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Kira, like many omega students, keeps things small.
She isn’t a first-generation college-bound omega. Her father did it, before her. He got a college degree and didn’t stop there. He was one of the first Asian-American omegas to be allowed into a Ph.D. program, and he shattered barriers when he not only completed the program, but earned his first placement at NYU.
Kira admires her father a lot. She’s proud of his hard work, his ability to keep pushing. Her mother is made of iron, but her father is just as strong, in his own way. He wouldn’t have gotten where he was if he weren’t brave and determined. When she was little, Kira thought her father was the coolest, and she would sit on his lap and listen to him talk about his research and his students for as long as she could, asking him all the questions she could think of.
Her mother and father didn’t raise her to be the stereotypical demure omega, or to settle for anything less than what she wanted most. Still, Kira doesn’t know that her dreams are as lofty as her dad’s. She doesn’t really know what she wants to do. She knows she’s only a freshman in college, and that she has time, but sometimes it gets frustrating.
So she keeps things small, digging into her classes and her work as much as she can, and she takes things one day at a time.
She gets up in the morning and grabs a quick breakfast. She heads out when the air’s still cool, the early morning slog to her 8:30 AM classes that she isn’t going to miss one little bit when she’s an upperclassman and gets a kinder schedule. She sits with her omega friends, huddled together in the middle of the room. She speaks up in class more than a lot of her friends, but she still mostly hopes the professor won’t give her too much trouble. Some of them still do. A lot of them are still old, white, male alphas, traditional professors who think omegas belong in the home.
She grabs a quick lunch from the dining hall afterwards, though she sometimes just brown bags it. On Wednesdays she has her early afternoon bio lab section all the way across campus, so her lunch period is short. After her afternoon classes, she goes back to her dorm and starts her reading for the next day, taking careful notes.
She goes to class. She works hard, but she keeps her head down. She has friends, but they definitely aren’t the wild types. They have study groups and they watch TV on Friday nights, and they sometimes go out to eat together. They’ll go to the movies and do the kind of stuff Kira did with her high school friends. Kira doesn’t go to parties, or do any of the stuff that betas and alphas always get themselves into in the college movies and TV shows.
She does work, though. She spends three nights per week behind the front desk of the main school library, answering questions and checking books in and out. She swaps places with Boyd sometimes to take her turn shelving books, or to help a confused student find something. Sometimes she even gets stuck putting new paper in the computer lab printers. A lot of tech issues are too big for her, but she can fix paper jams and put new ink and toner in like a pro.
It’s a good job, though. She got to move into her dorm early for training, so she had time to settle in and get used to the rhythm of her work before orientation started up. Her boss is flexible when it comes to scheduling hours around Kira’s heats. Her work is relatively low-stress, and when people aren’t asking her for help, she’s allowed to do her homework behind the desk. She sometimes gets strange looks or leers from haughty alphas who are used to betas like Boyd staffing the main desk, or who are hung up on the whole omegas not working tradition, but it doesn’t bother Kira all that much. She is good at her job, and she deserves to be there just as much as they do. Sometimes she considers going into library science, just to spite them.
Kira doesn’t do much out of spite. She’s not a spiteful person. But it certainly wouldn’t be a hardship to spend her life in the classroom or the library, even if she did credit spite as her primary motivation. She does love the library. She loves the smell of old books and the organization of the shelves and the soothing feeling of being buried in the stacks, surrounded by words and stories. She isn’t actually much of a reader, on her own, but after so many lunch periods in high school spent hiding between the shelves of books, the library feels like safety and security. It’s a place she feels like she belongs, and like no one can tell her otherwise.
It makes the strange looks from the alphas bounce off her, instead of making her self-conscious. It keeps the passive-aggressive comments about her enjoying her time working before she settles down from sticking in her teeth. It means she doesn’t have to call home to her dad for a pep talk, worn down and tired of trying to keep herself contained.
The library is her safe space, and when she’s there, she doesn’t define herself by what she doesn’t have.
It turns out, though, that in the place where she needs the reassurance the least, it comes, in the form of a very persistent couple.
Kira remembers vividly the first time she saw them.
