Page 46 of Nesting With My Three Alphas
Instead, it felt like I was watching something I wasn't quite part of.
By the time we finished cleaning up, the sun was shining, making it hard to believe we'd been in the middle of a serious storm just hours earlier. Kit insisted on making breakfast for everyone, bustling around her kitchen with the kind of determined cheerfulness that suggested she was working hard to maintain normalcy.
"This is really good," Reed said, accepting a second helping of french toast.
"Thank you. It's my grandmother's recipe. Comfort food for difficult days."
Comfort food for difficult days. The implication that last night qualified as difficult confirmed what I'd suspected.
"Kit," I said carefully, "if you ever need anything during storms, or any other time, you know you can call, right? Charlie and I are right next door."
Something flickered across her face. Gratitude, maybe, or regret.
"I know," she said quietly. "Thank you. Both of you."
But even as she said it, I could see her rebuilding the walls that had come down during the storm. She was pulling back into herself, the way she always did after vulnerability. Quiet, composed, unreachable. Not because she didn't trust us, I was beginning to understand. Because she didn't trust herself to need anyone.
The walls between us were paper-thin, and somehow still impossible to breach.
And maybe that was okay. Maybe trust, like Charlie's broken bone analogy, took time and the right kind of care.
I just had to figure out how to provide that care without pushing too hard.
Even if it meant watching from the sidelines while other people offered the comfort I wanted to give.
Chapter 15
Kit
You can't hide forever, Kit. I've taken steps to ensure you come home where you belong. Check your email.
Marcus's text had arrived with my morning coffee, followed by an email claiming he'd filed "binding legal agreements" that would force my return to Chicago. Fake papers, obviously. I'd never signed anything that would legally bind me to him. But the audacity of it, the desperation behind the lie, made my hands shake as I sat in my car outside the Hollow Haven Community Center.
Living my life despite him was the freedom I'd always wanted. I’d saved enough over the last two years that I could take this time to recover. Marcus not wanting my contribution to anything was the biggest favour he’d ever unknowingly done for me. It wouldn’t be long before I needed to seriously start thinking about contacting some old clients for freelance opportunities though. I was okay for now though. Now all Ineeded to concentrate on was me, and what this life I was building from scratch was going to look like. WhatIwanted it to look like.
Coming here this morning felt like an act of rebellion. Now, staring at the cheerful building, it felt like the first real choice I'd made in years.
The Hollow Haven Community Center smelled like creativity and belonging. Watercolor paints mixed with clay dust, the faint scent of coffee from the break room, and underneath it all, the warm omega energies of women who'd found their safe space to create. I stood in the doorway, clutching my new sketchpad against my chest like armor, and tried to convince myself I belonged here.
Three weeks. I'd been in Hollow Haven for three weeks now, and this was the first time I'd voluntarily walked into a room full of strangers without one of my alphas as a buffer.
"You must be Kit!" A warm voice called from across the room. An elderly omega with silver hair pulled back in a paint-splattered bandana was waving me over to a circle of easels. "I'm Eleanor Parker, but everyone calls me Mrs. P. Micah said you might join us, so we saved you a spot."
Of course Micah had paved the way. My gentle alpha had probably described me as "the new artist who needed friends" and enlisted the entire class in making me feel welcome. The thought should have embarrassed me, but instead it made my chest warm with affection.
"I hope you don't mind me crashing your session," I said, making my way over to the circle. "I'm still pretty rusty."
"Nonsense!" Mrs. P gestured to an empty easel that had clearly been prepared for me. Fresh water cups, a selection of brushes, and even a small palette of watercolors that looked suspiciously high-quality. "Art is like riding a bicycle. Your hands might forget, but your heart remembers."
"Plus, omega-led spaces have always been the heart of this town," added a young mother with paint under her fingernails. "I'm Lily, by the way. I do pottery mostly, but I'm trying to expand my horizons with watercolors. Although, I'm pretty terrible at it."
"I'm Anna," said a teenager with purple streaks in her hair who was sketching what looked like a very anatomically correct dragon. "And I'm great at it, so feel free to ask for help if Mrs. P starts getting too encouraging."
Mrs. P laughed, a sound like silver bells. "Anna keeps us all humble. Now Kit, what kind of art speaks to your soul? We're a judgment-free zone here."
I settled onto the stool in front of my easel, feeling the familiar weight of creative possibility in my hands as I picked up a brush. As I did, something shifted in the room. A subtle synchronization of scents and breathing that I'd never experienced before.
"You'll notice the calm settling in," Mrs. P said gently, as if reading my thoughts. "It's the way our instincts sync when we create together. Omega spaces naturally harmonize emotional regulation through shared creative energy."
