend to want her with them just because she’s an Omega and their scent matches—it won’t hurt her feelings, really, it won’t, and she’s sure they can sort something out to work together without too much distraction.

Tonight, though, she lets Caleb curl his arms around her while she breathes in his scent.

Tonight, she lets them feed her and pet her hair and tuck her into the soft bed beneath fresh linens. And when she goes to sleep, she lets them hold her, one on either side of her, and imagines for just a moment that it can always be as simple and comfortable as this.

Tomorrow, she will leave, but tonight, she falls into the most peaceful sleep she’s known in years.

eight

Alice wakes up in Grant and Caleb’s empty bed, pale sunlight flits through the windows that were previously covered in dense curtains. She pushes up on one arm and rubs her eyes. Her bones are less heavy than they were last night—all of her usual aches are eased.

The suppressants and blockers took their toll on her body, just as everyone said they would, but she didn’t know just how bad it had been until now. With her first heat done, she feels better than she has in months.

She’s still in Caleb’s hoodie, but at some point in the night, she kicked off the sweatpants . Their sheets are nicer than any of hers, the bed is so plush she could sink back into it for another heavy sleep, but something delicious smelling makes her stomach growl as if she’s never eaten before.

“Fine,” Alice mutters to herself. She swings her feet onto the plush carpet and flexes her toes before wiggling back into the baggy sweatpants. It’s absurd to be embarrassed about her body around Caleb and Grant after they spent the last eight days doing things that she can hardly think about now without her face flaming, but the thought of them seeing her bare thighs this morning is horrifying.

Really, it would be best if she didn’t have to see them at all. If she could sneak out without their notice and never speak of this again, that would be optimal. Unlikely, though, when she can hear them moving about downstairs.

There are a few unpacked boxes stacked in a corner. As she walks through the house, towards the smell and the noises coming from the kitchen, she sees various picture frames leaned against the walls, not yet hung up. They only moved in a few weeks ago and one of those weeks was taken up entirely by Alice, so of course their things are still half-packed.

When she pads into the kitchen, Caleb and Grant are both dressed, showered, shaved, and infinitely more put together than Alice is right now. Caleb pulls something out of the oven while Grant does the dishes, a picture of domestic bliss.

She realizes she’s never seen either of them in anything but business clothes… or, well, naked. Grant wears corduroy pants and a sweatshirt, Caleb dark jeans and flannel; Alice hasn't looked in a mirror but she could make an educated guess that her red hair is a frizzy, snarled mess around her head.

She clears her throat and they both turn around as if an alarm just went off.

“You’re up.” Grant wipes his hands on a dish towel.

“How are you feeling?” Caleb removes his oven mitts and rounds the corner approaching her, but stops when she tenses. “What’s wrong?”

Alice’s mouth is dry, but she gulps.

“We didn’t, um, bond, right?” she asks. She remembers begging them to bite her, to seal the mating bond and take her, but doesn’t remember if they did it.

“No,” Grant says, his voice serious and low. “You’d feel it if we had. The connection.”

Alice lets out a relieved huff.

Bonding would be horrifically permanent, something that could only be broken with a lot of pain, distance, and time. To Alice’s mind, it was not a decision to be made with two strangers in the throes of a first heat. Many of Alice’s siblings bonded during their first heat, but that was different. They wanted that, they’d had a conversation beforehand.

They hadn’t gone into a sudden, frenzied heat at the place of their employment.

“Good,” she says, then again, “good.”

Caleb and Grant share a look that Alice catches but doesn’t dwell on. Surely they’re relieved too, right?

“Can I have some of that?” she points to the casserole. She has no clue what it is but it smells like cinnamon and blueberries and that tells her enough.

“Definitely, yeah—yes.” Caleb grabs a bowl and cuts into what looks like oatmeal and steam billows up from the dish while Alice takes her place on the stool she sat on last night. “This is a blueberry oatmeal bake. You’re not allergic, are you?”

Alice shakes her head and snatches the bowl, not letting it cool before taking a bite that promptly burns her tongue. It’s delicious.

Grant pours a glass of orange juice and places it next to Alice, standing close enough that his scent fills her nose with the cinnamon of the breakfast.

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