But it does.
For years, my inner omega has been locked in a box. Sedated, suppressed, shoved down so deep I forgot what she even wanted.
And what she wanted wasthis.
Not just the nesting and the scent-matching and the sex—although, yeah,those—but the small stuff. The domestic stuff. Making a home. Giving a shit about whether the people around me are eating more than frozen pizza rolls.
Can we cook? No.
Does that stop her from wanting to try? Also no.
I grab a cart.
"Produce first," I announce, steering us left past a display of pumpkin-flavored everything. "We're working clockwise."
"Clockwise?" Raf echoes like I just said we're navigating by the stars.
"It's a system. We need a system or we'll be in here forever."
Phoenix falls into step on my right, hands shoved in his cardigan pockets, fake glasses sliding down his nose. He's scanning the store with the same vigilance he used at the coffee shop, but there's a looseness to his shoulders that wasn't there before.
He's enjoying this.
Raf takes my left flank, pushing the cart with one hand and trying to be cool about it.
In a fuckingTrader Joe's.
"Okay." I stop in front of the vegetables. "Ginger, spinach, sweet potatoes, bell peppers, garlic, dill, oregano, onions, broccoli…"
"We don't need broccoli," Raf says.
"We do."
"But do weneedneed it, or?—"
"Rafael." I turn to face him fully. "You had chips in the fridge.Chips.In therefrigerator.Just put the broccoli in the cart. Pick a good one. And then grab a net of garlic that looks fresh. Unless you're an actual vampire."
That'll keep him busy.
When I make my way to the fruits, Phoenix's hand lands on my shoulder. Not hard, but firm. The universal signal forstop moving right now.
"Two o'clock," he murmurs. "Guy in the green jacket. Paparazzi. We don't get them often, but he's a dickhead."
I don't turn. Don't look. Just shift my weight slightly so I can see in my peripheral vision.
Green jacket. Baseball cap. Phone out, but angled weirdly, more toward us than toward the screen. And he's not moving. Just standing at the end of the aisle, pretending to read the back of a box of Cheerios while his eyes flick in our direction.
"Behind me," Phoenix says quietly, already angling his massive frame between me and the guy. "Act normal."
Raf abandons the cart and closes in on my other side, and suddenly I'm sandwiched between two disguised alphas in the cereal aisle of a Trader Joe's, pressed flat between a wall of granola and Phoenix.
"This is far from normal," I mutter, trying to squeeze past him because neither of these alphas know how the fuck to hide.
My elbow catches him in the gut.
Thewoofof a wheeze that comes out of this giant alpha is indistinguishable from a startled Saint Bernard. A woman with a toddler in her cart turns to stare. Raf's hand flies to his mouth and he chomps down on his own palm, choking on laughter.
I press my face into his chest to muffle the sound of my own cracking up and bite my tongue so hard I taste copper.