They came in as a pair. They weren’t holding hands, or kissing, or touching at all. There was no mating ring on either of their fingers. There was no overt sign that they were together, or that they weren’t just close friends, laughing and talking as they walked through the sensors into the library, their bookbags strapped to their backs. But Kira could see it, anyway, as she heard the noise and looked up from her history reading. They clung close to each other, unafraid to take up space. They had the sort of palpable intimacy, the sort of charged familiarity with each other, the sort of brightness in their smiles, that Kira only ever associated with mated couples.
Kira had an undeniable moment of wistfulness, of wondering what it would be like to have that with someone, but she let it fade. She tucked it into the back of her head as the probable mates wandered to the corner where the conference rooms and the study pods are. She knew that later on she will come back to it, to them. To the brunette with warm brown eyes and a smile like sunshine and the blonde with an air of confidence and bright red lips framing a crooked grin. They were both gorgeous, tall with curly, long hair.
She didn’t really expect to see them again. She only had an hour left in her shift, and she wasn’t closing up. She got back to her work, perched on her tall chair behind the desk.
The shift drags by. It’s a quiet night, and no one really bothers her too much. She’s near the very end of her reading, and she’s doing her best to speed read, taking slightly careless notes so she can finish up before she has to head out. She doesn’t notice someone approaching the desk, a book in their hand, just standing there and waiting.
“Um, excuse me,” a voice says, and Kira jolts, nearly slamming her book shut.
“Hi!” Kira says, her voice raising about three octaves. “I’m sorry, I didn’t see you there, I should’ve been paying mo-”
Kira looks up from her book and sees the brunette from earlier smiling indulgently at her. The other person, her probable mate but maybe friend, isn’t anywhere in sight, and Kira almost asks where they are, but she doesn’t want to embarrass herself any more than she already has.
“Uh, right. Anyway. What can I help you with?” Kira asks.
“I just wanted to check this out.” The book slides across the desk, a school ID on top. Kira cheats, as she scans the barcode, peeking at the information written there.
“It’s Allison,” the girl says, grinning as she catches Kira squinting to read the small print, “and yes, I’m an omega.”
The way she says it isn’t defensive, but Kira can hear in her words that she’s had people surprised about that before. She’s tall for an omega, and in spite of how skinny her body is, she looks strong. She looks confident and comfortable in her own skin. Kira still can tell, though, now that she knows, that Allison is an omega. Kira isn’t as good at telling other omegas by smell as an alpha would be, but Allison’s ID card is drenched with her scent, and it’s distinctly omega.
“I’m Kira,” she says as she hands Allison’s ID card back to her and opens the book to find the barcode. “I haven’t seen you in any of the omega huddles in my classes.”
“What classes are you in?” Allison asks, perking up. “I’m in two French classes, a gender studies class, an English class, and a chem class.”
“That’d be why I’ve never seen you before,” Kira says. “I’m in two history classes, a sociology class, a bio class, and an international relations class.”
“Erica’s in an IR class,” Allison says brightly. “My mate, that is. She’s in World Politics.”
“With Moon?” Kira asks. “I don’t remember seeing her there.”
“I think so,” Allison says. “She missed the first couple of classes because she’s been having some health issues. She should be there next class, though.”
“Does she need notes from the first few classes?” Kira asks. She knows that she’s taking a bit of a leap, and that Moon probably already passed along notes to Erica, if she missed for health reasons. Still, she knows from experience, from switching schools a week or two into the school year when her parents decided it was time to move, that catching up can be hard, without a friendly face.
Allison lights up. “I’ll ask her,” she says. “And maybe if you give us your phone number, I can have her text you?”
Kira hesitates at the idea of passing along her phone number that quickly. Erica could easily find her in class and ask, though Kira doubts that Erica actually paid any attention to her as she was walking into the library. Definitely not enough attention to find Kira in a class full of omegas. Kira blends in. Erica doesn’t.
“You don’t have to, of course,” Allison says gently. “But I’d like it if you did. Maybe I can text you, too.”
Kira blushes, and that in and of itself is enough to make her mind up for her. She wishes she were slightly less transparent, because Allison and Erica are mates already, meaning there’s no place for her there. But she rationalized it, anyway. She knows that having a close friend in the class never hurts, and that there isn’t much harm that it can do. She punches a few keys, scans Allison’s book, and prints Allison’s receipt, grabbing a pen and writing her name and phone number on the back.
