Page 7 of Shopping for His Omega (Omegas of Oliver Creek #15)
Daniel
I skipped a week with the banana bread delivery and had considered not baking anymore for Mav, but my wolf was in an uproar, demanding we feed our omega, and I had to admit, I missed baking for him as well.
But our conversation that night had tainted the banana bread idea, and now I was at a loss of what to do.
Inviting him over to dinner would probably not work, so what to do?
The fall festival was one of the biggest events of the year, here in Oliver Creek, and I’d gone mostly as a distraction from the thoughts of Mav going around and around in my head.
With the thousands of attendees, I should be able to enjoy myself, eat some harvest-themed foods, have a hard cider, and just not worry about anything for once.
But wouldn’t you know? The moment I arrived, I saw him.
It made sense that he was in the crowd waiting for the mayor’s speech.
Most of the locals were. We wanted to offer him our support because rumor had it, he was going to announce that he’d be stepping down.
He didn’t get specific about his reasons, but there were a lot of theories swirling around in the crowd.
Whatever his reasons, he looked bad, rough, tired, sad…
in any case, ready to leave his position.
And while he’d been a great mayor, no one had the heart to try to stop him.
As I stood there, various friends came up to talk to me, and they all expressed the same things I was feeling.
There would be a special election in a month and everyone was buzzing over who might run to replace him.
Mav was speaking to old Mr. Bryant, but when I extricated myself from the crowd of speculating citizens, he was no longer in sight, and I no longer had much interest in the festival.
Still, I stuck around for a while and ate way too much junk food, getting glimpses of Maverick from time to time until I just couldn’t take it anymore and went home.
A few days passed while I tried to think of what to do about the banana bread situation.
My wolf was not letting me sleep, and I probably couldn’t have anyway, but I just didn’t want to step on toes.
I walked past the man’s business every day, a few times between arriving and leaving work and running errands around town.
And every time, it took most of my self-control not to go in.
He’d just think I was there to argue, and I needed to get past the wall that stood between us.
He could reject me if he wanted to, but so far, I’d just been waffling about even approaching him.
Then, as the day I usually brought banana bread approached again, I remembered my dads and their “love cookies.”
Shifters might leap right into relationships, but once they were living under one roof with someone who might be a stranger, they had a lot of growing to do together.
And in the case of my family, they didn’t have a lot of money, so on their first anniversary, they wanted to mark the occasion but weren’t sure how.
They decided to make something for each other, and as grocers, it seemed logical that it would be some kind of food.
My omega dad had his grandmother’s cookie recipe, and they made it together.
Listening to them describe their cookie-baking date had made me smile, imagining my dads as young people with zero budget and only wanting to show love, and before I knew it, I was calling my dads for the recipe then running back to the store late at night to shop for ingredients.
Dark chocolate and walnuts. I’d never had the cookies because they never made them when I was around and, in fact, chuckled when I asked for the recipe.
Leading me to believe there was more to the story that, as their son, I didn’t need to know.
At one point, I even thought maybe they had pot in them or something—although THC didn’t do much to any shifter I’d ever met.
But it also had me excited to make them for my omega. Maybe they would bring me luck. Never having eaten them, I was taking a chance on getting them right, but I told myself that if I didn’t know what I was doing and they tasted good, that was enough.
They tasted incredible. So good, I experienced a moment of resentment at my fathers who had kept these to themselves and never shared with their only pup.
Then it went away. It was their love cookie, and when the moment came when I needed something special, they had shared.
The “more” to the cookies was not a secret ingredient; it was the time they spent together making them and eating them.
One more way they had of treating each day as a gift, a lesson I’d learned but sometimes forgot.
Lying in bed later that night, I wondered if Mav would like the treats as much as I did. I’d only used chocolate a few times in the banana breads, and I really didn’t know which he’d liked best anyway, since I’d been sneaking them into his mailbox.
Not this time. I was going to hand deliver my gift and try to have a conversation about us. My stomach tensed for a moment but then I relaxed, and for the first time in days drifted off to a peaceful sleep. Making a decision apparently offered peace of mind, at least in this case.
And I didn’t need to get them there at the crack of dawn, but Mav would probably be up fairly early to get to the drugstore, so it wasn’t too much after that, with the sun just hovering over the horizon that I set out for his home.
No lights were on in the house that I could see, but there was no turning back now. My wolf clawed at my insides, demanding we feed our omega and state our case without further delay. It might be an esoteric clawing, but it still hurt. And…the beast was right. I rang the bell.
And waited, not wanting to be too pushy, until the door opened to reveal a sight I’d have had to be dead not to drool over. Mav, hair tousled, a crease on his cheek from the pillow, eyes heavy-lidded from sleep. No shirt, only striped cotton pajama pants hanging from lean hips.
Don’t blow this. My wolf didn’t need to warn me that it might be our only chance. Or at least the only one left. I knew.
He blinked at me, or probably the rising sun behind me in his eyes. A frown carried the corners of sensuous lips down. “What do you want?”
Everything. In that, the wolf and I agreed. But I said, “To bring you these.” I held up the plate of cookies.
“At this hour? What time is it?”
I shrugged because I really didn’t know and hadn’t brought my phone. I’d rushed out of the house with only cookies and keys, not wanting to lose my nerve. How alpha of me. “Sorry to wake you.”
He took the plate. “Okay, anything else?” Not the most gracious way to accept a gift, but manners were far from my top priority at the moment. His eyes, open wider now, flashed. “Or did you come to apologize?”
“I brought you a gift and this is how you behave?” Still not about manners, but I’d wanted so badly for this to go well, and he was messing it all up.
“It’s supposed to make up for stealing business from me?” He vibrated with tension. “Maybe you should go home and think about taking down that display of my kind of products.”
“And maybe I should call the supplement guy and tell him I’ve changed my mind.”
“Hey, I already agreed to work with him.”
Tempers were rising, but this omega was beautiful when he was angry, and before considering the consequences, I reached out, pulled him into my arms and, surrounded by his warm, woodsy scent, kissed him.