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“Barely,” I replied.
“I packed up leftovers for you so we can microwave it when you’re ready. I made some of Nonna’s lemon ricotta cookies if you want some?”
“Sure.”
Luca disappeared and returned a moment later with a glass of water that I chugged gratefully and followed it up with the delicious clouds that were Nonna’s cookies.
“Are you sick or tired?” Luca asked, sitting on the edge of my bed.
“Hard to say. If it sticks around for more than a couple days we’ll go with sick.”
“I’ll make some broth for pastina then, just in case.”
I smiled softly and leaned against the headboard. I felt like I could sleep for a year, but that itch under my skin hadn’t abated one bit. Honeysuckle and ginger haunted every breath. I knew where she lived. It would be so easy to go see her, but there was no fucking way I could let myself do that.
Luca tilted his head, examining me carefully. “Is something else wrong?”
“You pay too much attention.”
“I take it that means yes. You can tell me. All secrets are kept under the brother code.”
“I’m wanting something I can’t have. The client I left today was damn near perfect.”
“She’ll still be perfect in two years when it’s legal to date her, won’t she?” Luca asked.
It seemed absolutely ridiculous to think about two years from now. I had known Allie for a week. Why would she give me another thought?
“Pretty sure she will be, yeah. The odds of her being still available are pretty low, though.”
“You wanna tell me about her?”
“That’s an unfair question, Luca. I should purge every bit of her from my brain, not sit around making sure every detail is memorized.”
“I never said it was a smart thing. You just look like you need to talk.”
I settled until I was flat on my back again, dragging the blankets up so I could fidget with the edge. “Is it selfish of me if I want to keep everything to myself?”
“It’s your dream girl.” Luca shrugged. “If you want to keep her secret, that’s fine. You wouldn’t be the first in the world to do so.”
I had to keep her to myself. Talking about her to others only made her more real and I needed to keep her at a distance, keep her a blissful dream. For both our sakes.
“Are you ready to come out yet?” Mom asked.
“No.” I burrowed deeper into my nest. I had spent basically every waking moment after Sidney dropped me off tucked away in my nest, trying to mitigate my body’s response to him no longer being around. It felt wrong on every level, but there was nothing I could do about it. The clinic really needed to develop a cuddle program but then I would probably never get anything done ever again.
“I got you a weighted blanket,” Mom said. “Do you want to see if it helps?”
I pushed back the top layer of blanket that created a dome around me and let Mom lower the weighted blanket down. It wasn’t the same as having Sidney wrapped around me, but it was better than nothing. Just like the canister of cloves and the diffuser of citrus oil helped trick my brain into thinking he was closer.
I tried not to feel pathetic about all of it, but that was hard to do when I felt like I was going to climb out of my own skin. Each day apart got fractionally easier, but if he snapped his fingers in my direction, I would be there before either of us could blink.
“School starts again tomorrow for you. Are you ready to go back? Do you think you should talk to the doctor about all of this?”
I wasn’t ready to go back, but I was barely halfway through my degree and I couldn’t let this derail my plans. I had mentioned my symptoms in a phone call with the clinic, and while it was stronger than they expected it to be, it wasn’t completely unusual for a first heat. With assurances that things would be better next time, I had sunk back into my nest and fallen asleep to thoughts of Sidney.
“I’ll be fine,” I told Mom.
I flat out refused to be one of those omegas who got obsessed with their heat helper. I knew it wasn’t uncommon, which was why they had the protective laws in place to begin with, but I really hadn’t expected myself to react this way. Somehow I had figured that I would be super mature about it. But evidently not.