“Just let me know,” Kira says as she hands the book back, the receipt tucked into the front.
“I will,” Allison says. “I’d better get going, but it was nice to meet you, Kira. I’ll see you around, right?”
“I’ll be here,” Kira says.
When Allison leaves, Kira feels silly. She runs through everything in her head, picking out the most awkward things that left her mouth and wondering if she should’ve said anything in the first place, or if she should’ve just zipped her lips.
She quickly finishes her history reading and packs up to head home once Isaac shows up. She keeps her phone close to her the rest of the night, hoping quietly that she gets a text from an unfamiliar number.
At midnight, after no new messages, she decides to call it a night.
Erica is in Kira’s IR class.
She sits in the very back row, in an outfit no more conservative than the one Kira saw her in at the library. She looks a little paler, and her lips aren’t painted bright red, both of which Kira attributes to the early morning. She’s just as pretty as Kira remembers her being, though.
Kira considers making her way to the back of the room and plopping down next to her. She even hesitates, for a moment, next to her normal desk, considering moving past it. She doesn’t manage to talk herself into it. She isn’t actually brave enough to talk to Erica, even if she were brave enough to sit next to her. Kira’s omega friends look at her expectantly, and Erica doesn’t actually know who she is, and Kira doesn’t want to embarrass herself. She still hasn’t heard from Allison or Erica, and she doesn’t want to make a big fool out of herself when Allison was probably just being polite.
So she takes her normal seat, and she tries not to think about it too hard.
Erica beelines out after class, and Kira has another class after, too, so she can’t actually afford to dilly-dally very much. She forgets about it completely, caught up in other classes and other work, until she heads to the library for her shift. She checks her phone from behind the check-out desk, responding to a text from her mom but finding her inbox otherwise empty, and she starts to lose a little bit more hope.
Not that she really has anything to be hopeful about in the first place.
She checks a few books in and out for people, but when the scanner starts malfunctioning, she has to go down the hall to grab Danny from the tech help desk. She spends almost a half an hour answering questions and watching as Danny pokes and prods. Kira has to redirect people to Boyd’s scanner while Danny works, and when Danny finally reassures her that he’s almost there, Kira is relieved.
“The scanner isn’t working, you have to go over there,” Kira says as two people approach the desk, books in hand. She doesn’t get a good look at who it is, more caught up in watching Danny attempt to check in a book to test one last time. But when the people don’t start moving, she glances up again.
“Hi,” Allison says, waving at her. “How long do you think it’ll be before it’s working again?”
Danny holds the scanner close to the book, and when it recognizes the bar code and makes a familiar beeping sound, he grins.
“Now,” Danny says. He backs away from the desk, setting the scanner back in its cradle. “If you have any more problems, just let me know,” he says to Kira, and once she thanks him, he heads off.
“Sorry about that,” Kira apologizes. “Do you want me to check you out?”
“Oh, we aren’t checking out,” Erica says. “Though we’re checking you out. I thought I’d meet the cute little front desk omega Allison talked about.”
“It turns out she’s good on the notes,” Allison says helpfully, like her mate didn’t just drop a bad pick-up line on another omega. “But she’s bad at the texting.”
“Oh,” Kira says. She wonders if she’s blushing as deeply as she feels like she is. “That’s okay. Thanks for letting me know.”
“It was still sweet of you to offer,” Allison says.
“If you wanted to go out for coffee after the next IR class and work on a kind of relations that isn’t international...” Erica trails off, punctuated by an eyebrow waggle, and Kira wonders how long she worked on that one. From Allison’s bemused face, Kira would guess that it was probably a while.
“I can’t,” Kira says. There’s a line of students waiting to ask questions starting to form behind Erica and Allison, and Kira is starting to get antsy. “That’s really sweet of you, though.”
“Maybe some other time then,” Allison says. Kira glances to Allison’s face to see that Allison looks just as disappointed as Erica looks surprised. “We’ll leave you be to get your work done.”
