Harry whistled as he strolled around the shop sorting things out as they caught his eye. Somehow keeping the shop neat and tidy for the sisters felt more like a hobby than a job, and totally different from obeying all Aki’s cleaning demands at home.

In the corner of their break room, he spied Crystal’s bag of books. She was always reading and dragged her bag everywhere, complaining she felt lost if she didn’t have it. Harry bit his lip as he glanced up at the clock. The sisters had only left for their double date ten minutes ago. He could definitely run and catch up with them, they’d deliberately chosen a familiar restaurant within walking distance after some recent bad experiences. But he didn’t want to risk ruining their night. A few incidents in the shop had shown him that the type of alpha Crystal was drawn to, did not react well to her having a young alpha working for her. And the fact that Crystal had left without her books meant that she was either already so super stressed that she’d forgot them, or she was following Sherry’s advice about first impressions and decided not to start the date by putting a tower of books on the table ‘in case of boredom’.

He looked up again at the clock. He wished he could ask Aki. Aki always knew the sensible correct thing to do, whereas Harry had a lifelong habit of trying to help and ending up making it all worse.

What would an Alpha do?

He could hear Aki’s voice answering in his head: An alpha would do whatever you do as you are an alpha, idiot.’

Harry chuckled. Then after a moment’s more thought he picked up the bag to place it in a more visible position so Crystal would easily see it if she came back to check. It was heavy even for him, how did the small omega carry it around? Some books slipped out of the overladen bag.

His grin widened as he hunkered down to pick them up. The first couple had titles with fancy lettering spelling out foreign words, and the covers weren’t exciting pictures of adventures, but dull coloured shapes and silhouettes of people looking droopy and sad.

Since starting working at the florist, he’d had a secret plan to set Crystal up with Aki. So far his plan was still remaining totally secret as he did not know how to bring up the idea with either of them; it was hard to catch Crystal between her numerous dates, and Aki was frustratingly private about his love life. But the fact that Crystal didn’t just love books, but she loved boring books in different languages, was even more proof that Harry was set to be a genius matchmaker and beloved by both of them for the rest of their lives. They’d name all their children after him. Or at least let him choose the names of all their children, six children called Harry might be a bit confusing. And no one ever again in the history of the world could be cursed with his real name.

So how would he choose all their names? The alphabet? He counted the letters on his fingers. They would have to have eight children, not six, to get to H for Harry. He gazed into the empty air for a while, half thinking about names (Ally, Bikey, Charley, Deedee, Eddie, Frankie, Gertie), and half imagining eight cuties bouncing around calling him Uncle Harry and giggling. Those sweet little kids would not believe the stories about their now lovely cuddly always happy dad making endless lists for Harry to obey, and permanently shouting about all the things Harry did wrong, and niggling at him for stupid unimportant things like washing up a glass as soon as you finished drinking from it, and constantly nagging him to put clothes on.

Hmmm. All the arguments about being naked maybe were best forgotten.

For some reason he blushed thinking about Aki’s imaginary family knowing about them, when in real life all he wanted was for Aki to acknowledge him as an alpha and that it was natural and normal for the two of them to have no body shame or embarrassment around each other.

A book he hadn’t realised he’d picked up, slipped out of his hand. It slid out of its paper cover and instead of something unpronounceable about attention-killing things, it’s title in bright pink lettering over the whole cover was: ‘Alpha in the workplace: an omega’s guide to finding and keeping love’.

Harry paused a moment, then dropped down on his knees and started flicking through.