24 homecoming
Christmas comes faster than it’s supposed to. I swear, something about the universe right now is disregarding all the laws of the time-space continuum. Just to fuck with me.
And you don’t think that’s a tad self-centered?
Gray had teased when I told him the same thing last night. He’s right, but I can’t let him know that. That man’s already confident enough.
Laws of physics and my self-involvement aside, I am now in the passenger seat of Atlas’s truck, driving through the familiar streets of Ashfall, trying to figure out how bad this is about to be.
I’m wearing the blockers, just like before.
I never stopped. But it’s only enough to keep people from noticing my scent from a distance.
In a confined spaces, especially in a confined spaces full of alpha noses, it’s not hiding anything.
After a lot of conversations with Atlas, Alyssa, Atlas and Alyssa, and of course Gray, I’ve accepted the fact that I can’t keep hiding my designation from my family.
Unless I literally run away from home. Which is sounding more and more appealing every minute.
Atlas is convinced that Karl and Jax will be snide about it and make jokes, because that’s what they’re like, but they won’t actually care.
He’s also somehow convinced himself he can manage Dad.
I don’t know if it’s because he’s been gone for so long, or because he was always Dad’s pride and joy, that he never sees things about him the way I do.
He knows Dad is an asshole. He says it all the time. And I know he believes what I’ve said about what went down with the meds. But it’s one thing to believe something from afar, and another to really deal with it up close.
Atlas was always the optimistic one, anyway. I’m glad he’s expecting a reasonable outcome because I’m convinced I’m about to get disowned or something.
Whatever happens, we’ll deal with it, sweetness. I’m here for you. I can’t wait to see you.
I stare at the text Gray sent me a few hours ago. My heart thumps a little harder, and adrenaline slowly floods my system in a way that makes me feel buzzy and lightheaded.
The fact that I’m about to see Gray for the first time in so long is making me even more apprehensive about this trip, but it’s too late to turn back now. It’s time to get all of this over with.
I can’t control when my first heat will come, and getting that shitty experience over with, so I might as well deal with the things I can control.
Again, time seems to compress, and it feels like I blink and find us pulling up to the house. Atlas parks but turns to look at me before getting out of the car.
“I’ve got your back, remember? This is all going to be fine, and if it’s not, we’ll deal with it.”
I blow out a slow breath. There aren’t any other cars in the driveway. We timed our arrival before Christmas so we could get the Dad drama out of the way, and deal with our brothers—and Gray—later. Dad’s the biggest obstacle, after all.
Atlas also bit the bullet and called him to explain everything and why he was coming home with me for Christmas.
He didn’t let me listen to that conversation, so I still don’t know what he told the old man, but he assured me that it was all taken care of, so we wouldn’t be antagonizing him for multiple reasons at a time when we arrived.
Antagonizing.
The fact that my existence is so unpleasant to Dad that we have to manage his exposure to it is really fucking heartbreaking.
I shouldn’t think about it. I just need to get through it.
“It’s no big deal. He’ll be pissed, he’ll probably drink too much, we’ll all spend a couple of days being tense and then we can go back to Last Ditch. Come on, I don’t want to stress about it anymore, let’s just go.”
Atlas nods, and we both crack open our doors at the same time, ready to take it all on.
Less than thirty minutes later, I’m holding the keys to Atlas’s truck that I parked haphazardly on the street, walking up to Gray’s door with a split lip and shaky hands.
I don’t even manage to knock before he throws the door open, a look of panic on his face. That panic seems to intensify when he sees how I look, but putting my eyes on him immediately calms me down about 20%. My hands stop shaking so much, and the knot in my stomach eases up.
I don’t hesitate before throwing myself in his arms and inhaling his warm scent. He seems a little caught off guard—letting out a small oof at the impact—but quickly wraps his arms around me and walks us both inside his house, closing the door behind us.
“What the hell happened?” he asks, leaning back to look at me, his hands cupping my face.
“I’m surprised you can’t smell it on me. I don’t know if I’ll ever get used to that nose of yours. You always know I’m coming before I have the chance to get to the door.”
