Page 21 of His Pretty Omega (Sweet Alps Mates #7)

Chapter Fifteen

Seth

May

Nibbling on the tender skin around my thumbnail, I stared at my phone in my hand, wondering how long I could wait to answer Alex’s text before he sent out the National Guard.

Alex: How’s it going?

Glancing around the empty boxes beside my couch, my brain tried to come up with how to respond. I’d been putting him off the last three weeks, and now my time was up.

Lying , my cougar reminded me, not at all sympathetic to my plight. You’ve been lying to him the last three weeks.

Not on purpose! I planned to pack.

My cat snorted.

I did! Then I got here, and there was so much to do, and I just…noped out and didn’t do anything.

Not true. You binged a show and played games on your phone.

Well, when he put it that way it just sounded bad.

Me: Great! Almost done! On the last box now!

That was a lot of exclamation points. Had I oversold it?

Probably not, since I had been coming to my apartment every night for the last three weeks after work. Staying for three to four hours, before winding up at Alex’s for the night completely exhausted.

All in preparation of moving day. Which was in two days. Two days!

Looking around my fully not-one-thing-packed apartment, I sighed.

This was bad. So, so bad.

Other than getting my lease sorted out with my apartment manager, I hadn’t gotten much else done.

How was I going to explain to Alex that I was super organized at work, but when it came to stuff at home, especially something as large as this move was, I was hopelessly unorganized.

It was like my brain just clicked off each night I entered my apartment after work, ready to start packing, sorting, and tossing.

It all became so overwhelming, and I was exhausted most nights after working all day on top of it. I always arrived here with good intentions but then I would just sit on my sofa, looking around hopelessly with no clue where to actually begin. That amounted to nothing getting done.

Alex had taken tomorrow off with plans to move as many boxes as he could by himself, and Saturday a bunch of our friends were planning to be here around eight in the morning to help us move furniture and anything left.

Nothing was packed.

Nothing was sorted.

I hadn’t decided what I was keeping, what I was donating, and what I was trashing.

Because I had been spending most nights with Alex since we had done the whole meet-the-parents stuff, the majority of my clothes and bathroom items had already found their way to Alex’s house, so at least that part was finished.

Better start calling it your house too , my cat advised. You’ve been living there for months now, whether you admit it or not.

You are not being nearly as helpful as you think you are.

I’m aware.

Goddess, my cat was a straight up asshole sometimes.

Alex: What time will you be home?

Glancing at my phone I saw it was already half past seven. I’d been here nearly two hours already.

Me: Maybe another hour?

Alex: Okay, I’ll see you at home. *heart emoji*

Me: See you at home.

My chest got all warm at the sight of the pink heart emoji, and my stomach fluttered.

Rubbing a hand across my round belly, I told the baby, “Your alpha daddy is a sap.”

But secretly, I loved that Alex always put heart emojis on his text messages.

“And when he sees this mess tomorrow, Seth, you can kiss it all good-bye,” I worried out loud.

“Sorry, peanut, I tried to get it together. I promise to be better when you get here. Okay, that’s probably a lie.

I mean, I’ll do my best to get it together, but you should lower your expectations now.

Be happy that one of your parents has their shit together and call it a win. ”

Looking around my small living area and kitchen, I was ashamed of everything that still needed to be done. I’d had good intentions to get it all done by now. Sadly, none of my intentions had manifested into reality .

Pushing myself off my couch, I grabbed a box and wandered over to the closed door of my second bedroom, determined that tonight would be the night I actually packed something.

Opening the door, I flipped on the light, then flipped it off just as fast. Well, the cleaning gremlins had not come in and taken care of this…situation.

Shoulders back, my hand crept to the light switch once more and flipped it up.

Boxes filled up almost every free space. If it wasn’t for the path I had somehow carved out, you wouldn’t even be able to get into the room. Unopened deliveries with an orange smiley logo glared accusingly at me.

“Don’t judge me,” I muttered, setting my empty box down, not sure what I was even going to do with it.

First, I needed to open all of these packages and see what was even in them. And therein lay the problem.

Every single time I planned to take care of this room, the task was so daunting that I just…didn’t. I found something much more enjoyable to do, that didn’t cause my brain to spin out of control.

No one knew about this room. Not even Bennett. It was embarrassing.