“I have class,” Kira blurts. “I have a class right after. So I can’t do then.”
“Maybe another time, then,” Erica promises.
Kira smiles weakly. “Yeah, maybe.”
Allison and Erica leave, and Kira checks the next few people out on autopilot. She isn’t entirely sure what just happened. It seemed at first like Erica was hitting on her right in front of her omega mate, which. Kira knows that there are some alphas who have more than one omega, but she’s never actually met one who did. But then Erica started talking about how Allison said she was cute, and Allison didn’t seem at all upset until Kira said no.
“You okay?” Boyd asks her at the end of her shift, as she puts her stuff in her backpack. “You look kinda out of it. Do you want me to walk you back to your dorm?”
“Oh no, don’t worry about it!” Kira says, though she smiles gratefully at him. “I just had a long, confusing day.”
Boyd gives her one of his biggest, warmest hugs. “Have some hot chocolate when you get back to your room,” he suggests. “And if you change your mind, or you want to talk, or if you need anything at all, you have my number.”
“Thanks, Boyd,” she says. She lets Boyd hold her for a moment, his solid arms reassuring her some. She has to pull away, after a moment, to zip her backpack up and swing it onto her back. “I’ll let you know.”
She isn’t sure that Boyd is equipped to deal with very attractive mates hitting on her, maybe together and maybe not. She’s grateful that he cares enough to try, but she thinks she’s going to have to handle this one on her own.
The next week blurs by.
Kira sees Erica every class period in IR, though they still don’t sit next to each other. Erica waves at Kira from the back of the room, one of those waves that’s more wiggling her fingers at Kira than a conventional wave. Kira smiles and ducks her head, and Erica’s grin grows sharper. Kira doesn’t get the chance to talk to her, or Allison, for that matter, at work. She has to go through training on some of the online search services the school subscribes to, so she doesn’t spend a lot of her time behind the desk or in the stacks. She isn’t sure if it’s a good thing or not. On the one hand, it means she doesn’t embarrass herself or run the risk of blurting out questions about what’s going on. On the other hand, Kira doesn’t really get flirted on by cute girls very often, whether they’re serious or not. She kind of likes the feeling.
Mason calls in sick, and Kira gets a last-minute text asking if she can fill in for him on his closing shift on Friday night. Kira wishes she were cool enough that she had something better to do on a Friday night, but she doesn’t. She had changed into her pajamas already, but she knows Mason, even this early into the school year - he works hard and is responsible, and he wouldn’t be calling in unless he was deathly ill. If anyone is deserving of a day off, it’s him.
Kira changes back into real clothes and rushes over, though when she sits down, she can feel her energy starting to fade. She knows she just has to stay awake for another few hours, and that she can go home and crash, after that. She can go to bed and sleep until noon, if she really wants to. She does regret not making a Starbucks stop on the way over, though, or bringing her thermos full of tea. She knows she isn’t going to be able to make it through the shift without some sugar or caffeine, and as the only student worker in, if she leaves, then the desk is totally unattended.
“So does anything at all count for hot chocolate on a Friday evening when I’m working the library graveyard shift?” Kira texts Boyd, not really expecting a response. She expects some sympathy, maybe, if Boyd is checking his phone. She thinks he probably has other things going on. She’s never seen Boyd outside of work, but he’s always been kind to her, and she assumes he probably has plenty of friends.
“Whipped cream?” Boyd responds immediately, and Kira’s heart swells.
“That was a joke, you know,” she sends. “You don’t have to actually bring me hot chocolate.”
“Whipped cream?”
“Yeah, whipped cream and 2% milk,” Kira replies. “You’re the best.”
“Just wait and see,” Boyd says cryptically.
So Kira does. She helps the one patron who talks to her, but she mostly just sits there and waits, fiddling with her phone. She goes alert every time she hears the quiet click of someone walking through the sensors by the doors, expecting it to be Boyd with her hot chocolate.
When she sees a familiar flash of blonde, curly hair and a pair of bright red heels coming through the door and into the library, she thinks maybe her wait is at least going to be more entertaining. She’s surprised, though, to see no backpack on Erica’s back, and no mate in tow.
She’s even more surprised to see a venti hot chocolate with whipped cream in Erica’s hand.
