Page 22 of His Pretty Omega (Sweet Alps Mates #7)

Opening the fridge, he closed it, digging in the cabinets until he found two glasses and filled them at the tap with water. “Seth, whatever is bothering you can’t be that bad. I can feel how tense you are, and it’s not good for you or the baby. ”

Alex kept saying he felt our bond getting stronger, but I was still riding the skeptical fence about mate bonds.

When he sat next to me on the sofa, his strong thigh brushing mine, some of my nerves eased. There was something about just being near Alex that always settled the chaos inside of me.

“Eat your lo mein,” he instructed, picking up his fork and taking a bite. His eyes took note of everything still not packed as we ate in silence for a few minutes. Finally, he put his fork down, took a drink, and said, “Talk to me.”

Fork poised to my mouth, I paused my inhaling of my food. I had been starving and hadn’t even realized it. “About what?”

“Do you not want to move in together?” he asked, his voice quiet. “If I pushed you into something you don’t want, I’m sorry. Things have been fast, but I thought we were on the same page and wanted the same thing.”

He glanced around my very not packed up space. “It seems I was wrong, and that’s okay. We just need to reevaluate and–”

“I want to live with you,” I interrupted him. “It’s not that I don’t want to. I do! When I come home to you, to your house, I can’t explain it. It feels like where I’m supposed to be. This apartment is just a place, but your house is…home.”

Taking my hands in his, he turned and I found myself staring into his uncertain brown eyes. It was such a strange look to see on Alex, that it made me feel horrible. He was always so confident, so sure of himself, and I had put that look on his face.

“Then what’s going on, carino ? Because you’ve been coming here for days and from what I can see, nothing is packed.”

“I’m afraid if I tell you, you’re going to leave.” My voice was shaky as I whispered the words.

Honesty was the best policy, and I needed to trust Alex enough to be honest with him. He might as well know what he was getting into now.

He somewhat had an idea. He knew I was mouthy, and a brat, but this…this was a side of myself I had tried hard to keep from him. And I’d been doing a good job of it, until now.

“I’m not going to leave,” he assured me, his lips quirked beneath his mustache. “Unless you’re hiding a dead body in here, and then…well, I can’t say for sure. I am a lawyer, after all.”

Shaking my head, I smiled a half smile, “No. No dead bodies.”

“Okay,” Alex said matter-of-factly, “we have established that you still want to move in together. Do you want to tell me why you haven’t packed anything?”

My hands fluttered wildly, before I clenched them tightly together. “Promise you won’t be mad?”

“I won’t be mad. ”

“You say that now.”

“Seth.” He sighed, but there was no anger in his voice, just confusion.

“Here’s the thing, I’m super organized at work.

All day long, because I like things to run smoothly.

I like order. But when I get home, I’m…the opposite of that.

I step in the door and my brain just says no.

I see the things that need to be done, but I just can’t do them.

This feeling builds up inside me, and I get overwhelmed and anxious, so I just… don’t.”

Alex nodded his head in agreement, but how could he possibly understand what I was saying when I didn’t really understand it. All I knew was my brain worked differently than other people’s and it always caused issues.

“Why are you nodding like that?” I demanded, giving him the stink eye. He looked like a damn bobble head.

Alex arched one dark brow at me. “Do you think I don’t know that already?

Seth, we’ve practically been living together for months now.

Waiting for your lease to expire, and the random nights you decide you need to sleep here just to, I don’t know, make yourself feel like you can say we haven’t officially moved in together doesn’t change the fact that we have been sharing our lives, and space, for weeks now.

I know that as soon as you walk in the door, efficient Seth has left the building. ”

What was this man even saying to me? He knew? But I’d hidden it so well. At least I thought I had.

“Then who am I when I get home?” I stared at him, full of questions.

“You’re my mate who leaves a trail through the house of everywhere he has been.

I’ll never have to wonder where you are.

Your scrubs come off practically as soon as you shut the door.

Pants here, shirt there, a shoe over there.

Sock thrown here. Mail tossed…well, it’s a different spot every day.

It’s like a mail scavenger hunt nightly.

A bill here, a bill there. Never all together, which is kinda fun, honestly, to see if I can find it all. ”

“I…do?” Did I do that? Maybe I did.

“I just go behind you, picking things up. While I make dinner, you channel surf, mostly because you can’t get settled on one show for more than five minutes, unless it’s something you’ve seen a hundred times before.

New stuff needs to catch your attention quickly, or you’re flipping to the next thing. ”

“New shows are boring.” I whined, because they were.

“Seth, I see you,” Alex brushed a lock of my hair from my forehead, his hand cupping my cheek. “I have seen you from the first second you strutted into that ballroom like you owned the place. I see all of you. Even the parts of you that you try to keep hidden from me.”

Because I was at a loss for words, or maybe too many were flying around my brain for me to put into sentences that made any kind of sense, I turned my face into his hand, nuzzling his palm with my nose .

Closing my eyes, I breathed him in. His familiar scent, that always made my soul settle. He smelled like an alpha, musky and dark, but most of all, he smelled like Alex.

Familiar. Comforting. Arousing. Mine.

This man continued to prove to me daily, not just with his words but with his actions, that he was mine.

That he was here.

That he wasn’t going anywhere.

He saw me, the real me, and he was still here.

Best show him that room, before you get lost in all your feels , my cat reminded me.

My eyes flew open, and I jerked away from Alex.

“What is it?” He looked hurt by my sharp pulling away.

“Umm…hold that thought,” I winced, pushing myself out of the softness of the couch. Alex took my hand, helping pull me up.

