Page 62 of Claiming Their Omega

“I had no idea.”

“Well.” Hendrix shrugs. “Makes me sound like a stalker.”

“No, it makes you sound sweet.” I pause, then, before I can lose my courage, I add, “I still write, sometimes.”

“You do?” Hendrix sounds pleased.

“Yes. Just dabbling, honestly. It’s a hobby, that’s all.”

“I think it could be more than that, if you wanted it to be. That story you wrote had a lot of potential. I know you were young and it was high school but if that’s what you wrote when you were sixteen I’m sure you’ll really knock it out of the park now.”

My face is probably redder than a sunset. “Oh, I don’t know about that.”

“I mean it!” Hendrix insists.

I shake my head. “Hendrix, that story was crap. You want to know why I threw it away? Someone read it out loud in front of a bunch of other people. They all told me how bad it was. How untalented I was. I was teased a lot for being a nerd, back then.”

“Well, they were assholes, and they were wrong.” Hendrix’s eyes blaze with conviction, like he’s going to find Maybelle and every other classmate who laughed at me and beat the shit out of them all these years later. “You’re perfect just how you are, and that includes your writing. You shouldn’t change a thing about it or yourself.”

Something tightens in my chest. “I don’t know what to say to that,” I whisper, biting my lip.

“Then don’t say anything. Just accept it, because it’s the truth.”

We walk for a bit, just vaguely window shopping. There’s a lingerie store. I remember being a teenager and feeling it was so scandalous to go inside, my friends and I giggling together over the negligees and thongs.

“Now, if we were really courting,” Hendrix says, his tone flirtatious, “and we walked past here, I’d say I had a few ideas for how you could thank me for what I said a minute ago.”

I laugh. “You’re incorrigible.”

“Only when it comes to you.”

The thing is, a few months ago, I would’ve just said that he says that to all the girls. But now… now I wonder. “Do you mean that?”

Hendrix stops walking. “What?”

“When you say you’re only incorrigible like that with me, do you mean it?”

Hendrix stares at me like I just asked him if two plus two equals four. “Yes. I mean it.”

I feel like I can’t quite get my breath back. “Are you actually flirting with me? And no, I know you flirt with everyone, that’s not what I mean. There’s a difference. Are you flirting with me?”

Hendrix shrugs. There’s something resigned about it. “Have been for a long damn time.” He gives me a small, crooked smile. “It’s about time you finally noticed.”

He starts walking again, leaving me to try to figure out how to quell my racing heart.

Chapter 20

Easton

Over the next few days, Grace continues to settle deeper and deeper into our lives.

The day I wake up wondering what she’s made us for breakfast is the day I know I’m in trouble.

None of us would ever expect her to cook for us just because we’re supposedly courting her, but Grace inherited a love of the kitchen from her father, so she makes a big breakfast every morning. We take turns cooking dinner. She also helps around the house and with feeding the animals, and she’s even reading manuals on farm equipment maintenance. The other day, I caught her up in the hayloft shoving hay bales with all her might down to where Jesse waited to catch them.

She doesn’t let her size or the fact that she’s spent years in a city instead of on a ranch stop her. She’s determined to help out, which is incredibly admirable.

But apparently, it also means I’ve gotten damn used to her—and that’s terrifying.

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