“I hear you requested Starbucks?” Erica says, grinning.
“How did you… you know Boyd?” Kira asks, gratefully accepting the hot chocolate and reaching down to fish for her wallet.
“One of only two friends I had in high school. I'm epileptic, he’s chubby and black, high schoolers are terrible,” Erica responds, as casually as Kira’s ever heard her. “We were supposed to hang out, but when he said he was going to be late to get hot chocolate for a coworker, I might have offered to take it to you instead, in exchange for some intel.”
“Does a five cover it?” Kira asks, and Erica gives her a skeptical look.
“I’m trying to flirt with you,” Erica says, leaning over the desk to get closer to Kira’s face. Kira tries hard not to focus on the way it makes the fabric of her shirt hang, the deep V showing the bright red lace of Erica’s bra. “I’m not going to make you pay for flirting hot chocolate.”
Kira doesn’t know where to look. Erica’s face is close, her makeup subdued, but her eyes still bright and her lips still soft. Erica’s bra is right there, the bright color drawing Kira’s eyes to it. Kira would feel awkward looking down at her hands, and she doesn’t want Erica to think she isn’t interested, even though Kira really thinks she shouldn’t be interested. Kira doesn’t think she could actually really avoid looking at Erica, even if she wanted to, though. She can smell Erica’s perfume, or lotion, or whatever, a soft scent that Kira couldn’t for the life of her put her finger on, puzzling through the smell and figuring nothing out except for.
“You’re not an alpha,” Kira says.
Kira can tell from Erica’s expression that it was the absolute wrong thing to say. Erica’s lips purse, and she pulls away, and Kira immediately feels guilty. “Not that that’s a bad thing!” Kira immediately says, trying to cover up her blunder. “I think that’s actually kind of cool, you know, having an omega and a beta mate, since that isn’t something that the media really likes to talk about, except for in those terrible movies where an alpha and omega meet at the end and the omega realizes... I mean, yeah, though. That’s kinda cool.”
“Allison’s parents don’t really think it’s so cool, and we dealt with a lot of shit when we signed the mating forms the day I turned 18,” Erica says. Kira realizes she probably should’ve figured it out sooner. Kira would’ve felt it, if Erica were an alpha, would’ve been able to identify it from her scent, or from Kira’s own responses to Erica. Even now, when Erica is visibly upset, it doesn’t hit Kira in the gut like it does when an alpha’s upset with her. It doesn’t leave her afraid, or scrambling to stop herself from trying to do everything imaginable to make things better.
“That’s pretty brave of you,” Kira says. “Deciding to mate anyway.”
“I’m not great with the doing what society says I’m supposed to thing,” Erica teases. “Allison cares more. Mating with me was part of her big senior year fuck you to her parents. They were traditional.”
“Where is Allison?” Kira asks. “Is she okay?”
“Oh, yeah,” Erica says, waving her off. “She’s home. She starts heat tomorrow, so she asked me to pick up an audiobook for her while I was here. She gets crabby if she doesn’t have stuff to do. She has lighter heats, since she doesn’t have an alpha mate, but they still tell her that if she’s off suppressants, she can’t go to class.”
Kira takes a small sip from her hot chocolate, the liquid still to warm to drink much more at once. “I know how frustrating that is,” she says, finally. “I have some audio book recommendations, if you tell me what kind of stuff she likes to listen to. My mom and dad were always big audio book people, we’d listen on road trips instead of trying to find new radio stations in each place.”
“She likes boring shit,” Erica teases, and Kira is relieved to see that some of her bitterness has faded to lightness. “If you have any documentaries about boring historical stuff like French monarchs or space, she’d like that.”
“My dad is a history professor,” Kira admits. “Boring historical stuff is not really that boring to me, either.”
“You two can be boring together, then,” Erica says, and Kira feels like butterflies are making residence in her tummy. “If you wanted to come listen with us this weekend…”
“I can’t just burst in on your heat,” Kira says. She should probably be just a little bit scandalized, because what Erica is proposing is Kira being there for something extremely personal, only something to be shared by mates, and Kira isn’t even sure that Erica ran it by Allison, first. Erica did just say that social conventions weren’t her forte, and Kira is starting to suspect she just has to take what Erica says in stride, but it still shocks her a little. “We can hang out some other time, though.”
