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Since he’s sharing a room with his cousin, he whisks me back to mine, where we hang the Do Not Disturb sign on the handle before locking ourselves inside.
We have a lot to catch up on from the eight years we spent apart, but tonight, it’s all about our reunion.
EPILOGUE
I take the heavy box from Rian’s arms. “Here, I can get that. You grab the bag with the pillows.”
He scowls down at me. “I can carry heavy things. Or do you need me to throw you over my shoulder again?”
Warmth creeps up my cheeks at the reminder of what we did last weekend. “That’s why I want you to save your strength. If you hurt your knee moving me into your apartment, then we can’t have fun on our first night living together.”
Over the last several months, Rian and I have spent a lot of time on the phone and visiting over the weekends, getting to know each other again. I had learned he blew out his knee the first year of university football, ruining his chances of going pro, and that it still bothers him years later.
While he doesn’t have a limp, he ices it on bad days, and I don’t want to risk hurting him when I have plenty of lighter things he can carry.
A wolfish smile spreads over Rian’s lips, and he leans down to growl into my ear. “I like where your priorities lie.”
Grabbing the bag of pillows, he strides for the open door to his ground-floor apartment.
It had taken longer than I wanted for my job to approve me going remote, but the second the paperwork went through, I started packing to move back to my hometown. Rian already rents a two-bedroom apartment, and he offered his second bedroom for my office space.
I follow Rian into the apartment, which has become like a second home to me during my frequent trips back here.
Rian stands next to the couch, the bag he brought in open. “Are you sure we need so many pillows? We only have one couch, and with the other pillows you bought, there’s barely room for us to sit.”
“Don’t judge my love of pillows.” I drop the box I carry in the spare bedroom, where my new desk already waits for my computer. “I need every single one of them.”
“Fine, but if they get in the way of me snuggling you, they’re going in the dumpster.” He upends the bag, and pillows tumble out onto the couch.
While he struggles to make them all fit, I got back out to my car and grab my computer. Since Rian already has furniture, I donated and sold all of mine, which made moving easier. Most of what I brought are books for the office, my electronics, and my clothes.
I pass Rian in the doorway on his way out and say, “Grab the blankets.”
He smacks my ass. “Such a bossy Omega!”
In the past, the comment might have bothered me, but I’m no longer ashamed of my status. Instead, it sends warmth spreading through me, and I set my computer on my desk to rub my nape guard. The first of Rian’s Marks hides beneath the metal plate at the back, placed there two weeks ago when I told him I had the all-clear to move.
Suddenly in a hurry to finish unloading the car, I leave my computer to hook up later and go out to grab my suitcases.
As I come back inside, Rian closes the linen closet where he stashed my blankets and hurries forward to take the suitcases. “Here, I got this.”
Suspicious about him not wanting me in the bedroom, I narrow my eyes at him. “Did you clear out half the closet for me?”
He tilts his hand from side to side in a so-so gesture. “But I’ll make it work.”
It came as a surprise to discover that Rian is a clothes hoarder. I guess, after growing up with limited space, he went a little wild once he moved into his own place.
When I first started coming on the weekends, he hadn’t had room to even give me one drawer in the dresser. But we went through what he had and donated a lot of suits and dress shirts that he no longer needs in his new career.
Rian had settled on going into security, and he started working under Sean, who plans to scale back his shifts now that he’s a married man and living at the foster home with Carrie. He wants to be more present in the lives of the Omegas they take in, and Rian is eager to fill the gap.
He’ll be working a lot at the Walton building for now, which houses the OOP clinic and offers apartments for Omegas who have been in the program. His primary job will be to make sure that the Omegas who come to the clinic aren’t harassed and to answer the calls from residents.
I grab the last box from my car and shut the trunk before heading inside.
Rian is nowhere in sight, so I drop the box in my office before heading toward our bedroom. “I already downsized my wardrobe, so you better…”
When I enter the room, I come to a stop. Candles fill every surface, with a large bouquet of roses sitting on the bedside table, and Rian kneels next to the dresser, a ring box in his hands.
