Page 56 of Knot Gonna Give You Up
I need to get past my own insecurities. Henry won’t care about the house.
Me
Yeah, swing on by. Si will be home in a few hours, but if you’re still here, he won’t care.
Henry
Cool, see you soon.
So I knowI said I need to get past my own insecurities, but I decide to run around our house anyway trying to clean up. It’s not like the house needs to be scrubbed down, but it does need to be picked up. There’s mail spread across the counter, old glasses sitting on the coffee table in the living room, basic stuff that you find in a house. About twenty minutes later, I’ve just finished cleaning the toilet (because men are gross in the bathroom, don’t let us fool you), when the doorbell rings.
“Perfect timing,” I tell myself.
Hurriedly, I put all the cleaning supplies away and get to the front door. I swing it open just as Henry is about to knock, and we stare at each other in surprise, Henry’s fist hanging in the air. Instead of putting it down, he reaches out and lightly knocks against my forehead.
“I’m here,” he announces.
“No, shit, huh?” I say in wonder.
I let him in with a chuckle that he returns as he takes his shoes off inside the door. A few steps in, and he has a decent view of the house set up. It’s a pretty open concept on the main floor, but there are a few walls separating the kitchen and dining area from the living room. Henry takes a few steps in and looks around with a smile on his face.
“This is great, feels nice in here. Welcoming, you know?” he says.
I blush a little, “Thanks.”
“Where should we sit?” he asks.
“Right this way, sir,” I say, mimicking a butler, and lead him to the living room couch.
We settle in, ready to dig into these books. I grab both of them, holding them up for him to see.
“So we have one from an Omega’s perspective, and one from the Pack perspective. Where do you want to start?”
Henry hums for a moment, grabbing both books and looking them over. He chooses the Omega one first.
“I know you and I will need the Pack information more, but I want to understand more about what Josie will go through, I think. Did you look at this one yet?” he asks.
“No, I’ve been worried how Betas contribute during heats, so I started with the Pack one. I know there’s a place for Betas, but I also know we can’t knot like an Alpha.”
Henry’s face relaxes as I talk. When I said I was worried about how to contribute, I could see the panic rising in his eyes. I’m glad he didn’t interrupt me, that shit annoys me. In the back of my mind, I’m starting to wonder if I had a bias against Alphas that my brain never caught up with. The fact that Henry has pleasantly surprised me more than once indicates that maybe I do have one. I’m happy with Si, so it never occurred to me that on a bigger scale, things might be different for me.
There’s a small smirk on his face now, as if he knows my moment of silence was an internal battle about being biased. When did I grow up and become so introspective?
“Sometimes it feels like all the focus is on the Alpha when you hear about heats, but that’s a certain kind of pressure on its own. The push to be perfect, make sure you have stamina, hoping that you’re enough to soothe the Omega. I’m glad you found more information on the Beta role. I need to make sure we’re all balanced,” Henry replies to me.
“Why does it have to be you?” I ask, not aggressively. I’m actually curious why he’s burdening himself with this.
“I think I’m going to be Lead Alpha. It makes sense based on the other two, and I don’t mind doing it.”
I nod my head in agreement, “I can see that. I don’t have an opinion one way or the other; I’ll let you Alphas sort it out.”
Henry grins good-naturedly before we both pick up a book and start reading. At first, I worry that things are going tobe awkward, just reading in silence together. However, I’m surprised at how much time passed while reading. Henry snaps me out of it with a comment.
“So apparently, if you have Matches, meeting all of them can induce an early heat,” he says.
“Oh shit, do you think that’s happening with Josie?”
He hums, “I haven’t seen many symptoms yet. The book says they’ll be needier, moodier, and frantic about where things are in their nest. It mentions a greater need to cuddle or have physical touch, but I’m not sure how that’s going to manifest with our girl.”