“I’ll hold you to that,” Erica promises.
“Here.” Kira takes another sip of her chocolate and then pulls out a sheet of paper, writing down a few titles of audio books she knows the library has that she likes. She hands it over to Erica. “A reward in return for the hot chocolate. I really needed it, and you didn’t have to make the detour just for me.”
“I wanted to,” Erica tells her as she grabs the paper. “And besides, I wasn’t gonna be able to pick out boring shit on my own. That’s what librarians are for, right?”
“Right,” Kira confirms. “Captain Yukimura, reporting for boring shit duty.”
Erica laughs, the noise bright and unexpected, almost as sharp as her smile can be. “I’ll be back to check out,” she promises. “And then we’ll put your boring shit skills to the test.”
When Erica leaves, Kira immediately pulls out her phone. She opens her conversation with Boyd and message him, a million questions at the tips of her fingers, but it appears he’s already beaten her to it.
“You’re welcome,” the words staring back up at her read, and Kira has, once again, mixed feelings about everything. She isn’t sure if flirting is always like this, or if this is just the Allison and Erica experience, attraction and teasing with a heavy dose of confusion.
“Thank you,” she sends him anyway.
He did make sure she got her hot chocolate, after all.
Erica isn’t in class the next class period or the one after, unsurprisingly, probably at home in bed with her mate. Kira is actually a little bit surprised that Erica was out and about on Friday at all, instead of holing up in bed with Allison. Kira guesses that if Allison was crabby about being homebound, though, then Erica fussing over her would probably not make matters any better.
Kira doesn’t see them at work, either, of course. At least she knows not to expect them. She isn’t trying hard not to watch the entrance to the library, getting her hopes up every time she sees someone walk in.
She’s got it bad, okay. She knows that.
The next time Kira sees them is after heat week, and it isn’t by the front entrance. Boyd tells Kira when she gets into work that it’s her turn for reshelving duty, so she takes the cart of books and makes her way to the stacks. She grabs her headphones from her backpack and puts music on to make the job less monotonous, quietly jamming out as she takes a look at the crammed cart. She stops and reorganizes them by section and then by their call number within section, just so she doesn’t spend the evening wandering around the library, going back and forth and zigzagging her way around the library when she doesn’t have to.
She works pretty efficiently, taking the fiction books back to the reading room first, returning the DVDs next, and then going to the sections of nonfiction, working her way through. The last few books she has to return to the downstairs level, so she rolls the cart to the elevator and presses the down button, waiting as the slow old elevator makes its way down to the ground floor. She works from close to the elevator to the end of the long room, putting books back as she goes.
She zones out, for the most part, mouthing along to her music and focusing intently on the numbers and letters on the spines of the books. She weeds her way down to just two books with one row of shelves left, one book going on the right and the other going in the very corner of the library on the left. She heads right, first, finding the general vicinity of where she needs to be and backing up to get a full view of all the books in the area. She has to stand on her tiptoes to put the book in place, but she gets it in where it belongs, in numerical order and flush with the spines of the books next to it.
There’s one book left on her cart, and she grabs it, looking down at the spine to double-check the number as she turns back around and drags the cart along behind her. She’s ready to get it done and go back to her desk, where she can work on homework.
Her laser focus works against her.
It isn’t until she’s looking down at the book, most of the way to where it goes, that she notices something she should’ve before; there’s a flash of movement from the corner where she’s headed, and Kira glances up to see where the people are, so she knows whether she has to give a shy, “Excuse me,” as she weaves her way through the row.
What she sees kills the words before they leave her lips and nearly has her losing her grip on the book.
Allison has Erica pressed back against the wall, one hand under Erica’s shirt and the other in Erica’s hair. Erica’s already short miniskirt has ridden up, Allison’s thigh between Erica’s legs pressing the fabric back, practically up to Erica’s hips. Allison crowds Erica even closer, and with the change in angle, Kira realizes all at once that they’re kissing, their lips pressed together, a smear of Erica’s red lipstick on the corner of Allison’s mouth.
