Page 102 of The Beta: Part Two
Devon doesn't have an argument that will stand up to that. His pride is the only thing bothering him, anyway.
“Devon, it's not that bad. They can both wash you. You know you want both their hands rubbing all over you and all that. Hell, Alex. Shoot me. I'll lay in the bed and let our omegas wait on me hand and foot and give me sponge baths and shit. Use two guns. Maybe stab me for good measure.” I'm trying to make light of the fact that Devon almost died and now he's being a big baby about letting us take care of him.
“Fine. I'll cooperate. I won't be difficult. I just don't like being a burden. They've been through enough.”
I roll my eyes. “Yeah, yeah. It's not like you have a say in it, anyway. Are you ready to eat yet? I didn't get breakfast, and Talia has some kind of something in that big ass slow cooker your mom sent over and she won't let me have any until you're settled.”
She didn't say anything like that. Didn't even hint at it. She'd probably hand me a spoon and take the lid off the whole pot for me. Having a bond with her is giving me a completely different understanding of her. Shelovestaking care of us. She loves that we like her food. And she loves that she loves it. Not that she'd ever announce that. But I need to get Devon off his high horse.
“I am hungry. And it smells really good,” Devon says.
He's not pouting anymore. Good. It's bad enough that we have to baby him, but if he keeps pouting I might dump him out of the bed. Not really, though. I'm full of shit. We almost lost him. He can pout all he wants. I just might give him a hard time about it.
Three days later, Devon has had enough of being grounded to Jasper's room.
He's still bruised all to hell and limping, but his wounds have closed completely and he's bandage-free. To prove that he's well enough to be released from his pampered prison, he drags his ass very carefully and slowly down the stairs for lunch without telling anyone he's going to do it.
To say that Talia and Jasper were pissed when he walked into the kitchen would be a vast understatement. But after they both combed over him with everything but a magnifying glass they calmed down and agreed to let him wander at his leisure.
They have him in the huge tub in their bathroom right now. I don't know what they're in there doing to him, but sign me up. I'm sitting on the piano bench in the gigantic main room that we use as a hallway plunking the keys and probably being very obnoxious when Talia runs through cussing about the linen closet being beside the laundry room.
Her clothes are soaked and she's dripping water as she runs past me. Her tits are also bouncing with every step. It's a beautiful thing. Jasper yells down at her to hurry, he also calls for Kaleb to help him. Naturally, I go to see if I can also be a bother, I mean of assistance.
When I get up to the bathroom there's a sodden blanket on the floor and Kaleb is trying to help pull Devon up out of the tub and keep a straight face at the time. Devon is trying to control his laughter, so he's pretty useless for climbing out of the tub.
“I can't believe you did that. All you had to do is sit there and let us give you a bath. You must have been a terror as a kid.” Jasper is fussing, but he's smiling, too.
Devon pulls it together long enough to let Kaleb and me help him stand up from the ridiculous tub. “You weren't just giving me a bath, Jasper. Talia was, but you...youwere getting handsy with the patient.”
“You said you weren't a patient anymore. And I haven't been able to touch you in weeks,” Jasper laughs.
“What did you do?” Kaleb asks.
“He pulled her in!” Jasper yells, “he was trying to grab for me, but lost his balance, grabbed onto her, and pulled her in. This,” he gestures to the lake on the floor, “happened when she fell in.”
“Devon,” I say, grabbing my chest, “are you playing?”
I'm notquiteshocked. Just almost. When we first came together as a pack we played all the time, usually an actual game because we were all still into soccer. But there were a lot of ridiculous pranks, too. Then we brought Jasper home and Devon took on so much responsibility that he kind of weighed himself down with it.
Ever since, Kaleb has been trying to help him shoulder that weight, and Nathan and I have tried to keep up the lighter end of the spectrum. I haven't seen Devon laughing and playing in actual years. Talia has never seen it. She might be genuinely shocked and concerned.
She comes bustling back in with an armload of towels and Reid following behind her with a mop. “Don't let him step off the blanket until I get this dried up. If he falls...”
“I'm not going to fall, Talia.”
“You almost died, Devon. You almost died. You have only been home for a few days. Just stay on the fucking blanket until I get the floor safe enough for you to walk on.” She doesn't look at any of us, she just spreads towels on the floor and starts using them to soak up the water.
Reid puts a basket down next to her and she puts the wet towels in it. The mop ends up being unnecessary but she still goes over the floor one last time with a dry towel before she'll let Devon walk back into Jasper's room. She makes Kaleb and Jasper walk him in there, but she stays sitting on the floor. Then I see her wipe her face like she's mad at it.
Fuck me, Talia is crying.
Reid sits next to her on the floor and rubs her back. He doesn't say anything, just pets her. That's good and all, but I don't like it. I need to understand why she's upset so we can avoid it in the future. Talia crying might be the worst thing I've ever seen. She cried when we brought her home from the hospital and it was so bad. Now that she’s my omega, bond or not, I don't think I can stand it.
I crouch down next to her and touch her knee, “hey. I don't understand. It's just water. And Devon's alright, he's just still a bit banged up on the inside. We wouldn't have let him fall.”
“I know,” she sniffs, “but we almost lost him. And he won't stop trying to do too much. If he fell and hit his head or hurt his back or busted something back open... I never should have put him in the tub. And I never should have let Jasper jerk him off. He wanted Jasper to get in the tub with him, but he got dizzy when he sat up and fell. He could have hit his head. He could have drowned. And you were all laughing.”
And here I was thinking she was indestructible.