“I need to show you something. It’s the main reason nothing has been done. Well, one of the reasons. I really did come here every night thinking that tonight would be the night I would get something done. And then I just–”

“Got overwhelmed and then didn’t do anything?” he filled in the blanks when I couldn’t finish my sentence.

“Yeah, that.”

Taking his hand, I slowly led him to the closed door of the second bedroom. “It’s not as bad as it looks.”

Nope, it was about ten times worse than it looked, but I was determined to try to put a positive spin on this .

“And I’m not a hoarder, I swear I’m not. I just sometimes get in moods to buy things. Things I’m sure I need, or want, at the time. And then I buy like all the things that go with it.”

His brow furrowed a little. “All the things that go with it?” he repeated slowly.

“Yeah, so say I find an author's book I like, then I buy all their books.”

“A lot of people do that.”

“Mmmm, yeah…ummm.”

Alex saved me from trying to explain what was waiting behind the closed door, reaching past me to turn the knob and flip the light on.

Staying behind him, nail of my pointer finger firmly in my mouth where I could gnaw on it, I waited for the explosion. That never came.

Instead, there was a deafening silence, as Alex took the tiniest step into the room. Not like he could take a big step, since there was literally no room to walk.

An explosion might have been better than the silence that went on for a full minute, then another.

Alex didn’t move, just took his time looking from one end of the room to the other.

I didn’t move. Fuck, I wasn’t sure I was even breathing.

Finally, he turned around, his hand rubbing over his beard.

“Say something! ”

I couldn’t take it anymore.

“I know, it’s bad! It’s so bad. I don’t even…

I don’t…” I waved a hand at the mess behind him.

“I…I’m sorry! I’m sorry my brain is all haywire and doesn’t work like most people’s.

I’m a mess, okay! I tried to tell you! I just…

don’t know where to start with it, and then I get so overwhelmed, that I dip out and play a video game, or watch a movie I’ve seen a million times, or read, or anything but dealing with this.

It’s how I am. It’s how I’ve always been.

Ask my parents, they’ll tell you. And it’s not just this.

I’m like this with everything . I forget to pay my bills half the time.

I mean I do pay them, but only after reminders and late fees, which is stupid.

Adulting is just so…much some days. I just can’t.

And you’re so put together–you’re a lawyer for fucks sake–I bet you never forget a bill.

Or get anxiety over some packages. Or just life.

I know I’m not what you wanted in a mate, let alone a fated one that you’re stuck with.

You can still take the out clause,” I reminded him, my hand coming to rest on my protruding belly, where the baby gave my palm a swift kick.

Alex cupped both of his hands around my cheeks, stopping my word vomit. My chest was heaving because I’d forgotten to take a breath through it all.

“Listen to me,” his voice was soft but firm. “You are exactly who I want as my mate. If I have to spend the rest of my life telling you that, showing you that, I will. I knew from the very first when you helped yourself to my drink that you were going to be trouble.”

I snorted, sniffling at the same time.

“You are the best kind of trouble, and I don’t want to use that stupid out clause, so please stop bringing it up.

I’m still here. I’m exactly where I want to be.

You are beautiful, and smart, and competent.

I don’t care if I have to pick up the trail of destruction you leave through the house.

I will do it with a smile until we’re eighty. Do you trust me?”

“What?” My voice wobbled at his question.

“Do you trust me?” he repeated, one thumb caressing my cheekbone.

“Yes.”

I didn’t even have to put any thought into the question.

The truth was I did trust Alex and had since the beginning.

He had always made me feel safe with him, which didn’t always happen with some alphas I had been with in the past, if I was honest with myself.

The trust I felt for him was a major part of the reason I had agreed to move in with him, when we barely knew each other.

He made me feel all kinds of things I had never felt before, but had always secretly dreamed about. An alpha who I felt safe with, safe to be myself with, my true self, all of the parts of me, good and bad. Alex did that.

“This isn’t the end of the world.” He kissed me again, and I leaned into him, letting him hold me up. Because now that all of this stress I had been keeping inside was out in the open, my knees felt a little wobbly with relief.

“It’s not?”

“Nope,” he rubbed his hands together. “This is doable.”

“What exactly does that mean?” I gave him a dubious look. “Are we renting a dumpster and going to toss it all in the trash?”

That seemed like the easiest way to me.

Alex laughed at my suggestion, but I was one hundred percent serious.

“No. I’m going to spend tomorrow going through all this and sorting it.

After work, together, we’ll decide what you want to keep, donate, or toss.

Same with furniture and other household things.

Saturday, we’ll move everything. We already have the truck rented, plus with all our friends helping, we can get this done pretty fast.”

He made it sound so flipping easy.

“Why are you so calm about this?” I asked suspiciously.

Maybe this whole thing was a dream, and I was going to wake up on my couch, covered in drool, still needing to confess to Alex that moving day was about to be a nightmare.

“Because getting upset doesn’t solve the problem.”

“You’re a strange alpha, Alex Ortega,” I muttered, picking up a padded envelope near me, and trying to figure out what might be in it. Book, definitely .

Tossing it back into the pile, I told him, “We can just donate my furniture, I guess. You already have a house full.”

“ Carino , you aren’t going to be my roommate, you’re not renting a room in my house.

” He flipped the light off and closed the door firmly on my mess.

“If you want to keep something, we will. This sofa is very comfortable. It would work great in the finished basement. I’ve been wanting to do something with that space and a rec room, or movie room, seems like a good idea.

Same with your bedroom furniture. Perfect for one of the guest rooms. If you want to keep it, we keep it. There is room for all your stuff.”

Tilting my chin up with his finger, he looked so lovingly at me that it got hard to breathe.

“There is room for you. And all your messes.”