Page 68 of Excess

“Well, no… Not yet.”

“I’m her boyfriend,” Blake interjected, looking oddly smug. It wasn’t an expression I’d seen on him before, and it was adorable.

“Are you going to come and live with us, Inika?” Freya asked, before sitting up a little straighter in her seat. “Can we come and live with you? Your house is nicer.”

“Frey…” David began uncomfortably.

“We wanted to talk to you about that,” Blake interrupted. “Inika and I want a place that feels like a fresh start for both of us. For all of us. There are some fixer-uppers farther out, away from the city, that we could afford together.”

I nodded. Blake wanted us to be as equal as possible, all things considered, and I absolutely respected that. And we both loved the idea of restoring a historic home to its former glory. Well, I could come up with ideas and he could do the restoring. At least in the short term. Eventually, I wanted to develop some more practical skills of my own.

“There’s one we’re particularly keen on looking at. It has plenty of room for all of you.” Blake cleared his throat. “It actually has some outbuildings, which would give us all our own space. Which I think would be… beneficial.”

“I want to live with Inika,” Freya said, frowning.

“We’ll figure out the details later, Frey,” Leo said, looking between us. “Are you sure you wouldn’t rather just have a fresh start, Blake? You took us in and I appreciate that. I, uh, know I haven’t always made it easy on you.”

“You haven’t,” Blake agreed bluntly. “But I think we’re making progress. Don’t you?”

Leo nodded, swallowing thickly.

“Might be good for you to get out of Streatham,” David said quietly, looking at Leo. “Have a fresh start. Meet some different people.”

Leo nodded glumly. “Schools and stuff, though…”

“There’s a great school nearby,” I offered quietly. “It’s mixed, but popular among omegas, in particular.”

“And we’ll help you fix up the house of course,” David said hastily. “I was a builder my whole life. We all know Blake’s a top-notch plasterer. Leo’s handy on the tools too, when he wants to be.”

“I can help,” Freya added, glaring at her grandfather for forgetting to mention her.

“And Frey is an excellent wee helper,” David amended, lips twitching. “I don’t want to count my chickens before they’ve hatched or anything, but I’m quite fond of the idea, all told. Blake has never taken much space for himself, and he ought to. He does so much for us.” David ran a shaky hand through his grey hair. “I wish I could say don’t you worry about me, I’ll be just fine on my own.”

“Absolutely not,” Blake said firmly.

David shot him a sad smile. “I’m not sure I’d do too well on my own these days.”

That wasn’t an easy admission for an alpha to make, and I could see that it cost him. David rolled his neck, visibly uncomfortable, but Freya’s omega instincts kicked in instantly. She carefully climbed onto his lap for a cuddle, taking a bit of toast with her and immediately decorating the front of her purple dress with crumbs.

“This is all a little… backwards,” Leo said, looking between Blake and me. “Usually, the mating happens, then you figure out where to live and stuff.”

Blake frowned. “Seems impractical. And Inika and I aren’t twenty-year-olds with the world at our feet and plenty of time to figure it all out. We’ve got responsibilities. We’ve got other people depending on us.”

“And we want to make this work,” I added in a softer voice. “For everyone. We’d much rather take our time and do things right.”

“Mum would have liked her,” David grunted, not quite able to make eye contact with anyone as he tipped his chin at me.

“So would Ella,” Leo said, though his tone was more wistful. Blake blinked in surprise. Perhaps Leo didn’t talk about his late mate very often.

“Now that’s sorted, can we enjoy our breakfast?” Blake asked, adding another piece of bacon to my plate. “I’m too tired for any more heavy conversations.”

I smiled into my teacup, wishing I could remember my heat more clearly. I’d heard that some couples filmed the experience so they could watch it back later when the haze had cleared, but Brigitte had advised me not to do it. Apparently, some things couldn’t be unseen.

“I can understand that,” David laughed. “Sounds like you’ve squeezed in plenty of heavy conversations over the past couple of days.”

I looked at Blake thoughtfully. “I think they were blunt conversations rather than heavy. We’re not exactly spring chickens.”

Blake grunted in agreement. “We don’t want to waste a single minute.”

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