Page 74 of Packed Up In Vegas

“It feels wrong to think about going to sleep when she needs us.” Kai pulled a hand through his damp hair with a sigh.

“She might need us, but she doesn’t want us right now.”

“I have to try before I can go to bed,” he insisted.

I followed him back down on the off chance that she would actually open the door for him.

“Little dove, what’s wrong? What do you need?” He knocked and waited.

“Please, go away.”

Kai looked over to me and I could only shrug. If she wasn’t going to let us in, we couldn’t do anything until she wanted to come out. Theoretically we could break into the room, but I wasn’t sure if we would recover from that breach of trust. She needed a space that was safe and belonged to only her, even if she was going to use it to lock us out.

“I hate this,” said Kai.

“Same. She took some of the nest in there with her. At least it wasn’t the entire thing, but that can’t be a good sign, can it?”

“Definitely doesn’t feel like a good sign.”

“Well,” I sighed, “our choices are to wait up to see if she emerges, or go to sleep right now and wait for her to come out in the morning.”

Kai stared longingly at the door, his palm on his chest. “I guess it might be overstepping if I just grabbed some couch cushions and lay down right here?”

“Considering we don’t know what kind of mood she’s going to come out in, probably. Let’s get some sleep and hope everything looks better in the morning.”

Kai reluctantly agreed and followed me up to the nest. “Can I stay here tonight?”

“Of course you can. Until all the nest is gone, this is communal sleeping space.”

Kai blow-dried his hair before climbing in, stretching across the pink expanse that held Callie’s rich candied apple scent. It was weird as hell to sleep in the nest without her, but it was better than sleeping somewhere I couldn’t smell her. Kai was staring up at the ceiling, moving his palm in a slow circle over his chest.

“Is that where you feel her distress?”

“Yeah. Just a dull ache right here.”

“If you want, we could spoon a bit. Shove your face into the nest to breathe her in and pretend it’s her hugging you.”

Kai laughed quietly. “I wouldn’t say no.”

He got himself comfortable, wedging some pillows against his chest and put his head beneath one of the blankets before I tucked myself against him. We had gotten much closer plenty of times, and since Callie had joined us, we had ended up in some manner of tangled up multiple times, so it felt like the most natural thing in the world to offer him this comfort. I nudged his hand out of the way and replaced it with my own, feeling the beat of his heart against my palm.

Eventually his breathing evened out and he fell asleep. It took me a while longer, and I woke to Miles kneeling on the nest, his hand on my shoulder.

“Pack meeting in the courtyard,” he said.

“Okay. I’ll go see if Callie wants to join,” I mumbled sleepily.

“No. This one is just for us.”

I raised one questioning eyebrow, but Miles was already leaving. I nudged Kai awake and he groaned, burying his face deeper into the nest.

“More sleep.”

“We have a pack meeting. You have to wake up.”

“Why can’t we do that in the afternoon?” Kai grumbled and sat up slowly with a yawn.

I didn’t bother getting fully dressed, heading downstairs in just my lounge pants and stopping to see that Callie’s door was still closed and firmly locked. Kai looked longingly at it as we passed, and I pulled him along to grab our coffees before joining Amir and Miles in the courtyard.

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