Page 20 of Packing for Vacation

“That’s… wow.”

“Yeah.”

“What does he do? Īhaka, I mean.”

“Omega law,” Matiu answers. “Completely different from the corporate stuff Scott and I do.”

“Like I said,” Scott says, “Īhaka’s a nice guy. There’s not a lot of people that go into law for purely benevolent reasons, but he’s one of them.”

Omega law. “Does he cover immigration at all?” The question slips out of my mouth before I can stop myself and I flush, because I’ve just given myself away and it’s far too soon for any of that business.

“You rushed into that pack life,” my mother’s voice echoes in my head, a bad memory from when I’d gone back home with my tail between my legs. “You were so desperate to play omega you didn’t even consider what kind of men they were and now look at you, discarded. People are going to say you’re a pack hopper, I hope you know that.”

“Have you looked up immigration info regarding your own situation? Now that you’ve found scent matches here,” Scott asks, and there’s something about him that’s so genuine that despite my flaming cheeks, I can’t lie.

“I’ve taken a precursory look.” I glance between both men. “Given the situation.”

“That’s smart,” Scott smiles. “So have I. I’m sure Matiu’s done the same. It’s good to know you have options, eh.”

Options—based on the slightly frantic googling I did in the night while Matiu lay sleeping beside me—include an expedited pathway to New Zealand residency for foreign omegas who scent match with one or more alphas with New Zealand citizenship. Once I’d found that moving to New Zealand is a real possibility if this all goes well, I’d finally been able to settle into sleep, the panicked thoughts of I think I’m falling for this guy but what if I can’t even stay? put at ease for the time being.

“I’m not trying to get ahead of myself, or be presumptuous, but it’s…” I set my wine glass on the table, at a loss for how to word the mess of thoughts and feelings I have over finding two scent matches here at the bottom of the world.

Scott nods with understanding, while Matiu gives me a small but reassuring smile. “We have this concept in law where we talk about parties needing to approach a situation in good faith,” Scott says, “and I promise I’m not gonna give you lots of lectures about legal shit, I just finished up for the year and I don’t want to think about work at all until min-Jan at the earliest, but I think it’s fair enough to say that the three of us have been thrown together in this relatively rare phenomenon⁠—”

“—and we’re lucky,” Matiu interjects.

“—We’re fuckin’ lucky, because you’re gorgeous and stunning and lovely. But what I was getting at is that this isn’t an everyday situation, and there’s some interesting factors at play, like the lack of heat suppressants and that you’re supposed to be here for only a short period of time, but we can all approach this in good faith, hoping for the best, if you know what I mean.”

“I agree,” I say, nodding emphatically, my head feeling a little too light, as if it might float away. The second large glass of wine was a mistake, but I’ll sober up soon enough. “And I suppose, at least you two already know each other.”

“That we do.”

Something unspoken passes in a look between the two men, and then Matiu clears his throat, standing up. “I’m gonna go clear the dishes from dinner. I'll let you two get to know each other more.”

“Well, actually, I need to take Barry for a walk.” Scott looks at me. “Do you want to come? The beach is just down the road. He’s gonna be a nightmare if I don’t let him properly burn off some energy. There’s still enough daylight left.”

“Absolutely.” Barry, who heard the magic W word, is already dancing at Scott's feet, his tail wagging impatiently.

“Yeah, yeah, we're going. Come on.”

Scott doesn’t bother putting Barry on a lead. “He’s a good dog,” I remark as Barry calmly leads the way as if he knows the area. Maybe he does. “Have you been here before?”

“Here in Devonport? Yeah. Last year there was a big case I worked on alongside some people from the Auckland office, so I stayed just down the road from here for a month, and Barry and I would do this walk regularly.”

“I was thinking he seems to know what he’s doing,” I say, nodding in Barry’s direction as he stops ahead on a corner, waiting for us to catch up.

“He’s a smart dog.”

Smart is an understatement. Barry takes off as soon as we’re on the beach, whizzing along the water’s edge in a black-and-white blur, but all it takes is a quick, sharp whistle from Scott, his fingers in his mouth, to call Barry back, the dog running in a wide arc across the beach. Scott whistles again, the sound different from the first command, and Barry stops suddenly, lying down in the golden sand. I meet Scott’s eye, my mouth open in surprise, and he grins.

“I grew up on a sheep farm,” he explains. “I’m the disappointment of the family because I went off to the big smoke and never came back.”

“Being a lawyer is disappointing?”

He gives a third whistle and Barry rises, heading in our direction at an easy pace, though he gets distracted by another dog and begins to play.

“Well, it’s no rugged farm life, is it?” Scott answers, picking our conversation back up. “But that’s where I got Barry. He was the runt of the litter when I went back home a few Christmases ago, and he needed bottle feeding.”