Page 13 of Our Haunted Omegas
“Maybe we tell them they can both sit up front. I don’t know if it’s safe to leave the car here. It’s really nice. Hell, I don’t know if it’s safe to leave the car in the parking lot at home. Somone’s going to thump it for its ruling family license plate. We might have to write on it that it’s Teal’s. I know that’s a lie, but everyone likes Teal.”
“I don’t know that people dislike them,” I said, jerking my head in the direction of our mates. “They just…. Get around a lot?” I bit my lip and let out a long, slow breath.
“What?” Odie asked. “You look like you thought of something horrible.”
“Not horrible. Just a bump in the road, probably. I mean, they should be sex-educated, right? You don’t think they’ll freak out if we say they needed tested before we mess around. It’s not that I---”
Odell reached for the door handle and opened the wing before I could stop him. Both of the alphas turned towards the car ready to be attentive. Odie waved Cobalt over and whispered something in his ear. I turned bright red without even hearing what he asked his mate. Without speaking, Cobalt moved to open the glovebox and slid a box into Odie’s hand before disappearing from the car again.
“What is it?” I asked as Odie settled back into his seat.
“An over the counter STI test,” Odie whispered. “Apparently, Teal keeps them in stock. He went to medical school.”
He handed over the box with a photo of a smiling throuple on the front. I crinkled my nose and turned the cardboard box over in my hand. The information on the back looked real enough.
“It is real. We carry them at the store,” Odie pointed out.
“Are they accurate, though?” I pondered.
“I think so. Teal went to medical school and I don’t think he wants his brothers walking around with crotch rot but also Ambry, I’m pretty sure most STIs have a scent. Like when someone is ill with a cold or something. I’ve never smelled one but I’m pretty sure crotch rot has a stench.”
I laughed because I couldn’t stop myself. It was too much. From his nightmares to sitting in a Moonscale Wing holding an STI test was too much. What the fuck had happened to our lives? Was this a dream? Was—
“It’s not a dream,” Odie shook his head.
“You’re calmer about this than I expected.”
“They’re triplets, Ambry. When Teal first told me about you and Indigo I worried about what I’d do but they’re inseparable. I mean at the worst Teal meets his mate and they’re a total twat gagger or something and we’re stuck with them. This is a good thing. I don’t think we could’ve gotten luckier.”
“I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop.”
“They’re going to hate our apartment. That’s going to be the other shoe,” Odie said. “That’s one we can handle, though. I love the apartment but even if they were wolves we might not fit and what if we have babies. Are we going to have babies? Is it even safe to have pups right now? What about eggs? Where would we put a nest? How would we make sure someone doesn’t boil our eggs or something because they got confused?”
I put my hand on his chest and the wing of the car lifted at the same time. Cobalt’s hand shook as it found his shoulder. Seeing his massive fingers shake from Odie’s anxiety made thewhole situation seem that much more unreal. Maybe he was an empath or something. Maybe he just tuned in too much on Odie and didn’t know how to tune out. Cobalt had a reputation for being selfish and dick-centered but those traits contrasted with the man who lifted my best friend from the car and sat him on the trunk.
I crawled out of the car after him and let out a long, slow breath. Indigo wrapped his arms around me from the back and I leaned against him, letting him take on some of my weight. It was a short night at work but the middle of sleep wakeup call from Odie’s nightmare made it feel twice as long as a normal shift.
“Have we decided where we’re going or how we’re going to get there?” Indigo asked me, as his brother stood between Odie’s legs and held him close.
“No clue. We got as far as STI testing talk,” I said, glad I couldn’t see his face.
An engine rumbled in the distance.
“Teal,” Indigo whispered seconds before the baby blue truck came into view.
I turned in his arms for a proper hug as Teal pulled into the parking lot. If anyone else saw us they would probably have guessed something horrible had happened from all the hugging. Teal got out of the truck and stood between us and the others. He looked back and forth as if he didn’t know what to do with any of us. He probably didn’t because to be fair we didn’t know what to do with ourselves either.
“Where to?” Teal asked a second later when Cobalt finally resurfaced from staring into Ambry’s eyes.
“The apartment,” I said. “I know, I know. It’s small but it’s a place to start. We’ll get some sleep and figure out what to eat.”
“I have the food taken care of or will if you don’t want something I’ve already gotten. It’s mostly sandwich stuff,premade dishes, and fruit and vegetables that are easy to eat raw. You know, matingmoon foods. We can stop and pick up pizza or Chinese or whatever, though on the way there. I’ll come back and pick up the Wing after I get you four settled in.”
“Do they know?” Indigo asked.
“Which them?” Teal shot the question back at him.
“Our parents? Grandparents?” Cobalt filled in the gap.