What could I even say to explain it? How did I even justify not even remembering what was in most of the boxes ?

Or that I had tried several times to come in here, to get it organized and cleaned out, and just been so overwhelmed by it that I hadn’t done one single thing.

How did I explain that after being on top of things all day long at work, that when I got home, my brain just sorta…short circuited?

To the point that when I would go on a shopping spree, and all my packages showed up, I just couldn’t even deal with opening them.

So into the spare room they went, never to be seen again.

Oh, if it was something I really needed, I opened it.

But most times it was books, or movies, or just random shit I ordered late at night because my brain said I needed it. Then it got here, I wasn’t in whatever mood I’d been in before, and I just couldn’t be bothered.

And now Alex was going to find out my dirty little secret.

He’d probably take one look at this room, the boxes piled high, plus all the other stuff I hadn’t done to get ready for this move and he’d know I was way too much to deal with.

Accuse me of not wanting to live together, to be with him, and, well, it wasn’t like I hadn’t tried to warn him how I was.

Really he had only himself to blame.

Are you victim blaming? My cat sounded disgusted with me .

Excuse you, I’m the victim here. My alpha is gonna take one look at my hoarder ass and hightail it outta here.

Oh paleese! That man is so gone for you it’s borderline disturbing.

Yeah well, he’s gonna wonder what in the actual fuck I’ve been doing every night over here, and likely jump to some conclusion I’ve been fucking off with another alpha. His last boyfriend did that, you know?

His last boyfriend wasn’t his fated mate or having his pup. You need to get a grip. You’re spiraling and I don’t have the energy for it.

Don’t whine at me about having no energy, I’m the one–

My internal argument with my cat was cut off by a sharp rapping on my front door.

Eyes wide, I stared down the hallway, feeling like I was caught doing something I shouldn’t be.

“For fucks sake, Seth,” I ran a hand through my sweaty hair. Even with the A.C. cranked, I was burning up. “Get a grip.”

Padding over to the door in my bare feet, because I had shed my scrubs as soon as I had come inside for something more comfortable, which had been what I could find in the last few items of clothing still here, I cracked the door and peered out.

Alex’s brown eyes met mine, and he held up a brown bag of something that smelled amazing. “What are you doing here?”

“Feeding you,” he told me, nudging the door further open and stepping around me. His amused gaze ran down my body, as I shut the door. “Nice outfit.”

Looking down at myself, I flashed him a grin, then struck a pose. “It’s all the rage in maternity wear.”

The elastic of my scrubs had been digging into my belly all day, on top of Mother Nature deciding that rolling into Memorial Day weekend would be the perfect time to spike the temperatures with a heat wave.

I’d dug in what was left here of my clothes, finding a pair of black sequined booty shorts.

They were too tight across my ass, and I had the waistband pushed under my belly.

The hot pink crop top was stretched across the top of my belly, held together only by some excellent stitching at the seams and a whole lotta prayers.

brAT was written in black swirly letters across my chest.

Alex snorted, “At least it’s accurate.”

He looked around, not saying a word, as he set the bag on the counter in the small kitchen. “I brought food.”

“I see that.” Moving around him, I reached into the cabinet for plates. “Why?”

He tilted his head as I pulled the drawer open for some silverware. My stomach, the traitor, took that moment to rumble angrily, reminding me that I had forgotten to stop for something to eat and my fridge was the one and only thing that was cleaned out .

Staying so much at Alex’s made that an easy task. My first night here “packing” I had chucked everything inside in the trash–it had expired anyway–and been done with the lot of it.

“That’s why.” He stopped my fidgeting with the dinnerware and pulled me into his arms. One large hand rubbed over my bare belly, and he bent his head and brushed a tender kiss across my lips.

My eyes closed and I let out a soft sigh of contentment.

“And because I could feel you were upset by something.”

Teeth scraping across my bottom lip, I wouldn’t meet his eyes. After a few seconds, he took my hand and led me to the sofa.

“Sit. I’ll get our plates and we can talk.”

Blowing out a breath, my stomach fluttered with nerves. This was it. This was the last meal we would have together.

After this, Alex would be gone.

I’d see him every other weekend, when we did parent drop-off, and maybe at school functions for our pup.

Alex sat two plates down on the coffee table, frowned at me, then went back to the kitchen.