Page 36 of The Alpha: Part Two
"We are." Michael climbs into the bed beside Desir'ee and kisses her temple. Ben gets in next, and tucks a strand of hair behind her ear before he starts getting comfortable.
My breath hitches yet again. We're going to sleep together as a complete pack and I have never been this content. This is the purest definition of contentment.
I gently roll Desir'ee and myself over until she's resting on my chest. It's not awkward when the twins tuck themselves in on either side of us. It's perfect.
Chapter twenty-one
Ben
You know, it was completely reasonable and understandable to stop at the hospital to grab what Desie called a belly kit to take to Talia, but this is too much. Parking on the side of the freeway so Seth can rip flowers out of the ground for another pack’s omega is not a valid reason to be even later than we already are. We were supposed to be at his people’s place seventeen minutes ago.
“Get some of the yellow ones, too!” Desie points to the lone patch of wild mustard flowers further up the hill.
“He’s going to get bit by a snake.” I return the look Desie shoots at me with a wink. He won’t. Heprobablywon’t.
The thing is, I can’t even be irritated about this. I couldn’t count the number of times I’ve stopped off to pick up something special for Amber. Flowers, seashells, fucking chili fries. Omegas are meant to be spoiled and I’m not going to be the asshole who doesn’t stop for roadside posies.
“Go help him, Michael,” Desie whispers. “He’s pulling them up by the root.”
Michael rolls his eyes, but up the hill he goes. There’s a brief conversation about saving the root system and the soil here being too sandy to hang on to roots in the first place, but they both eventually have enough sense to pull out their pocket knives and cut the stems. Then Michael points to a shrub and says, “watch that snake,” and Seth jumps back so fast that he loses his footing and all but rolls back down the hill, long legs and arms flailing comically .
“Michael! He could have rolled over a snake and actually been bitten!” Desie’s yelling, but I doubt he hears her. He’s laughing too hard.
Seth’s flowers are mostly alright, and Michael carries down enough to make up for the ones that were crushed in the tumble.
“Was there really a snake?” Seth asks Michael, his eye righteously narrowed.
“No,” Michael snorts.
“Asshole,” Seth murmurs, but he’s smiling.
We stop,again,at a gas station on the way. He said he needs contraband, and we all laugh when he comes back to the car with a bag of candy. He sends a text when we’re a few blocks away and then we’re parking in front of a huge house with one of the alphas from last night standing on the porch with his hands on his hips. “We’ve been looking for you for almost an hour. Dutch is going to attack you when you walk through the door. Talia’s going to love those though. What’s in the bag?”
Seth grins and tilts the bag so he can see inside.
“She’s never going to give all that to them.” The alpha, Kaleb, I think, is fighting to hide a smile and failing.
“I’m going to sneak it to Alex. And he can sneak it to the kids.” Seth rolls the top of the bag down, as if that could mute the scent of pure sugar.
“So, you’re the bad uncle, huh?” Desie smiles at him.
Seth ducks his head and looks sheepishly at Kaleb. “I just want them to be happy.”
“Put some toothbrushes in the bag next time and she might not get the spatula. Come on, they’re all in the living room.” He starts to open the door, but pauses, turning back to look at Desie. “Are you alright?”
“I’m good,” Desie assures him. “We might have to leave kind of abruptly if… well, if we have to go, we’ll come back.”
“Got it,” he says. “We’ll try to keep things brief.” Then he holds open the door for us.
We walk into a room exploding with toddlers and several different kinds of energy. A little boy runs toward Seth at full-speed and Seth barely has time to drop the bag of forbidden candy into my hands and shove the flowers at Michael before the kid is literally climbing up his body, yelling the wordlate.
“I know, buddy,” Seth laughs. “I stopped to get your mama some flowers. Do you want to give them to her?” The little boy nods and clambers back down. Seth passes the bouquet from Michael into the boy’s chubby little hands and watches him take off toward a very small, very pregnant omega who I assume is Talia.
“Thank you, Dutch,” she says, smiling over his head at Seth. “Now, go be good with your sisters.”
I can’t stop a smirk from pulling at my lips. That little boy doesn’t look like he’s very good at being good with his sisters or anyone else.
There’s a few drawn out moments of our packs taking in each other after Dutch takes his dramatic exit. I recognize two of the alphas from last night, maybe three. I really only had eyes for Michael and Seth last night, and Desie as soon as she walked down the hall. Their expressions are as varied as their energies. Everything ranging from curiosity to outright distrust. We’re going to leave here exhausted just from being in this mix.
