Page 80 of The Beta: Part One

All I know is that I want to be with Jasper. I can't think past that, and I can't so much as imagine having a permanent bond with one of these alphas until he puts it on the table. If I say yes now but they don't want me I won't be the only one hurt, Jasper would be so disappointed if he got his hopes up and they say no.

“I'll be with you, regardless. But let's give them time to think about it before we get ahead of ourselves, okay?” I climb up over him and straddle his hips, letting my hair fall around us like a curtain and drop a kiss onto his mouth. I'm so happy to be back in his arms, to be touching him, to have his taste on my tongue that I could squeal. I don't, of course, but I feel it in the back of my throat like a constant, embarrassing threat. I want to bask in my happiness instead of stressing myself out over something that might not even be an option.

“You have a lot of hair,” Jasper says, looking around at all of it surrounding him.

I laugh, “Devon said the same thing.”

My dress isn't in the hallway where I dropped it, neither is my bag, and Jasper is very happy to dress me in a pair of loose boxers and a very worn tee shirt. I'm standing in his bathroom staring at myself In the mirror as I braid my hair. I decided on two dutch braids, not at all because I'm anxious about being around the other men who live in this house and these braids take the longest to do.

I exit the bathroom and find Jasper eyeing me, “I know you're nervous, but you don't have to be.”

I wasn't worried about dealing with them the first time I walked into this house and there's no rational reason I should be worried about it now. They didn't force me away, I chose to leave, and I chose to come back. No one is going to be angry with me for being here because Devon came for me himself, he wouldn't have done that if the others didn't agree to it.

Devon brought me back here for Jasper, he wouldn't have if he wasn't okay with me being here. I tell myself that a few times as I walk down the hall in front of Jasper, my anxiety and worry isn't going to turn me into some lip-trembling ball of nerves. I won't let it.

I follow the scent of burnt coffee to the kitchen. Kaleb is in his usual place at the table reading through some papers stacked in front of him. He doesn't look up when I come in, but he didn't often look up from whatever his morning work was before. There's no sign of the others other than some dirty cups by the sink.

Between the acrid stench of the stale, burnt coffee and the unnecessary clutter on the counters and Kaleb's disturbing willingness to endure it I feel my skin start to prickle and crawl. In my peripheral I see Jasper reach for the coffee decanter like he's going to try to drink it and Kaleb lifts his cup of rancid coffee-scented mud then it's suddenly too much.

I snatch Kaleb's cup before he can bring it to his lips and dump the offensive mess into the sink, then I empty the rest of it from the decanter, scowling when I see the beginnings of a ring staining the glass. I fill the kettle with water, clucking my tongue at the dusty residue that I have to scrub off, and put it on to boil. There is exactly the same amount of tea in the cabinet as there was the day I left. I mutter about that under my breath as I put on a new pot of coffee for Kaleb, who is looking at me with one eyebrow raised in curious amusement. Jasper is leaning against the island watching me wash the cups and wipe the counters that don't look like they've been scrubbed in weeks. He is also looking at me like he might think I'm hilarious.

The kettle whistles and I put two bags of the most vitamin and supplement dense tea into Jasper's cup and let it steep, then continue wiping down the kitchen. I'm mentally ticking off the things that have probably gone undone and Jasper's lack of nutrition as I work, but when Jasper starts correcting me I realize I must have been saying them out loud.

“I wasn't in a great place, I could barely stomach eating the stuff I did eat. They did their best, it was mostly fruit and toast and soup. I think they were overwhelmed by all the tea and ingredients and everything. Don't be mad at them, they really did do their best; and I wasn't up to cleaning so they all stayed on top of most of it. But now that we're talking about it, I think we should come up with a better way to split the workload. I know you're here to help me, but you've been doing everything except some of the laundry. You do too much and I don't do enough. Plus, I really miss cooking and a few other things.”

Then I realize what I'm fussing around in this kitchen doing. It isn't quite nesting, but I was irritated by the mess in the kitchen much more than I should have been. There's no reason for the scent of burnt coffee and a few dirty cups to make my skin crawl.

I drop the damp cleaning cloth onto the edge of the sink like it burned me and take a moment to center myself. I’m suddenly very glad Bianca packed the suppressants. You know, just in case. “We're not talking about it, but if you want me to back off the cleaning that's what I'll do. Just let me know which things you don't want me to do and I'll go by that. You get honey, not sugar. And I'm making you something substantial to eat, no sass. Kaleb, would you like anything?”

Jasper can say he wants to do more of the work until his mouth falls off, but I know how much he likes not having to do most of it. He does the laundry with me because he genuinely enjoys laundry, and I enjoy doing it with him. Maybe I'll push that idea, we can work together to do everything; I'm sure he'll like that.

Kaleb has gone back to his paperwork, but responds, “If you're going to cook anyway, I'd like something. Jasper isn't the only one who's been living off of canned soup and take-out.”

I humph at him, but still ask, “What about the others, think they'll want,” I look at the clock on the microwave, “Lunch? It will probably take me about half an hour”

The fresh coffee is done and I pour him a new cup, and one for myself.

He takes a sip and is visibly relieved by the taste, “You could text.”

I could text, my phone is in my bag. I turned it off the third day I was at Daniel's because Jasper was calling and texting me so much and it was ripping my heart out to not answer. It's been unused for so long that I'll probably need to charge it before I try to use it; so maybe texting isn't really an option. “Would you? My phone is in my bag, probably dead. Also, do you know where my bag is? I dropped it outside of Jasper's room but it wasn't there this morning.”

He pulls out his phone and I stir honey into Jasper's tea and hand it to him. I'm pulling out ingredients for a veggie stir fry when Nathan comes in. He looks over Jasper from head to toe and whatever he sees makes the tension ease from his shoulders. Then he's walking toward me with a purpose and I plant my feet on the floor to stop myself from taking a step back. I can actually feel his energy moving in front of him and it really is a struggle to stay where I am.

He wraps his arms around me and squeezes me so tight the breath hisses from my lungs as he lifts me into his hug and off the floor. When he puts me down he puts his huge hands on either side of my face and tells me, “I'm so fucking glad you're back,” and then he pulls a smiling Jasper into another hug.

“I put your bag in your room. Kaleb said you're cooking? I can't wait to eat something that isn't from a can. I went to the store, but we got pretty spoiled by you doing it, and I couldn't think what to buy when I got in there,” Nathan's ears are turning pink and he's looking everywhere but at me.

I can't decide if it's because he didn't know what to buy or because Jasper wasn't the only one who had a hard time while I was gone.

“I'll make a list today and take the card to the store tomorrow or the next day. There should be plenty of prepped meals in the walk-in if you guys didn't go through them,” I say as I'm putting rice on to cook and dragging out a chopping board.

Jasper breaks away from Nathan and starts washing the vegetables.

“Yeah, I couldn't stand being in the walk-in for long. The bleach fried the inside of my sinus cavities, I couldn't smell anything for almost a whole day. Did you spill a bottle in there or something before you left? After the first attempt I just didn't go back in there,” Nathan's face crinkles in distaste like he can still smell it.

It won't reek of bleach in there now after all these weeks, but the smell was probably pretty intense for a while. “I just wanted to make sure it was clean. It should be safe to breathe in by now, I'll go see what we have to work with until I make it to the store.”

Jasper and I are working like a well-oiled machine peeling, chopping, and slicing like we've done it a million times, which we really haven't. He would hang out with me while I cooked, but usually he was busy with one of his alphas.

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