Page 81 of One for the Money
I never thought I would scent match an Omega. It’s rare for Betas to scent match at all, much less to an Alphaandan Omega. It makes sense, though, that I’d match with Alex after matching with Quinton. She ties us together.
Our spirit.
When I enter Jude’s bedroom, I find Alex curled up in the middle of his bed, looking so fucking cute, covered in our blankets and pillows that I want to squeeze her and never let go.
“Hi,” she whispers, scooting to the side. “You can sit down, if you want.”
Does she realize she just invited me into her nest? Maybe it doesn’t feel like it’s her nest, since it’s in Jude’s home and piecemealed, but it’s still a nest that she’s burrowed into.
And she invited me in.
Regardless of what Alex says, her Omega instincts are riding her hard, seeking out her pack, and they recognize me as part of it. It’s hard not to puff my chest out in pride at the realization.
I’m part of her pack.
I kick off my shoes and lie down next to her, propping my head up on my bent arms as I stare at the ceiling. “The guys went to town to pick up some supplies.”
“Oh.” She sounds hurt. Before I can ask if she is, to smooth her wounded soul and impress upon her that they left for her and will be back before she knows it, she clears her throat. “So you got stuck with babysitting duty?”
It’s hard to stop myself from stroking her head, so I clench my fist into the surface of the nest. I know she doesn’t like casual touches, and it’s going to take some time to break me out of that habit. “Ivolunteeredto stay with you.”
She furrows her brow. “Why?”
“Because you’re my Omega, and I wanted to spend time with you.”
She snorts and burrows deeper into the nest. “You have an Alpha, you don’t need me.”
“You seem determined to stick to the belief that scent matches mean nothing, as if our biology is just a suggestion. You’re a doctor, Alex. You know we can’t ignore this. So why don’t we talk about something else? Anything else other than how you don’t want me. Don’t want this circus of misfits as your pack.” I roll over onto my side to better see her, resting my temple on my fist. “What’s your favorite color?”
Wiggling out from under the covers, Alex mirrors my position, her face inches from mine. This close, I can feel the warmth of her breath across my face, and count the freckles that are under her left eye.
I can tell she wants to argue my point. Intends to continue being obstinate, fighting me every step of the way. But after a moment, she exhales harshly, and the tension bleeds from her shoulders. “Slate blue. Not quite blue, not quite gray. Like the sky before a summer storm. What’s yours?”
“Yellow.”
She snorts. “Like a lemon? I can’t picture you enjoying that.”
I shake my head, slowly raising a hand to boop her on the nose. “Not like a lemon. Like buttercups. They’re my mom’s favorite flowers.”
“Are you close with your parents?”
I do a waggling motion with my free hand. “My mom, yes. Not so much my dad. It’s not that we have a bad relationship or anything; we just have nothing in common. If we met as strangers, we wouldn’t be friends, you know?”
She nods slowly. “I get that. I feel like many adults probably share the same sentiment, but it’s like an unspoken rule that we don’t say that out loud. You can loveyour parents for how they raised you and the memories you share, and still acknowledge that you have incompatible personalities.”
I knock my shoulder against hers. “Oh, someone took their psych rotation seriously.”
Alex’s laugh is beautiful, and she throws her head back, looking free for the first time since I met her. “Guilty. Maybe I would have been a psychiatrist if I had found it before emergency medicine. They’re more similar than you realize.”
“In what way?”
She sits up, the blanket pooling around her waist. She’s wearing my and Quinton’s clothes, which does something to me that is hard to explain. It’s like cute aggression, but sexually charged. She looks so adorable, so sweet, and I want to ruin her.
“Okay, so emergency medicine involves triaging the cases, sorting them to see what the most emergent issue is that you need to address. If five patients come in and two have the flu, one has a broken arm, one has an unknown rash, and one has a gunshot wound, you treat the gunshot wound first, right?”
“That would make sense, yeah.”
Her eyes light up as she speaks, and I adjust myself to sitting as well. Our knees touch, and she leans forward, resting her hand on one of mine. “Psychiatry is similar. People often have comorbidities, concerns that arise in conjunction with or exacerbate other concerns, and you have to triage and determine which one is the most important to address first. Because if a patient has bipolar disorder and ADHD, and you choose to try to treat the ADHD with standard means, while saying you’ll get that under control and then you’ll handle the bipolar disorder, do you know what happens?”