“I think anyone with a sense of smell would have known you were coming up the driveway. All that distress.”
He’s still looking at me, searching my face for more injuries than just the lip, probably, but I can see the anger building in him as he thinks it all through.
“Who did this?” he asks in a low, dangerous voice.
We both know the answer, though. I don’t need to say.
When I don’t immediately answer, he starts to growl.
“Tanner—” he begins, warning in his voice, but I shove him backwards a little and step out of his grip.
“Chill,” I snap, crossing my arms over my chest. “I’ve had enough alpha machismo for one day. I came here because I wanted to see you, and I wanted to be someplace safe. Not so you could get all riled up and beat the shit out of my dad.”
It’s clear from his movements that Gray is trying to calm down, but the scent of his anger is still intensifying, acrid and sharp, and his chest is heaving with each labored breath.
There’s a long silence before he speaks again, but when he does, a little of the tension slips away.
“You are safe here, sweetness. Always,” he says, and my stupid heart melts on the spot.
I let out an exasperated sigh and rub at my eyes, wondering how we ended up here.
“I’m sorry. I probably shouldn’t snap at you for getting protective. It’s been a long day.”
Gray looks like he’s about to reach for me again but hesitates, and I know it must be killing his alpha not to be holding me right now.
Honestly, my omega kind of feels the same way.
I close the distance between us again and stick my nose in the crook of his neck. He strokes his warm hand slowly up and down my back, and we stand together for a long time until we’ve both settled a little.
“Let’s ice that lip, shall we?” he says.
His voice is softer now, and he gently lets his thumb run over my bottom lip in the process. There’s something about the movement that’s so visceral and intimate, I feel an immediate warmth building inside me, and a tingle of arousal starts to plump up my cock.
Jesus. Only Gray could make me feel horny when I’m still this upset.
Another time, I might question why I react this way. I’ve been telling myself that all the times I’ve wanted him it’s because my hormones were desperate for an alpha, and he was the only one around.
I’m beginning to realize that’s not true, but I don’t have the energy to unpack that right now.
Instead, I stay quiet, subtly adjusting my pants as Gray leads me over to the couch. He wraps me in a soft gray blanket that he grabbed from somewhere, which I hate but let him do anyway, and then grabs a small ice pack from the freezer before taking a seat right next to me.
“It’s fine,” I tell him, but his expression tells me it’s not worth arguing.
We end up half pressed together, half turned to face each other, and I gently press the ice pack against the slight swelling.
“It’s really not that bad,” I mumble. “It was only a backhand. I think his stupid wedding ring he still wears clipped me, is all.”
I can see the anger trying to build in Gray, but he swallows it down again and keeps his voice calm.
“Why did he hit you in the first place?” he asks, pushing my messy hair out of my face with his fingertips.
“Why does he do anything? Me and Atlas went in together. I thought we would want to talk about things before anyone else was there. I figured he’d be pissed that… I don’t know, really. Pissed that I told Atlas the truth? Or that he couldn’t hide my designation anymore?
When I thought about what he said when he got me the drugs, it was all really hazy, but I thought he was just trying to keep it a secret until…”
I trail off, shaking my head when I realize I don’t even know.
“Anyway. I was so zonked at the time, I didn’t even realize what was really happening. He gave me the suppressants because he actually thought he could change my presentation. Or cancel it out, or something. And he must have been obsessively reading about it ever since,
because the second we walked in the door, he starts talking about how it’s not too late if I haven’t had a heat yet, we can still fix me. Dad’s never been that normal, but this was pretty unhinged stuff. He kept talking about big pharma and big agro and stuff,
how they’ve all poisoned us and created ‘genetic deformities’ in male omegas and female alphas, but he can cure it.”
Gray’s eyes are wide, his expression mirroring the shock and fear I felt when Dad was ranting about this. I hold his gaze for a moment to steel myself before I continue.
“Once he started telling me I needed to start injecting some drug he found on the internet, Atlas lost it. He yelled, then Dad yelled more, then they were pushing and shoving each other. I tried to separate them and that’s when Dad hit me. Called me a freak. Blah blah blah.