Kira rips her headphones off, the electronic music blaring in her ears making the scene feel dirtier in her head than it actually is, reminding her of one of those club makeout scenes in movies that she is pretty sure don’t actually happen in real life. It only makes her feel even filthier, heat pooling in her gut, when she can actually hear what’s going on, the slick, sucking noises of their lips as they kiss, the quiet hums from… she’s not actually sure which of them. Maybe both of them. The noises all kind of blend together, higher-pitched but warm, and loud.
This is usually the point when Kira gets grossed out and has to step in and tell them to take it somewhere else. This is usually the point when Kira The Librarian takes over and tells them that that is really not what the stacks are for, and that they have to find someplace more private if they want to do that, make out or get off or whatever it is they’re actually doing. But something about the moment, probably the fact that it’s two people she’s actually attracted to, this time, leaves her frozen on the spot. She knows it’s weird and creepy to just stand there and watch, and she knows she should speak up, but she can’t seem to find the words.
She backs up the cart, deciding she’ll turn around and come back later. She tries to be as quiet as possible, but she isn’t paying the best attention to where she’s going, distracted by Allison and Erica. The cart squeaks loudly just before Kira accidentally bumps it into the shelf.
Allison and Erica freeze, and Erica’s eyes pop open. Kira freezes too, and this time she knows exactly what she should be saying, apologizing and telling them they have to maybe not kiss in the corner of the library.
“If you came later, you would’ve gotten more of a show,” Erica says to her before Kira can get a single word out. “We didn’t expect you to get so much done so fast.”
“I have a system,” Kira says, because apparently they’re acting like this is totally normal. Like this was something that was planned, instead of Kira awkwardly walking in on them and perving. “Mason’s faster than me, but I’m pretty fast.”
Allison backs away from Erica, turning to face Kira, and Kira flushes. “I just, uh. Had to put this back?” Kira says. “And tell you guys to. Maybe not do that. You could’ve been caught by someone else, and they would’ve fussed at you, and I am maybe a little too interested and chicken to tell you you really aren’t supposed to, but-”
“Kira,” Allison says gently. “We wanted you to see this.”
“Wanted you to be involved, actually,” Erica says, giving Kira a once-over. “I can smell that you’re turned on from here. You don’t have to be a stick in the mud.”
Kira’s pretty sure that if a person could die from humiliation, that’s where she’d be right now. She squirms uncomfortably, for once really mentally hating those omega genes, broadcasting her arousal like it’s anyone else’s business.
“I have to go,” Kira blurts. She shoves the last book at Allison. “You can put this back, it goes right there.” Kira takes the cart and turns around, putting her headphones back on and getting to the elevator as quickly as she can, so Allison and Erica don’t have time to say anything more to her.
“You okay?” Boyd asks when she gets back to the desk. She knows, if Allison and Erica were right, that Boyd intentionally sent her to the stacks, knowing that his friends were planning something.
“Flustered,” she admits. “Allison and Erica are a lot.”
“They mean well,” Boyd says.
“I just need a bit of time to process things,” Kira says. “I want them. That isn’t the issue. But I’m not sure what they want from me.”
“You should try asking them.” Boyd takes the cart from her to put back.
Boyd’s advice is, for all intents and purposes, pretty reasonable. It does mean coming face to face with Allison and Erica after… whatever it was that just happened downstairs, though. It means acknowledging her response, and taking the leap to asking what they’re doing. To asking what they meant with the asking her out to coffee and the flirting and the making out where they knew she’d see.
And even then, even if they do want the same thing she does… alphas and two omegas is conventional, and a beta and omega isn’t even really all that scandalous. A beta and two omegas is practically unheard of.
If they even wanted that, that is. Which is a big if.
Allison and Erica don’t come back up before Kira’s shift ends. Kira almost wonders if she should go back downstairs and see if they’re still there, just to remind them that they really actually shouldn’t make out in the library for hours. Or do more than that. She doesn’t, though. She grabs her backpack and heads out.
She gets Starbucks on her way back to her room. She thinks she deserves it, after the day she’s had.
“Come to IR early today.”
