I snuggled against him, becoming his little spoon. It was my favorite place to be.
“Tomorrow, we’ll get your stuff,” he murmured. “How does that sound?”
“That sounds perfect.”
Whatever had gotten to me tonight and made me unable to function had passed before I woke up. It was barely seven, and I was wide awake and ready to go, showered and making breakfast. Lincoln was in the shower, and I hoped to time it right so that I could have the food hot and ready for him when he came out.
In hindsight, the showers weren’t the best idea, given we would be packing and moving things, but it was habit.
“Should we rent a truck or something?” I asked over our scrambled eggs and bacon.
“Better than that. I’ll call a friend who has a truck.”
His friend wasn’t available, and all my friends had tiny cars compared to the furniture I had. Plan A was officially a failure.
But a few calls later, we were able to rent a box truck and buy a bunch of boxes and other packing supplies. I didn’t have a ton of belongings, so it didn’t take long until everything was packed and ready to go. We didn’t need to get everything out immediately, we had until the end of the month to clear the place out, but we made a good start. There were still duplicate items to figure out, such as couches and mixers, but I was pleased with all we accomplished.
Best of all was the feeling of falling asleep in our home that night. It was no longer his place and my place. It was our place.
Falling asleep that night was different from all the others. That one little change was huge. We still hadn’t figured out exactly which furniture we were going to keep, whose table, whose bed, etc. We had the box truck for a couple more days while wefigured it out. But my personal items were here. My mate was here. That was really all that I needed.
“Good night, omega mine.” Lincoln kissed the top of my head, which was resting on his chest. “Welcome home.”
“Good night, alpha mine. And for the record, I was already home, every time I was with you.”
As cliche as it was, Lincoln was my home.
17
LINCOLN
“Stop fidgeting.”
But I couldn’t stop adjusting the silverware and refilling the napkins.
My mate should have been the nervous one because he was meeting my folks today. It should have happened before I planned the proposal, but they were retired and had taken off for a month. And Dale had had exams or he’d been partying too much, so he hadn’t met my mate either.
My parents were cool with me mating a human, so why was I so jittery? This was almost as stressful as the day I met Ronnie.
That turned out well.My beast was trying to bolster my confidence.
“You’ve done a great job with the food and the table setting.”
“Have I?” I counted the plates, mugs, glassware, and cutlery, convinced I’d forgotten something.
“Shouldn’t I be the one freaking the F out?” Bronson slung an arm around me. “It’s going to be fine. Parents like me.” Hewas so confident, and I had to change my shirt because I was sweating buckets.
But Dale was arriving first. I figured easing Bronson into meeting the family would be less traumatic than everyone arriving at once. But it turned out, I was the one experiencing trauma and not my mate.
My shifter hearing picked up Dale’s car arriving, and I strode to the front door. My brother had been excited when I told him Bronson and I had mated, especially as he’d been with me when I texted my panther’s photo to my now mate.
“Linc! So much has happened since I last saw you.” Maybe my brother and mate could sit and chat and I could take a nap.
Dale enveloped me in a hug that almost knocked the wind out of me, and my panther complained that he couldn’t breathe. “I have a new brother.” He whooped and wrapped his arms around Bronson. “I’m Dale, the cooler one.” He nudged me, and I rolled my eyes.
“I’ve heard a lot about you,” Bronson told him.
Dale cackled. “All the terrible things my brother has said about me are true.”
