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She peers around me to where Scott stands just inside the door, caught in conversation with an elderly omega woman. “Should we save him?”
“Nah, let them chat. He’s making her day.”
I have to admit that it’s very sweet. Scott says something and the omega laughs, clapping a wrinkled hand over her mouth. I can’t help but smile at how animated he is in conversation. He’s always been this way. The gift of the gab is what my old Nan used to say about him. Lizzie continues to watch him, her expression soft and thoughtful.
“What are you thinking?” I ask her.
“That that’s green flag behaviour.” She nods in Scott’s direction. “How people treat others says a lot about them.”
“He’s always been good with the oldies. My nan loved him.”
“When did she meet him? During your university days?”
Every time she asks about Scott and I and our past I feel a little jolt of panic. It’s asinine. I should just tell her the truth of where things are at between Scott and I. “Yeah. Seventeen, eighteen years?” I say instead. “It’s been too long.”
She looks like she’s going to ask more questions, but I’m saved by the stack of woollen fabric I spot on the other side of the room. “Found your blankets.”
“Oh my god, you wonderful man.” She stands on her toes, pulling my head lower so that she can plant a kiss on my cheek. “If they have the ones I love I’ll be so happy.”
Chapter Twelve
Scott
Watching Lizzie assemble her nest demonstrates what she means when she says she has ADHD. It doesn’t bother me in the slightest, but after seeing her flit from task to task without finishing any of them, I’m beginning to see why she describes herself as chaotic. “It’ll come together in the end, I promise!” she says, standing midway up the stairs to the nest in nothing but her denim shorts and a bra, two brand new cushion inners clutched in her hand, having caught me staring with my mouth open in stunned shock.
“Yeah nah, I believe you!” I call from the lounge floor, where Matiu and I both sit shirtless on the floor—it’s a fucking hot day, and even with all the doors and windows open we’re sweating—assembling the flat pack set of drawers she’s banished from her nest.
She’d stood on the nest mattress earlier this afternoon, taken one look at the box, and had shook her head, displeasure evident on her face.
“What?” Matiu had asked. “What’s wrong?”
“I don’t want that up here. I don’t… I don’t use those.”
“You don’t use these? Drawers?”
“What do you put your clothes in, then?”
That had evidently been a bad question on my part, and she’d shrugged, a flush making its way up her chest to her face, her scent souring. Next minute, we—and the offending furniture—had been banished to the lower level. I still don’t know where she plans to keep her clothes, but Matiu had muttered something ominous about doom piles, and at that point I decided it was best to just shut my mouth about the whole thing.
“There’s only one rule when it comes to omega nests,” I mutter to myself, and Matiu snorts from the other side of the dresser that’s now going to go into one of the downstairs bedrooms.
“Stay the fuck out of them unless you’re invited?”
I spin the Allen key in a clockwise motion, tightening the screw I’m working on. “That’s a subset of the one rule. The one rule is that the omega makes the rules.”
“True. Such sage wisdom coming from you this fine afternoon, Scotty. I wouldn’t expect anything less.”
“Fuck off. Fuckin’ dick.”
“Cunt.”
“Arsehole.”
“Shhh,” Matiu hisses as Lizzie reappears on the stairwell. “Behave.”
“You started it,” I hiss back quietly, as if we’re kids and not grown fucking men.
“You okay?” Matiu asks her as she descends the stairs.