Kira checks the time and sees that it’s 7:15 AM. She rubs her eyes and groans, checking to see who the text message is from, and whether it’s important enough to drag her out of bed 15 minutes before her alarm goes off.
It’s from an unfamiliar number. She goes to block it and then pauses, rereads the message again.
It sinks in that she does know who it’s from, and the realization sends butterflies to her tummy. She doesn’t think she could roll over and go back to sleep if she wanted to.
“I’ll be there,” she texts back.
She has no idea what she’s doing, but she thinks that it might be time to figure it out.
When she gets to the IR classroom, Erica isn’t in her usual seat. She’s sitting in the middle of the classroom, sitting backwards in the chair that’s usually Kira’s.
She isn’t alone. Sitting in the row behind her is Allison, looking fresh-faced and wide awake. She’s in workout clothes, and she looks like she might have actually been awake to work out. Kira thinks she might not be human. Kira feels like all the caffeine and nervous jitters in the world couldn’t help her be half as wide-awake as Allison is right now.
“Sorry for the text,” Allison apologizes. “Erica pointed out that it might have been a little bit early.”
“Allison is one of those terrible people who is awake at ass o’clock in the morning,” Erica explained. “Sorry if she woke you up.”
“It’s fine,” Kira says. She stands there for a moment. Her stomach is swooping and she can feel herself starting to shift uncomfortably, the attention focused on her and the uncertainty making it hard for her to stand still. “Is everything okay?”
“You should relax.” Erica reaches out and grabs her hand, dragging Kira over to sit down in a chair. “We’re just here to talk. A little birdie told us that our foolproof plan to get you out with us was slightly less foolproof than we thought.”
“Boyd isn’t a little birdie,” Kira teases, but sitting does make her feel less tense. “It’s fine. I don’t know how you really could’ve done it any better.”
“Probably we could’ve been a little less direct from the start,” Allison says, shooting Erica a sideways glance.
“Or more direct,” Erica says. “We want to go out with you, Kira. Go out a few more times if it works. Maybe get to the third date and include you in what you saw downstairs.”
“And for once, she isn’t making a vagina pun,” Allison teases.
“I’m making every possible vagina pun,” Erica says, giving Kira a once-over.
“So you want this to just. Be a sex thing?” Kira asks nervously. “I’ve never - I mean, I could get there, probably, if that’s really what you want, but it wasn’t… It wasn’t really what I had in mind.”
Allison and Erica share a look that makes Kira feel distinctly left out. They can read each other well. They’ve been mates for a while, and she can’t just jump to sex, and she’s getting herself ready to be left down.
“No,” Allison says gently. “Kira, we want to take you on dates. We don’t want to promise anything permanent. Not yet. That’s a big decision. But we want to get to know you better than a few awkward attempts to hit on you at the front desk of the library.”
“We want to get to know all of you better,” Erica says. “I’m just hoping that involves some time with your mouth. And maybe some other parts, too.”
Kira takes a deep breath. Students are starting to filter into the room, Kira’s omega friends looking confused at the seating arrangement change. Kira doesn’t want to cause a spectacle or draw too much attention to herself, and if she stalls too much longer, being wishy-washy when she knows what she wants, she’s going to be explaining herself for the rest of the class period.
“I’m free Friday night,” Kira says shyly. “If you guys wanted to go for dinner.”
Allison beams. “We’ll pick a place and get back to you. We’ll text you, now that we know the number works.”
“That sounds good,” Kira says, relieved.
Allison kisses Erica and heads out, but Erica doesn’t head back to her normal seat. She gives Kira her own seat back, but she plops down right next to her, smiling more softly than Kira thinks she’s ever seen her look.
“You know you’re signing up for lots more work hot chocolate and flashing, right?” Erica teases.
Kira feels like she has the weight of the world off her shoulders for once, the decision made. She’s going to go on dates. She’s going to get to know them, going to be more adventurous. She’s going to give this a go, and hope that it goes as well as her gut tells her it will.
“As long as I get the flashing, too,” Kira says.
Erica barks out a laugh so abrupt it makes the omega next to her jump, and Kira smiles.
She somehow suspects that with Allison and Erica in her life, she won’t be able to keep things small anymore, but somehow, she doesn’t mind all that much.