Page 24 of Our Haunted Omegas
“Everyone worries about that. I worry about that.”
“What if I just have a shutdown night and can’t take care of the baby?” he asked, pulling two mugs out of a cabinet stuffed full of them.
“What am I? Chopped liver? I’ll have you know Medwin Moonscale trusts me with his children. He’ll probably even write me a reference if you need it. Every parent has times where they can’t parent. Like what if I were in an accident and couldn’t parent for a few months? Should that possibility mean I’m not allowed to have kids?”
“It’s not the same thing. Mine almost definitely will happen at some point,” Odie sighed.
“And I hear you,” I nodded taking the mug of coffee he offered. “I do and it’s something we’ll plan for.”
“You can’t always be ‘on’ either.”
“And I won’t be because you’re not always ‘off’ or whatever you want to call it. Then we have Teal, Indi, and Ambry. It takes a village or in the case of my upbringing a whole town.”
“I think I’m going to lay back down,” he said, setting his mug aside.
“Mate, tell me what you need to hear,” I said, trying to follow him out of the tiny kitchen.
“If I knew that I’d have told it to myself a long time ago,” he said and stalked off.
My heart plummeted even further.
Chapter Nine
Ambry
“I tried to explain it to him,” Dad said as Odie stormed off into the bedroom.
It wasn’t his angry storming off. It was his ‘I’m about to have a panic attack and only my pillow understands me’ storming off. Either way, it broke my heart but wasn’t unexpected. Why did Clarence Moonscale have to put his stupid holiday on today of all days? I wanted to bang my head against the wall and then maybe his. I snapped my thoughts shut because it wasn’t fair to think like that. It was a lot harder to hate Clarence Moonscale once I found out that if he didn’t exist my and Odie’s mates wouldn’t be here.
“Do you need to go after him?” Dad asked when I didn’t say anything.
“No, Indigo has him. He’s still in bed,” I shook my head and leaned back against the sofa rubbing my temples.
“Guess the camping trip is off,” Dad frowned.
“Nope. We’re still going. He’ll come around. He just needs a minute. Everything happening so fast has smashed his wake up routine to hell. He’ll be okay. I’ve told you for years. Sometimes you just have to let him break so that he can feel better.”
“Is that why his mate isn’t following him? Have you told him that too?” Dad asked, side eyeing the kitchen door.
“He probably needs coffee and time to process whatever just happened too. Cobalt isn’t a bad guy and you’ll stop obsessing about his sex life unless you want me to tell you why I think that makes him a good match for Odie.”
Dad held up both of his hands in surrender as Cobalt brought out two mugs of coffee, the milk, and sugar.
“Thanks, Cobalt,” I said, not mentioning Odie. If he wanted my advice, he’d ask. “Make sure you tell Teal to still bring the truck and stuff. We’re still going camping.”
“I know,” Cobalt nodded. “I’m not a therapist or anything but my grandparents are haunted by things I’ll never understand. Same for my carrier and uncles. You learn not to take their emotions personally. More often than not they’re beating themselves up and it has nothing to do with anyone else.”
I shot Dad a ‘told you so’ look and headed into the kitchen to grab the honey before he asked for it. He’d grown pickier each year and now only used honey in his coffee. I let out a long, slow breath in the kitchen. I was teetering on the edge of a panic attack but I hadn’t gotten enough sleep either. I missed Indigo so much and he was just down the corridor in the bedroom.
“Odie needs him right now,”my wolf whispered into my thoughts from his inner sanctum.
“Dad, I’m going for a run. You be nice to Cobalt,” I said, sitting the honey down on the table.
“The festival,” Cobalt said but I couldn’t stop myself. I was already outside the front door shifting. I had to move. I had to work out all the energy I hadn’t been able to the night before. It was slap my paws against the ground or find someone to eat. I could eat them to. I’d rip them up and shove their fiery cocktails up their arses. Not paying attention to the throngs of people already on the sidewalks I squeezed between a giant’s legs. He called me a name and it took all my willpower to convince my wolf not to circle back and bite him on the ass. Was he even old enough to remember the war? What the fuck was he celebrating? What were any of us celebrating?
I gave in to my wolf and his paws took us straight to where it used to be. There was a plaque there now and a park built over it. It started life as underground storage for food. During the war they turned it into a bomb shelter. Not two foot from that plaque is where they died. I sat on the plaque to the dismay of several people trying to take photos of it. They sported stateside accents and I had to remind myself that my mate grew up over there. What was this death tourism?
I searched the crowd for familiar faces. I recognized some of them from my daily life now but not one of them had been around back then as far as I knew. Where was everyone? Had the rest of them died? Okay. Maybe it was a bloody panic attack. Maybe it was more than just Missy beating me up with sponges and Indigo waltzing into the store. I hated this bloody festival. I hated everyone with their phones out trying to take photos of the plaque that wasn’t for them. Some folks didn’t even get graves and here they were taking photos.
