Across the table, a few seats down, Granny Lu looked up from her coffee with the expression of a woman bracing for impact.
“The greenhouse,” she repeated.
“The water pressure is uneven in the southeast beds and the tomatoes are getting soggy roots while the northwest ones are droopy and I think if I reroute the secondary line—”
“What exactly,” Granny Lu said to Honey, “did those Elysian bastards do to his brain?”
“Nothing,” Honey said. She’d said this dozens of times. “Cass has always been like this.”
“But who dreams about soggy tomato roots?”
“Someone who cares about making sure the plants are healthy?” Cass suggested. “I also dreamed about whether the winter squash would prefer raised beds, but the tomatoes seemed more urgent.”
“Were you dropped on your head repeatedly as a small child?”
“I don’t think so.” Cass considered this seriously. “Honey, do you remember me being dropped?”
“No head dropping,” Honey confirmed, lips twitching. “He was actually a very careful child. Never ran into things. Just thought about everything very thoroughly and out loud.”
Granny Lu muttered something about coffee and botanical lectures and wheeled away, and Riot ruffled Cass’s flower-decorated hair. “You’re going to give that woman an aneurysm.”
Sage arrived at their table, silently bringing them all breakfast. Cass had learned not to point out how nice it was when she brought them the things they liked to eat despite having so many options for community breakfast, because it seemed like Sagedidn’t like when people pointed out when she did nice things. Honey had eggs and a bunch of fruit to organize, Riot’s plate looked like it had four different cuts of meat and pancakes, and Cass had his oatmeal. He still liked just plain oatmeal, it was grounding for him. It reminded him to be grateful and happy, in a way. That way, when he drank the overly sweet lemonade later or someone made something called birthday cake, he could really enjoy it. Those weren’t things they had in Springfield Gardens, and despite it all, he didn’t want to lose that connection to home or the reasons to never return.
On occasion, though, while eating his oatmeal, he did think about Brother Matthias. It was a weird feeling now…the man who guided him and the man who put his hands where they didn’t belong were becoming the same person in Cass’s mind. He didn’t know what to do with that feeling, so he just left it alone, because that was easier for him. He just hoped that Brother Matthias was okay, and not too sad that he was gone.
Orion was in the greenhouse, cross-legged on the floor near the supply closet with a padlock in pieces around him and a look on his face that was several degrees past his usual wariness.
“The pin tumblers are corroded,” he said without looking up. “And whoever installed this used the wrong screws and I’m going to have a conversation with Prepper about his definition of ‘fixed.’”
“Good morning to you too, Orion,” Cass said, breathing in the scents of dirt and warmth and growing things.
“Morning.” Orion set down a tiny spring, picked it up, then set it down again. “Is it warm in here?”
It was warm. But Cass had been warm since breakfast and had assumed it was the coffee. He shrugged. “Well, it is a greenhouse.”
He knelt by the tomatoes and was pulling up a droopy stem when it felt like a switch flipped in his lower abdomen. One moment he was thinking about water pressure and the next moment he was not thinking about water pressure at all. He was thinking about Riot. Specifically, about Riot’s hands, where he wanted Riot’s hands, and his undergarments were suddenly very wet.
He looked down at himself. Then at Orion.
Orion was flushed, his jaw clenched tight, staring at the disassembled lot like it owed him iscs. His storm-wind scent had sharpened, sweet and electric, like the air before lightning.
“Oh no…”
“Yeah.” Orion sighed. “Heats start different when you’re bonded. Less warning. More...” He gestured at all of himself.
“I thought there would be more warning,” Cass pressed his hand to his stomach, already feeling the faint discomfort growing.
“There isn’t. One minute you’re doing something normal, the next minute your body’s decided it’s time and it didn’t consult you about your schedule.” Orion wiped sweat from his forehead. “I’ve been doing this with Dante for a while and it still catches me off guard.”
“But we’re both…at the same time?” Cass’s skin felt hot, flushing from his hair line down to his chest at a genuinely alarming pace. It hadn’t been like this before.
“That’s the part I’m less sure about.” Orion’s voice was tight. “I wasn’t due for two weeks. I think your cycle pulled mine forward. Or…I don’t actually know if that’s what happened. I’ve never been around another Omega during heat.”
“Never?”
“In SVI territory, I avoided everyone if I could, so I never spent enough time with other Omegas to find out.” Orion grabbed the bottom of his shirt and tugged on it, trying to billow air up inside it. Apparently it didn’t work, because a second later he swore under his breath and pulled his shirt over his head.
Cass looked at his lean muscle and the flush spreading across his chest, then at himself, already sweating through the undershirt, the overalls feeling like too much fabric, his skin crawling with the need to be cooler, closer, touched.
