46. Garret
Chapter 46
M y angel glares at me from where she’s curled protectively around Teddy. I can understand. Shit, I don’t much like us right now either. Still, even knowing what happened on our end, we still come off sounding like assholes. Knowing it wasn’t our choice doesn’t make me feel any better. Remembering what happened to Steve…No. Teddy has a right to know that he didn’t...that we didn’t abandon him, not by choice.
Sam turns a cold stare my way, his eyes flicking between me and my brother. Any warmth he had towards us from before is gone, like it never existed. I don’t expect that I can fix this. The situation was shit all around, but I need to at least explain.
Dad…Marc, had already been riding Steve’s ass about Teddy. From the first time he figured out that they were more than just friends, he was pissed. He said it wasn’t right for two alphas to have that kind of relationship, not unless there was an omega in the middle.
The irony of that statement and what I saw earlier isn’t lost on me.
Grandpa, and Dad by extension, were ok with us being in a pack with Teddy, but the assumption was always that it would be the three of us with a female omega to carry on their legacy. I’d also learned early on that it would be me doing the carrying for our bloodline—barring medical intervention—since there was no way Steve was going to be inseminating anybody.
S teve hangs up the phone. He’s usually upbeat, but I’d never seen him this excited. I wish I could share his happiness, but I’m locked up tight. Teddy’s an omega, he’s pack...and I’ll never find anyone who wants me for me. Shit.
Still, my two favorite people in the world are meant to be together and that’s great...for them.
I can deal with this.
I mean, I haven’t really had a girlfriend before.
So I can handle not having one now...or a mate.
Maybe I should just find another pack, somewhere I can be myself.
No, Dad would never let that happen.
It’s not really his choice.
But I don’t have friends, I have my brother…and Teddy.
That's always been enough.
I can deal with this.
I tell myself that for the rest of the evening, even as I will myself to fall asleep later.
The next morning Steve stumbles into our room, waking me up and yelling to know if I’ve seen his phone. I should probably look at separating our spaces soon. It was fine before, but the more involved he and Teddy get, the more privacy they’ll need.
Of course, we’ll be moving into our own place in a few months, so I could try to wait it out...but probably better to just take the plunge now and move into my own room. I don’t want to have to be around a lot of omega perfume that’s gonna drive my alpha nuts without any real release.
Steve's tearing up his side of the room. All his bedding's on the floor as he shuffles through it. He dumps out the drawer to his bedside table, feeling around inside of the cabinet to see if it fell in there, somehow. I don’t know why he’s so frantic, but I can practically feel his panic, so I crawl out of bed to help him look. “Ok, dude, calm down. Where did you last see it? Do you remember? Did you have it this morning at all? Did you plug it in after you talked to Teddy last night?” I don’t mean to sound patronizing, but the angry snarl he turns on me says he takes it that way.
“No, I haven’t seen it this morning. I plugged it in, right fucking here, where I always do, last night before bed. Remember? I was looking through nest Pinterest boards and trying to come up with some courting gift ideas. I started to doze off, so I plugged it in like always. It wasn’t there when I woke up. I’ve checked the bathroom, kitchen, and living room. It’s just gone.” He brushes his hair out of his face, his eyes swinging frantically around the room.
“Alright, just…lemme grab mine and call you, then we can track it down. Sound good?”
He nods, shoulders relaxing. “Yeah, yeah. Sorry, I just feel panicky right now. After talking to Bear last night…I just. I don’t know. I need to check-in on him, make sure he’s ok.” I nod, not really understanding why, but it’s important to him, so I’ll help.
Only, I can’t find my phone either. I’ll admit, I’m a little anal about making sure it’s plugged in on my nightstand before I go to sleep. The cord's still visible where it was charging, but it’s not there now. Shit. “Hey…um…Steve. There might be a problem.” His body freezes staring where he’s been scanning the floor, like it might magically appear out of thin air.
“My phone’s gone too.”
Steve tenses beside me, and I can practically hear the tendons in his neck creak as he turns to look at me. “What did you say?”
His behavior's starting to freak me out now. “My phone, it’s gone too. I know I plugged it in last night.”
He tears out of the room before I can even get a shirt on, but I hear him yelling from all the way down in Marc's office. It feels like a pit opens up under me as I hear Dad’s angry snarl in reply and I rush downstairs to try to find out why my life has suddenly gone off the rails.
