Page 10 of Knot Convenient

And I really wanted it to.

Chapter 5

Marshall

“Dude, how are you acting so calm?” Noah asked as he ran his hand through his hair for possibly the twentieth time in an hour.

We were on our way to the town square to meet our potential future mate. Everything had moved so fast once we’d agreed to meet her, and she was already in town.

“Because one of us has to be,” I pointed out. “And it is consistently my job to reel your asses in.”

“We should have gone to meet her. It seems unfair having her travel all the way here with a baby.” Tobias frowned.

It was a long journey, and were it not for our jobs keeping us in town, I would have insisted we go to her to save her the trip.

“I’m aware, but it is what it is. We just need to be calm and straightforward when we get there, otherwise she’ll take one look at us and run away, screaming,” I said gruffly.

Noah’s face paled, a tiny pout there. “What if she doesn’t like us?”

“We aren’t unlikable,” Tobias pointed out. “But we are bonding, so we need to make sure our personalities mesh at least. That’s what this meeting is all about.”

The car drifted into silence. We were all piled into Emmett’s Jeep because it was bigger, and we wanted to travel together. Within a few minutes, we arrived.

Emma was standing outside the town hall, a wide smile on her face. “Come on in, you guys! Summer is on her way over. She got to town yesterday.”

She got here last night, and nobody bothered to tell us? I didn’t like that she was in a new town all on her own without at least a friend, and with a baby. That was a lot to juggle for one person.

“Where did she stay last night?” I asked, silently praying they hadn’t stuck her in the cheap, seedy motel on the outskirts of town that no one used, despite it being dirt cheap.

“Edie’s!” Emma said over her shoulder as we followed her into the hall.

Well, that was good, at least. I knew for a fact she would be well taken care of there.

Emma led us to a small meeting room with two couches on either side of a coffee table and several armchairs dotted around it.

“So, when Summer gets here, I’ll take a seat in the back and leave you guys to get to know each other for an hour.”

“What’s the process after that?” Tobias asked.

“If you guys are getting along well, you’re welcome to go for lunch somewhere local, maybe take a walk around town. We find that it helps clients to get out of such a strict setting to loosen up and talk, really get to know one another.”

It did feel a bit like interviewing someone, instead of meeting someone we were supposed to click with. The formality was clean and appreciated, to an extent, but I knew we wouldn’t really get to see what Summer was like in such a restricted setting.

We all took our seats, and the secondhand on the clock ticked away. We waited several minutes, and I started to think she'd gotten cold feet. “Should we⁠—”

A soft, rushed voice came from behind the door. “I am so sorry. I got totally turned around. Am I late?”

“Hardly.” Emma smiled, leading the owner of that voice into the room.

It turned out the photos didn’t do Summer justice. Wearing a simple sundress, her hair tumbling over her shoulders and an infant on her hip, she was positively stunning.

“H-hi,” she whispered, eyes going wide as she looked between us. Her scent soured slightly, giving away her apprehension and worry.

That scent.

Summer smelled like sweet tea. It was impossible to ignore as it filled the room. Every muscle in my body tightened at the scent. It was perfect, delicate, feminine, and suited her.

I couldn’t remember the last time an omega had smelled so damn good to me.