Page 57 of Knot Playing Fair 2

I could sense Emiel’s gaze on me, like he was waiting for me to register an opinion on the matter.

“It doesn’t have to mean anything,” I mumbled, and it sounded uncomfortably as though I was trying to convince myself, rather than either of them.

“It can mean whatever we want it to mean,” Mia said. “For me, it means that I care about you both deeply, and I’ll be able to sleep better if I know you’re close by and okay.”

There was a lengthy pause.

“Dunno if I’ll be able to sleep,” Emiel said. “But I like the idea that I could watch over your nest while you and Mia sleep, Luca.”

The thick lump in my throat returned with a vengeance. I had to swallow several times before I could say anything.

“I... don’t know if I can sleep either,” I said. “But... if you both want to stay, I guess I’ll try.”

It was a wishy-washy nothing burger. Typical omega deflection, because the idea of blurtingplease-don’t-leave-me-aloneorgod-yes-please-stay-foreverwas fucking terrifying.What if I liked it too much? What if I got this tiny taste of having a pack, and I wanted more?

But apparently, Mia was content to take my wishy-washy omega bullshit at face value.

“Good,” she said. “Now go splash some cold water on your face and take a couple of aspirin, Luca. We’ll be here when you get back.”

I went into the bathroom, moving like a robot. I blew my nose. I rinsed my face; I filled a cup and drank, swallowing a couple of painkillers to hopefully short-circuit my headache.

My trip to the counseling office yesterday shouldn’t have thrown me for this much of a loop. I could have filled out the paperwork online, but I’d wanted to get a feel for the place directly... to make sure the building and the people didn’t set off any alarm bells, as stupid as that sounded.

It wasn’t as though the receptionist had demanded that I write out a synopsis of my trauma on the patient application. Everyone I’d interacted with had been polite and professional. I had no excuses not to follow through and attend sessions there.

Maybe that was the problem. I had no more excuses. By filling out that paperwork, I was committing to actually doing this. And I really didn’t want to do this. Or, rather, I wanted the end result of maybe not being such a psychological dumpster fire after getting some proper therapy; I just didn’t want all of the painful bits that I knew would be coming between now and then.

I hadn’t expected Emiel to force his way into my nest when my nightmares woke me up, screaming. That had been dumb of me. Like he’d said, I’d started us down that road, not thinking that it might come back to bite me later on.

What’s good for the goose is good for the gander. That’s what my mother had always said. I guess it was inevitable that even she would be right about something eventually.

Staring at my swollen, bloodshot eyes in the mirror beneath the unforgiving light of the bathroom, I contemplated running and hiding somewhere rather than going back to my nest, and the people waiting there. Problem was, not only was I too tired to run... I also didn’t want to.

As problems went, I had a feeling that was going to be a big one.

Up until recently, I’d trusted Byron not to let it turn into a ‘thing’ on those occasions when Mia and I ended up crashing in his bed after an evening of particularly inventive sex. Then he’d called it ‘our bed,’ and I’d realized too late that Byron was as weak as I was.

NowEmiel,of all people, was succumbing to the siren lure of things we couldn’t afford to let ourselves want. And I was about to dive right back into the nest with him.

I stared at the idiot in the mirror and let out a resigned sigh.

“It doesn’t have to mean anything,” I repeated to my reflection, not believing it for a minute.

When I returned to my room, Emiel had joined Mia among the cushions. He was leaning against a convenient beanbag chair, and Mia appeared to be fast asleep against his side. One of his arms was wrapped around her narrow shoulders, his thumb rubbing gently over the skin.

A bolt of yearning shot through me like an arrow.

“You want me to go back by the door?” he asked, looking up at me with deep brown eyes.

My breath caught.

“You don’t have to,” I said hoarsely.

I could curl up on his other side, I thought in a daze.He’d put his arm around me just like he was doing for Mia.

It was too much. Too big for tonight. I lay down next to Mia instead, resting my head on her thigh. She made a hummingnoise, waking only enough to shimmy around so my head was on her stomach and she could get an arm across my chest.

The scent of spicy citrus and summer flowers surrounded me.

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