Hello there! (I had to lol!)
To my returning readers, hey! How are you? To everyone else, welcome, welcome! This… this plot that started in my story telling parts has grown into this… at first I was more than nervous—I've written shifters (bears and wolves) this is my first A/B/O. I hope you like it, I'm falling more and more in love with it. There are a lot of twists and turns planned, but I also hope that this Ben and Rey are what we need. Greenumbrella03 likes it! And thank you love for reading it!
"One day, these guys are going to give me more notice than just a couple of hours—" she mutters as she dips the fried dough out of the fryer. It's Friday, and there was a message at three a.m. requesting more doughnuts for today. Their daily order of three dozen doughnuts has been doubled to six. "They must be having a meeting today—"
Rey's the only one at the bakery this early and she loves it, even with last minute orders like this. Just her, the silence before the dawn, and flour. As she rolls out the dough, she's done this so many times that she almost gets lost in it the easy back and forth of her rolling pin, then the cutter, as it makes row upon row of pastries ready for the fryer. She supposes that sometime soon she should upgrade to a machine that can do this faster, but she supposes that it's her inner omega that loves the almost nesting quality of baking.
As for the them—it's the standing daily order of three dozen doughnuts for the guys who work—hell she's not even sure. Yes, she has ideas they all do but no one talks about it.
Rose and her's little bakery, called Rose and Rey's, fries the dough and once a week, Vicrul, who picks up the doughnuts and leaves a rolled-up wad of cash. After that first month of the total being paid plus a big tip, she doesn't even think about it anymore. After all, those tips are what paid for her new ovens.
But since she bought this building in the little mountain hometown on main, life has been far from boring. The building is beautiful. Old brick from over a hundred years ago, the sides are exposed brick, with huge windows for people watching on Main Street with little and medium sized tables scattered around for those that don't have to rush off to their next to-do on the list. Her bakery looks and functions like any other commercial kitchen, stainless steel and coolers. But all this works for her. As an omega with no mate, this fills the caring for others need that's deep inside. She hears the key at the back door which only means one thing—
"I'm sorry! I overslept!" Rose, also an omega, gushes as she rushes in.
"It's alright." Rey continues to dip as Rose hangs up her coat and locks the back door.
Her best friend comes over and the friends air kiss before Rose walks over to check the board. It's there they post the orders for the next day, and while they both checked it yesterday, the cakes are already in the walk-in where they wait to go home with their families, the pies are ready for the ovens along with the breads.
While Rey finishes the doughnuts, Rose will start boxing and filling the cases. And since it's Friday—a knock on the back door has Rose rushing to the back—"I'm not late am I?"
Their old friend from high school, Finn Storm, who is an alpha but mated with Poe Dameron, a local cop, enters with a smile. His normal nine to five job is only Monday through Thursday and for some extra cash, he comes in to help with the Friday morning rush.
More kisses as everyone works together to get breakfast for everyone in their little town.
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After lunch, once everything has slowed down and the couple of highschoolers they hired to help Maz, their dinner cook, come in. Finn and Rose go home, and Rey walks upstairs to her apartment over the bakery.
At the top of the stairs, is a thick wooden door that she picked out herself. The side towards the stairs is plain, while the side that faces her little foyer then her living room has been carved by a local woodcarver. Birds and creatures of the forest, as Finn likes to call them help keep her company when she's up here, alone at night.
It's also proven its strength when a curious alpha got whiff of one of her heats. After begging and pleading he resorted to threatening and throwing things at her door. She had to call Poe to come and help.
Since then, she takes her medicine every day, sometimes twice a day. Yes, her doctor has explained to her that she needs to have a heat, but when she's the co-owner and then they're busy, too busy for either omega to break for a heat, besides who's going to help through it when the only alphas around are the ones who run the town.
But today, because four-thirty a.m. is really early to get up when she has to go back down to help clean Maz clean up after the dinner rush.
All she manages to do is get her shoes off before she collapses onto the bed, falling asleep as soon as she allows her eyes to close.
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"My girl, you really need a vacation," Maz fusses at her. She's not sure why, she feels fine, well except for her glands being a little itchy today.
"I'm going to be off Saturday and Sunday—"
"Leave town for once! Why don't you call Rose, tell her that you're going to my cabin. Then follow me home, get the keys and go. And before you say anything, it's not like hours away. It's just up in Boone, which is two hours away. You know you want to," Maz says in that sing-song way of hers.
It really does sound nice, too nice.
And they're almost done cleaning. The doors are locked, and she puts the broom back into the corner. "Maz?" she waits to hear her hum. "I'm going to go pack a bag—"
"Alright dear. I need to take Chewy his supper and you know he doesn't like to wait."
