Page 63 of Bonding the Band

“Just grab anything that takes your fancy,” Arlo said as he rummaged through a pile of throw pillows bigger than he was. “Next week, we’ll be at our house in LA. We don’t have any nesting materials there, either, so think of it like you’re shopping for two nests. The tour bus and the California house.”

I had been in a nesting store once or twice over the years, but it was a very new experience to take an omega to one. Every surface was piled high with things that I didn’t even know existed for nests: voice-activated fairy lights, more fabrics than I knew what to do with, and over a hundred types of mattresses.

“I can’t let you guys buy metwonests!” she hissed, turning to Arlo with wide eyes.

“Why not?” He shrugged.

“Because that’ll be expensive!”

“You do recall what we do for a job, right?” Hendrix asked with a chuckle, lightly gripping Meadow’s upper arms. “I want you and the nugget to be comfortable…Do it for me?”

He was doing his best to look her in the eye, but like the rest of us, he was wearing incognito clothing. We all wore some type of sunglasses and a beanie or baseball cap to do our best to hide our appearances from any fans who may have seen us.

Our goal was simply to look like your normal, run-of-the-mill pack going shopping for some nesting supplies. Alphas spoiling their omegas was definitely not an uncommon sight, so we hoped we blended in.

Who was I kidding? My pack could never truly fly under the radar. Arlo had jumped into a pile of blankets the moment we entered the store and attempted to drag Meadow in with him.

“But…” Meadow trailed off, eyeing a blanket display near her.

“Go wild, darling,” I said.

Meadow turned to me, a grin on her face, her cheeks turning pink at the term of endearment that fell easily from my lips.

“See? If Mr. Sensible is telling you to go wild, you have to! Come on,” Arlo whined, leaning forward and plucking the blanket off the wall and handing it to Meadow, who was chewing her lip. “Feel how soft this is!”

One touch of the blanket, and Meadow folded. With a sigh, she gave Arlo a long-suffering look before throwing the blanket into one of the two carts we had grabbed on the way in. Once she started, it was like the floodgates opened and both carts were quickly filled. She was clearly going for a green theme.

I turned to Phin. “Why don’t we go talk to the staff about getting some items shipped to the LA house?”

“Sounds like a plan,” he said, so we left the others with Meadow as she made her way slowly though the store, buying whatever made her happy.

It turned out the staff was used to omegas buying for multiple nests. Mere seconds after I asked the question, the staff member had pressed a small tablet into my hand and instructed me to simply list all of the items on their app. It would be as simple as checking out and putting in the new delivery address.

Phin and I trailed through the store, taking our time to get back to Meadow. Several times, we paused to look at items and added them to our list. After the first few items, we realized we could use the camera on the tablet to scan barcodes, making the whole process seamless.

I was prepared to spend thousands in the store with how easy it was, and I wasn’t even an omega.

“Look at this green throw pillow!” Phin declared excitedly, holding it up. “It’s shaped like a leaf! Add it to the list.”

I chuckled and did just that.

We added all the items to the list that Meadow had already picked out, plus some fun things that we liked. If she wasn’t a fan of them when she got to the California house, she could easily discard them. Most likely, one of us would end up using them.

A small section caught my eye as we passed.

“Hey,” I called out, stopping Phin, who was wandering a few steps ahead of me, enamored with a set of doorway beads that were sparkling every color imaginable.

“Yeah?” he asked, turning on his heel.

“Wanna look through there?” I asked, jerking my head in the direction I had just been looking.

The nursery section.

We were going to have a baby soon, and a baby needed a lot of things.

Phin’s face broke into a grin. “Hell, yeah! Meadow will be distracted for a while, so we’ve got time.”

Chapter 26

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