Atlas threw me his keys and told me to run. So, I ran.”
I recount the last section as matter-of-fact as I can. I’m hoping we can stop talking about it soon, and just relax. I don’t want to deal with this anymore.
The most shocking moment in all of this is when I look at Gray again, and see his eyes shining, a tear forming at the corner. It’s probably my dad talking, but I never imagined Gray being someone who would cry for anything.
“I’m so sorry, Tanner,” he says, his sincerity written clearly on his face.
I shrug, but no words come to me. After an awkward silence, I lean forward to collapse my body against his again. Without hesitation, he holds me, and we let ourselves press in and fill all the cracks we find in the other.
“Thank you for being here,” I say, although it doesn’t come close to expressing the magnitude of how I feel about him.
“Always,” he whispers, before kissing the top of my head and taking another inhale of my scent.
He rubs my arm in a steady rhythm, and I listen to the beat of his heart. I can feel my own pulse, still rabbit-quick, making no effort to settle, and I take one shaking breath after another.
I feel safe now. Utterly safe. But something inside me is still not quite right, like it’s fidgeting to fall into place.
It’s only a slight movement to tilt my head back until I’m studying the side of Gray’s face. His beard is shorter than last time I saw him, like he just trimmed it. There’s dark stubble over the deep tan of his neck, and a hint of sweat making his skin glisten and his scent thick.
Without second-guessing myself, I nose against his neck, then allow myself to taste the sweat there.
It’s exactly as euphoric as I was imagining.
Gray stiffens a little, but there’s no hiding the immediate arousal that pours from him. My own scent is sweet, complementing his, and I feel my body getting ready to start producing slick.
I press kisses over his neck, climbing up until I can scrape my teeth over his bearded jawline, seeking out his lips.
Our lips meet for a split-second of pressure, and then Gray gently pulls away.
He’s already breathless, and I can feel every way his body is responding to mine. But his eyes are searching, studying my face, and I don’t know what he’s looking for.
“Tanner, sweetness, you know I’ll be here for you no matter what. We don’t have to do this. I don’t want this to become a pattern just for the sake of it.”
“Mmph,” I answer, still kissing the side of his face and getting the words out breathlessly between kisses. “Don’t care. Want you. Now. Please.”
Gray takes in a deep breath, but arches into every point of contact with me like a cat.
“You’re so young, Tanner. Don’t you want—” I cut him off briefly with another kiss to the mouth, “—to be with someone your own age? I want to be here for you but I’m having trouble pretending I’m not getting attached.”
I snort because if this is him ‘not attached’—on the phone with me every day, always interested in what I’m doing and ready to talk about himself, always here when I need him—then I wonder just what ‘attached’ would look like.
Maybe I should find out.
My body thrums with desire, and I shift until I’m straddling his lap, Gray leaning back on the arm of the couch just like he did all those months ago, and my body blanketed on top of his.
When I look at him this time, he’s spread out beneath me, and for the first time in our entire ‘relationship’, I see the vulnerability in his face.
I’ve been so caught up with myself through all of this, I haven’t really thought about what it might mean to Gray. I know I love talking to him, but it strikes me how lonely he probably is. I don’t want to be the reason he isn’t going out and meeting an omega of his own. A real omega.
A pit forms in my stomach at the thought. No one should be touching him but me, is what my body is screaming. But I’ve told myself this whole time it’s only temporary. Only until things get sorted out and I know what I’m doing with my life.
It’s not like we’re going to what…? Be together?
He’s twice my age and my dad would kill us both.
But none of that changes the way I’m fucking aching at the thought of not touching him again.
I have to know. I have to know how it feels. At least once, before I might have to give it up.
“Please, Gray,” I say in a small, tired voice. “Please. We can figure out what it means after. I just want to feel normal right now.”
Gray studies my face for a while but then takes my cheek in his hand and pulls me in for a deep, lingering kiss.
“Of course, sweetness. Anything.”