She stops to smile. "You can blame it on me," Rey says before she runs up the stairs. A couple of days off sounds like heaven. She doesn't even look as she grabs the first bag she sees in the bottom of her closet and grabs clean clothes that are not bakery related.
And a bathing suit. She knows that there's a pool around there somewhere.
Toothbrush, face wash, deodorant. She even grabs her vibrator for that just in case. As she finishes up in the bathroom, she glances at herself in the mirror—damn she's tired and probably needs longer than a weekend in the woods in the upscale village where she won't have to bake a pie of fry doughnuts for strange alphas.
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"You did make it before eleven!" the guy in the booth at the gate says. "Chewy said you were coming."
"Thanks Wedge." Somehow, she remembers his name even though she hasn't been here since Thanksgiving. "I'll see you around."
He waves and she lets her Jeep idle down the black paved road. Maz and Chewy's cabin is easy to find—in the sunlight. But now, ten minutes to eleven it's not so easy. Just as she rounds the first curve that leads up the mountain, her phone buzzes with a text. She has to laugh when she sees that it's from Chewy and it has their house number of one hundred fifty-nine.
She smiles as she speeds up just a little bit more and pushes the microphone for the speak to text. "Thank you."
"Anytime." Is their ready answer. The last house in the development is one hundred sixty, so Rey follows the curves carefully around trees and cabins of various sizes as she climbs the mountain.
As soon as she passes mailbox numbered one-fifty, she sits up straighter, as if that could help her see in the dark any better, and says a grateful, "There you are," when she sees the black mailbox with the numbers that glow.
Their driveway tilts up but turns to a perfect little yard with a level spot for parking. Since there's no one else here, Maz gave her not only the keys, but also the garage remote thingy so she could park under the cabin in the garage basement.
You know, just in case someone wanted cookies, they still wouldn't be able to find her to demand the goodness she knows how to bake.
Automatic lights come on when the door rises and stay on after she pulls in. This isn't her first-time here, but it's her first-time parking in the cool concrete space so she hops out to make sure she parked the Jeep far enough in.
But as she rounds the corner to check, she happens to look up.
Even in her little town, just minutes away from Asheville, she can see the stars, and will even crawl up her ladder to see them from her roof—they still don't look like this. Beautiful points of light arranged artfully across the night sky—when she was younger there were times when she would wish she could be out there flying among them. But now, she wonders if somewhere out there-
It's late enough where most of the neighbors have gone to bed, thus their houses are dark. And it way it looks, Rey can see all the stars in the galaxy and maybe even some behind them and even the slight fingernail moon hanging perfectly in the night sky. When she was a teen and just started reading romance, she would imagine a lover, her perfect alpha who would take the credit for hanging the moon just for her.
She can almost feel his arms around her, his whisper in her hear as he tells her about the stars—
What she doesn't expect is the tears that stream down her face.
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"Look, let me have next week off like we planned. You know I need it before I start this new assignment."
"Fine, just know that I'm only letting you do this because you're at your parents' cabin. I know you're just two hours away but remember—lay low. Someone might recognize you."
"This is not the first time I've gone this far undercover—" he just wishes that he had chosen a normal path for his life—good sized house, white picket fence, his mate with easy smiles and kisses, his pups everywhere—but then again it does something when he brings down the bad guys.
"I know, I know," Lando agrees. "It's just you're you and I gotta watch out for you."
"And I'm glad for it. Let me enjoy my time off and I'll be there to meet Hux when we agreed to."
"Alright. I'll call back in a couple of days. Bye Ben."
He can hear the call disconnect before he can say bye, but he still adds, "Goodbye Lando." He pockets his cell and walks back out onto the porch. Normally he would have stayed out here to talk, but it was Lando, and he could have sworn he saw a SUV of some kind down at Chewy's house. He didn't think they were coming in this weekend but plans change.
Besides, isn't Maz still working at that bakery?
He shakes his head and downs the last sip of whiskey in his glass. He's been here a week already, and while he's not bored or anything close to that, he anxious to start the new job. After this assignment, he thinks he's going to take some time off. Like several months or at least a year. They still own his grandmother's estate in Italy after all.
But first, he needs to help bring down the bad guys.
Everything one could think to blame a crime family with, they've done it. From drugs to trafficking, it was time to bring them all down. He wasn't going to get involved until he came across some of their handy work, the scene still gave him nightmares if he thought about it too much.
This time when he shakes, it's not voluntary but a cold chill that dances down his spine.
He moves to refill his whiskey glass but stops. A slight summertime late night breeze moves through the trees. A deep breath and it instantly calms his nerves. Pine, oak and maple, the scents that have been all around him since he arrived, reminds his of good memories.
