Page 37 of Packing for Vacation

“Nooo,” he says, completely unconvincing.

“You described the dresser as a tool for organising. That’s the keyword you’re looking for.”

He thinks for a moment, his eyes following Barry’s form as the dog runs across the lawn. “Organising. You don’t want your clothes organised?”

“The idea of having to organise my clothes makes my skin crawl.”

“Why?”

“It just does. I know it makes no sense, but I am allergic to folding washing. And I do know the actual answer why: it’s too many steps for my brain to handle. The task feels too daunting. So in my home, everything goes in the clean basket once it’s washed, and then it just stays there until I wear it. No dresser needed.”

“And that’s not annoying to you?”

“Why would it be annoying?”

He stares out at the ocean, frowning slightly behind his sunglasses.

“Am I scaring you off?”

“What?! Fuck no,” he answers. “You’re just blowing my mind. You’ve got me questioning my life choices when it comes to laundry.” He pulls me closer, wrapping his arms around me, and I sigh against him.

“You should join me on the dark side.”

“I fear it’d make more work for myself… business shirts mushed into giant piles of washing equals more ironing.”

“Ah.”

“Are you two still going on about the drawers?”

I grin at Matiu as he steps onto the deck, three cold beers in hand. He passes them out, his fingers brushing mine.

“Not really, but on the topic of clothing…” I start, taking a long drink. The beer is exactly what I need at the end of a long day. “How would you two feel if some of your clothes just happened to go missing? Hypothetically speaking.”

“You mean if a sneaky little omega stole some for her nest?” Scott asks, squeezing my hip.

“I mean I don’t know, now you’re just making up scenarios.”

“I think,” Matiu muses, “that if I were to go to bed tonight in one of the rooms downstairs, and Scott were to do the same, because your nest is not quite finished yet, that perhaps someone with kleptomaniac tendencies may find some worn clothing discarded at the foot of our beds.”

“Yep,” Scott adds. “Sounds like a likely scenario.”

I’m thankful for the sunglasses that hide the tears in my eyes as I reach for Matiu, pulling him close, until his arm snakes around my waist, sandwiching me between the two men. I may have had a pack before, but it was nothing like this. It had been manufactured, a genetic test determining that I was to become an omega at some point. I’d been an overeager, silly young woman, and armed with that knowledge had matched with a pack of men all a decade older than me, never questioning why four attractive alphas had been unable to secure an omega, never wondering why they’d be willing to bring a beta into their pack on the promise that she’d one day reveal.

I hadn’t had the nesting instincts back when I was a beta, but I’d wanted them, and that pack had expected them of me, so I’d performed, playing the part as best as I could. It had been comical, once I did reveal, just how wrong that nest felt. My old beta brain hadn’t understood a thing about being an omega.

I press a kiss to Matiu’s chest, and then to Scott’s shoulder, watching the sun set, the sea and sky the prettiest of oranges and blues. This is what a courtship was supposed to feel like, and I’m simultaneously happy and grateful, while also feeling immensely sad for the old me.

Matiu breaks the silence. “We forgot to say cheers.” He lifts his half-full bottle, and Scott and I do the same.

“To Lizzie’s vacation,” Scott says.

“To Lizzie’s nest.”

“To us,” I add. “Cheers.” The glass bottles clink together, small bubbles in our drinks floating to the top, sparkling like the hope in my chest.

I place the final cushion along the back edge of my nest, under the window, and step back, my omega whispering yesss to me, utterly satisfied.

It’s perfect. An eclectic mix of cushions line three edges of the huge floor mattress, and my woollen blankets cover the bed, interspersed with items from Scott and Matiu’s wardrobes. Nothing matches and I don’t care, it’s exactly the kind of messy happiness that I like, an outward manifestation of what it often feels like in my head. The salt lamp that I picked up for such a bargain adds to the warm glow from the late afternoon sun, and it’s so tempting to grab my kindle, curl up in the centre of my nest, and never leave it. Instead, I take a handful of photos with my phone, fluff up a cushion one last time, and then make my way downstairs, looking for my alphas.