Page 69 of In Knots

“Dubious?” Buzz asks.

“My parents would not approve of last night. Would yours?”

Buzz shrugs. “My mum has her suspicions about what I get up to, but if she doesn’t want to know the details, she doesn’t ask.

“If I took you home to my mum, she’d have a fucking field day,” Ryan says.

“Because I’m a nice girl,” I say with some sarcasm.

“Because you’re an omega and she wants grandchildren. She thinks her best way of getting them is if I find my omega.”

“I don’t think my mother wants to be a grandma for at least another ten years!”

“And do you wanna wait that long to have kids?”

Simon wants them right away. I’ve never thought about what I want.

“I don’t know. I know I want them, but not yet and probably sooner than ten years.”

“Kids are expensive,” Buzz mutters.

I guess they are. Like rent, something else I’d never considered.

“Does that mean you don’t want them?” I ask.

“No. It just means I want to make sure I have the money before I do.”

Ryan rolls over and scoops up his phone from the floor. “Seven am.”

“Urgh,” I say, throwing my arm over my hand.

“Little early for you, princess?”

“Uh-huh,” I say.

“Then go back to sleep and we’ll go make breakfast.”

I watch the two of them climb out of bed, admiring again just how bloody fine they are, and then I roll over and drift back to sleep.

Buzz wakes me later by snuggling into my neck and squeezing my backside. “Come on, baby, enough beauty sleep. Time to get up.” He slaps my arsecheek and swipes the cover from my body.

“Hey!” I squeal. “It’s still early.”

“It’s not,” he says. “We’ve got to be at work in 15 minutes.”

“Work? It’s Saturday?”

“Yeah, and the garage opens at 9.”

“You’re open six days a week?”

“Only until lunchtime on Saturday, but yeah. Come on, up you get. If you’re lucky Bear left you some hot water.

I find a towel thrown over the back of a chair and wrap it around my body. Out in the living area, only Cam remains at the table scrolling through his phone.

“Customer showed up early. They went to open up.” He pushes a plate across the table. “Your breakfast is here. It’s scrambled eggs. I’d eat it before it gets cold if I were you.”

I glance towards the bathroom door and then towards the table. My stomach rumbles and I perch down on a chair. Breakfast is a meal I often miss, my stomach most often knotted in the mornings, but today it seems I’m famished.

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