But tonight, there's something different—vanilla and, a deep inhale is that lavender—has he ever smelled that combination like that before?
His eyes close as he's taken back in time. His mother's library, one time when the power went out because of a blizzard—spending days living on hot chocolate, books and cookies while burning his mother's lavender candles for light. He was only five or six, but out of everything else in his life, he loves that memory of just him and his parents.
Then why in the hell was he smelling that this close to midnight on a Friday night? His body responds like he's been off his blockers for almost a month because he has. The staff doctor heavily advised that he stop taking them so he could have a nice hard rut before he goes deep undercover again.
But even as his body hardens in all the places it does, he can't stop thinking about the sadness undertone that calls to him.
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At first, she's not sure what she wants to do, she had a long nap earlier so while she could go to sleep, she can stay up a while longer. Then she remembers Maz's huge porch and that's where she currently sits, sipping some wine she just opened. She had to drag out the overstuffed outdoor cushions for the chairs, but as cozy as she is now, it's well worth it.
She's just glad that Finn agreed to come back this weekend and help Rose. And to call in some of those highschoolers who want some extra cash.
As a small business owner, it's easy to feel guilty when she wants some time off and having Rose as a partner helps. She also knows that Rose, as a unmated omega like her, feels the loneliness too.
A deep breath in an effort to keep her tears away, she gets the most amazing smells of pine, oak and maple. The forest. she's always loved it ever since her first camping trip so many years ago.
But wait—there's something else—
The scent is deeper than what she scented before at Thanksgiving. Yes, everything is blooming but there's something else there too—is that rain?
One of her earliest memories of when she still had her parents, they were out hiking, well not hiking, she was only four after all. It had to have been a walk in the woods, and one of those sudden spring storms sprung up. Laughter, hell that must have been one of the last times she heard her parents, not Jyn and Cassian, laugh before the wreck took them from her.
And she also knew that her mate would at least smell like that. A ping in her heart and she wonders what he must be doing tonight.
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The next morning when her phone buzzes with a text to wake her up, she grumbles as she rolls over. Not fully awake, she closes her eyes so she can go back to sleep when it buzzes again. "This is my day off, damn you," she grumbles as she reaches out for her phone. She doesn't really pay attention to the who the text is from at first, but she does have to smile when she sees that it's after nine a.m. "It's been forever since I've gotten to sleep in." Even on Sundays, the one day a week they close she usually got up to either deep clean the kitchen or meet Rose, Finn and Poe for brunch. But since she hired the new cleaning company in town, two of her best customers who come in at least three times a week for a Mommy date while their kids are in school to come deep clean once a week, that's one less thing she has to worry about.
Then she notices that the text is from Maz—I'm sorry that I'm texting so early but Leia and Han aren't home, so if you want to go swim, you can. The gate's unlocked.
Rey: Thanks, I might do that.
Before she has a chance to set her phone down, another text comes in.
Mama: I know you're busy this morning, but Dad and I might stop by. When do you slow down—Rey swipes and the phone is ringing even before she's done reading the message.
"Hey Mom. I just saw your text. I'm not at the bakery."
"Oh—ok. Where are you?" Rey's adopted mom, Jyn Erso-Andor asks, clearly surprised. After the wreck that killed her parents, she was very lucky that her first foster parents are the ones who adopted her when she was only six.
"Maz and Chewy said that I could use their cabin in Boone for a relaxing weekend."
"That sounds amazing. We're not jealous at all," Jyn says. They now live in Florida but come back each summer.
"I'll be back Sunday evening. Do you want to go grab a bite to eat?" Rey suggests.
"Yeah, call us when you're on the way back. Send me some pictures, maybe we'll buy a cabin up there if you like it that much," Mom says.
"That would be nice. I might be persuaded to take more time off if we had our own," Rey says. It really would. Rose could use it on the weekends she didn't. "Hey, let me eat some breakfast and I'll call you back."
"You don't have to. Go rest. I'll catch up with you later."
"Ok, Mama. Love you, bye."
"Love you, bye?" As per her normal, she waits for her to mom to hang up first before she sets her phone down.
"Alright, time to get up," she mutters at the same time her stomach growls. "Thank goodness I brought leftovers."
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"I really have to make arrangements to get me one of these when I get home." Eyes closed, floating on one of these new floats that almost submerges you, she loves it. Even the pool is half shaded from all the trees surrounding the house and it, she wonders if she could just stay. The bakery doesn't need her that bad, does it?
All she needs now is a big glass of sweet tea and a book—"who—Omega?"