Steve's screaming at Marc over his desk. Both our phones are laying screen-down on the surface, beside our father's laptop, but it’s what he’s saying that freezes my mind. “I’ve already set up the transfer. Your mother can go get anything from the school that you need, but you will not be returning to that…cesspit. You will not be seeing that omega again. You will be returning to Bridge Academy, you will be finishing out your senior year, and you will start visiting omega centers to look for a proper mate.”
His fist comes down with a loud crack on top of Steve’s phone, breaking the plastic case. The resounding crunch is a death knell to any files or information that hasn’t been backed up recently. “I’ve already spoken with the boy’s parents and informed them, in no uncertain terms, that you will not be forming a pack with him, and you need a female omega. We are done here.”
Steve glares over our father’s desk, finally seizing the laptop and flinging it against the wall where it ends its life in a crackle of sparks and bits of shattered plastic. There’s no warning as Dad stands up, his fist flying out and knocking Steve across the room. He lands in a heap on the floor beside the dead electronics. I rush to his side, my hands run over his head, feeling for anything wet, anything out of place. His cheek's already starting to swell and I spin on our father, ready to defend the only family I want to claim right now.
“I refuse to let you two throw away all my hard work over some boy. Get him out of here, and when he wakes up tell him if he refuses to go back to Bridge Academy then he can spend his last four months of high school overseas getting some real world training. Neither of you are to see that…omega again. Do I make myself clear?”
I turn back to my brother, checking him over as best as I’m able to with our father practically snarling down my neck. Sure, I wanted to go into medicine, but this wasn’t how I planned to start. Hefting Steve against my side, I help him stumble out of the office. I have to practically drag him back upstairs to get him to our room. Snagging the first aid kit out of our bathroom, I manage to patch up his hand that got cut on some of the broken plastic when he hit the wall. Other than a few minor scrapes and his swelling jaw, he seems fine. But he’s not saying anything.
W e do what Dad asks, going back to Bridge to get our diplomas. In the fall, we start college. Dad knows I always planned to go into medicine, which was a fine profession according to him. Steve finally agrees to go for a business degree. I believe he’s under some misguided hope that if he just listens to what Dad says and follows his orders, maybe it’ll earn him some flexibility regarding Teddy.
But my brother’s not the same. His light’s dimmed so much that it’s barely there at all. He’s gone from happy-go-lucky to a brooding, morose ghost who just follows me around campus. He doesn’t even look angry, just…gone. It gets worse as we settle in. Dad starts demanding we visit omega centers to meet prospective mates.
Steve readily agrees, knowing he won’t meet anyone else, and trailing along like my silent specter as I meet fawning young women who are overjoyed to be introduced to the younger generation of Pack Carson. I briefly hope that we can meet a male omega that will draw my brother’s attention. But even the few we do run into don’t bring out any response.
We studiously avoid the center closest to our home, traveling far out of state to meet and interact with some lovely young women who might cause a reaction in either of our alphas. But to no avail. While there are a fair share who seem more interested in our name or finances, we do meet some genuinely sweet people on our forays.
Which is all the more disheartening when I don’t feel any real spark towards them. Their scents are amazing, they’re all attractive, but like beautiful greenhouse roses, they don’t feel quite real. None of them excites any real passion in either of us. Our father grows ever more agitated at what he considers our refusal to find an omega and settle down.
This pattern continues. Steve no longer feels like the twin I once knew. I know he’s still in there, but the easy laughter is years gone. The friend I grew up with now a stranger in our shared home. He rarely eats, he doesn’t sleep more than a few hours a night. He goes to school because he still believes if he just follows orders, eventually our father will relent. I don’t have the heart to tell him that’s never going to happen.
I graduate with my degree that I don’t really want anymore. But maybe helping other people will, in some way, redeem me for not being able to help my brother. I start my residency and life goes on. Steve should be finishing his own college this spring. Getting the damned degree that Father demanded, it’s going to be a hell of a shock to the old man that no one wants to hire his son who’s now a canvas of tattoos and piercings.
There are only so many things you can hide in a three-piece suit. I don’t care how expensive the cut is. The bleached hair and nose ring don’t exactly blend in at the business college either. But what do I know? I’m just a different kind of ghost.