Page 51 of Knot Alone

I want to argue, but he’s right. Running off to spend my heat with the Alphas I’m in love with won’t be nearly as important to my parents as running off to spend my heat social climbing.

“But Linus’ parents?” I ask.

“You’re beautiful, and higher class than me.”

“Just upper middle class with delusions of grandeur.”

“They won’t care.”

“But what do we do about them?”

Graham squeezes me tight. Before he can answer, Linus sarcastically says, “Brace for impact,” as he rearranges my luggage. “They’ll turn up with grand plans for bonding and moving back into the family home.”

I twist around to look at Graham, horrified and hoping Linus is teasing.

Graham grimaces. “I know. Don’t worry.” He drops a kiss on my forehead. “Linus is good at maintaining boundaries with them. I can give you their complaints against me to prepare, but they won’t have complaints against you, just plans.”

“And we have plans for each other?” I try to say seductively. Twisted as I am in Graham’s lap, I take his hand to my mouth and press another slow kiss to his skin.

“Mercy.” Graham murmurs. “I can’t go another round.”

I giggle. I’m sitting naked in a tub with an Alpha I’ve known for less than three days and I’ve never felt more at home.

There’s a hum from the door, and we both turn to see Linus leaning against the doorjamb, watching us. I hold out my free hand to him, and Linus shucks off his sweats and climbs into the water to join us. Just where he belongs.

Epilogue

Maggie

Several months later

“Remind me why we’re doing this?” Linus asks as he unfolds the legs of the extra table we’re putting next to the picnic table on our back lawn.

“Because our families have to get along at some point.” If Graham had been out in the yard with us, he would’ve snorted, but the man is inside prepping chicken for the grill. Through lots of experimentation, we’ve reached a point where we can manage my family and Linus’ family individually. But together… things are rough.

Graham’s garden is exquisite in early fall. Raised beds encircle the stone patio outside the kitchen doors. The beds burst with fall vegetables, some of which I picked and Graham cooked and are about to grace our table. There’s a rectangle of lawn for afternoon naps, and the rest of the yard is flowerbeds. They’re stacked with sunflowers, snapdragons, the entire spectrum of hydrangeas, and a dozen other things.

Before our bonding, I only would’ve been able to name the sunflowers. But now, I… well, I can’t name everything. But I know Graham has a rotational system. Several somethings were always blooming during the summer months. I also know that dahlias are Linus’ favorite. So, despite their temperamental nature, Graham has them throughout the garden in special pots. And I know Graham is cultivating an array of clematis to grow up a trellis, just like the red ones outside my old bedroom window.

I also know that Linus and I are looking into a solarium addition to the kitchen. It’ll extend over half the patio so Graham can keep growing through the winter. But that’s an early anniversary present Graham doesn’t know about yet.

In a fit of self-restraint that I’m still quite proud of, we waited a whole month before bonding. Though, I never really moved back home after my heat.

Whatever angst there might’ve been from my Beta family, Linus put it to rest by name-dropping himself the moment we walked in my front door. My parents haven’t stopped being thrilled since. (My mom hissed at my brother-in-law for trying to puff up and say he didn’t care who Linus was. She over-enunciated Linus’ last name half a dozen times before my sister recognized it. Graham had to ‘grab something from the car’ to keep from bursting into laughter.) Their persistent excitement about Linus is a little embarrassing, but it’s workable.

I expected my parents to take longer to care about Graham, but my nephews and nieces glommed onto him the moment he walked in the door. My parents are nothing if not good grandparents, and it’s hard to fake superiority over a man who makes your grandchildren smile.

We had a minor break in pleasantries when I told my parents I was leaving the family business to go back to school. Not so much that I was leaving, but that I was doing it for more education. (They’d expected my retirement into society wife service, not a Master’s in statistical analysis.) But Linus had said, “Aren’t we all so proud of her?” and everyone nodded along. Linus was proud. He didn’t understand it, but he was still proud. Graham and his artwork understood even less, but he said sketching me crouched over my books was his second-favorite way to draw me. The first being naked, of course.

The hardest part of the transition was my siblings. Oh, they made the polite shift to me not being at their beck and call to take care of the children, but they still liked to drop comments about how difficult their lives had become. I was successfully guilted in spontaneous babysitting several times before Graham made some pointed comparisons between my siblings and Linus’ parents. I told Graham that neither he nor Linus have siblings, so things are different. That was our first fight, but we found a happy medium between helping my siblings and letting them take advantage. (Graham doesn’t know that watching him and Linus chase the children around the yard makes me ache for a few of my own. But he’ll figure it out.)

My brother-in-law, Charlie, is still an ass, but he wants invitations so he keeps his mouth shut at family activities, which is all I could ask from him.

As for Linus’ parents, by the time Linus turned his phone back on after my heat, he had a message inviting him to dinner with his charming new Omega. (Linus forwarded the message to Iris. She called us back three days later and said the Center had fired the party responsible for the information leak. She never confirmed, but we all know it was my caseworker.)

Linus’ parents are utterly charming in a painfully insincere way. For a while, they thought I was the weak link in the chain and tried every trick in the book to get details out of me that Linus’ boundaries refused to share. I used to give in. I thought my fresh eyes might help the situation. But that went out the window when they suggested I push Graham out of our relationship.

Now, I stonewall with the best of them. Linus’ parents tried complaining to him about my behavior, but they made the mistake of repeating what they said about Graham. Linus banned them for a month. Now, they’re on their best behavior, but we can tell they’re just waiting. (Graham and Linus have a bet about how long his parents will take to say something tonight that will get them put on suspension. They wagered a blowjob, so either way, they’re both winners.)

---