Chapter 21 Oliver
Oliver
I lean against the cool metal of the bar rail, watching the new DJ spin something filthy.
The bassline rattles the bottles in the well every time the beat drops.
The dance floor’s packed, the energy at Vice & Virtue tonight feeling like the first deep breath after months of holding it.
Lorenzo booked a live show upstairs, a local band that draws a crowd we’ve never tapped before, and the register has been ringing since doors opened at eight.
It’s been two nights since that glorious moment with all four of us and even though my nest is freshly washed, their scents linger. I can’t get enough. The best part, though, is how relaxed Wilson and Nicholas have been since that moment.
Wilson has taken to running the floor just like usual, but there’s something different in his posture tonight.
His eyes sweep the room in that familiar rotation, lingering on Nicholas by the east corridor for a beat longer than security requires.
When Nicholas catches him looking, Wilson doesn’t flinch.
His mouth twitches into that almost-smile.
Nicholas grins back and I watch the color climb up the back of Wilson’s neck as he turns back to the bar.
There’s even been a few beats where both of them find me in the crowd, grinning like that night finally cracked something open. It did. Fuck, it definitely did.
I let my gaze continue to roam, finding Lorenzo just beside the bar with that clipboard he always carries, my Beta dressed in a pale yellow suit. I told him to wear the green one but now that I’m staring at him, yellow suits him.
Very well.
Too well.
Clearing my throat, I reach down to adjust myself and return to helping a patron with their drink before my stomach rolls.
I’ve been fighting waves of nausea since this afternoon. It began as a flicker during sound check, a brief twist beneath my navel that I chalked up to the leftover spaghetti I’d eaten standing at the kitchen counter while Lorenzo pored over contracts.
By the time the doors opened, that flicker had settled into a low, throbbing hum, growing sharper every time a certain scent drifted my way.
The Alpha at table six wore something so musky I had to cover my mouth with my elbow.
Even the lime juice I was squeezing for margaritas sent a sour burn creeping up my throat.
I swallowed it back three times in ten minutes.
That’s not really where it started, though.
My nose has been betraying me for days. This morning, Lorenzo stepped out of the shower and instead of the familiar hug of rain and honey, his scent hit me like a tidal wave.
A day before, Wilson’s usual coffee-and-leather aroma, the thing I love burying my face in, sent me running to the bathroom.
I poured a whiskey sour for the woman at station two fifteen minutes ago, and the faintest whiff of egg white made my vision blur. My fingers clenched the edge of the bar until the nausea crested and I forced myself to breathe through my nose until it passed.
The math hit me somewhere between a mojito and a gin and tonic. Nicholas knotted me two nights ago during the heat spike but two nights isn’t enough time for symptoms like this.
The nausea, the hyper-sensitive nose, the emotion that had me in tears over a dog-food commercial this morning while Wilson watched me from the kitchen table, toast suspended halfway to his mouth… if this is what I think it is, the timing doesn’t add up to those two nights.
The timing lines up with three weeks ago. The week before Wilson. When Nicholas was still just our security guy who picked up shifts on weekends and occasionally ended up in our bed afterward.
That Thursday night, Lorenzo was working late and Nicholas’ shift ended at midnight, and I pulled him upstairs with both hands on his belt, his laugh vibrating against my mouth. He knotted me that night too. A week later, Wilson sat in our booth and everything changed.
The nausea surges. I set down my tray, tell the other bartender I’m taking five, and cross the floor toward the stockroom. Wilson’s coming from the opposite direction, and he catches my expression as I pass.
“Oliver, what’s—”
“Stockroom. Now.”
He follows without argument, which tells me my face is communicating something beyond a normal bathroom break. The stockroom door closes behind us and I lean against the shelving unit, one hand pressed to my stomach, breathing slow through my nose.
“I think I’m pregnant.”
In two seconds I watch his face cycle, the widening of his eyes, the parting of his lips, his hand tightening into small fists at his side. Then something desperately tender breaks through before the shutters slam down, his jaw sets, and his eyes go flat. “Are you sure?”
“I’m nauseous. My scent sensitivity has been off the charts for just over two days. I cried at a dog food commercial this morning.”
“That commercial was sad.”
“Wilson.”
Wilson’s hands slip into his pockets and his posture straightens into that rigid line he takes when he’s processing something that scares him. “Timeline?”
I press my hand harder against my stomach. “But the symptoms started before that. Which means it could also be from three weeks ago. Before you. When Nicholas and I…” I trail off because Wilson’s expression shifts again.
“Three weeks ago.”
“Yeah.” My voice catches. “We weren’t being careful. Lorenzo and I don’t usually have to think about it because he’s a Beta, but Nicholas is an Alpha, and I wasn’t on suppressants because I’ve been off them for months trying to regulate my cycle, and we just didn’t—fuck, Wilson, we didn’t think.”
Wilson is quiet. His fists press into his pockets, knuckles digging into the denim of his jeans. He stares at me with an intensity that makes my chest ache. “We need Lorenzo,” he says.
I should have grabbed Lorenzo instead of Wilson to begin with but I wasn’t thinking.
I just needed to blurt it out and now I might have ruined everything.
Stuffing my face in my hands, I hear the door to the stockroom open and then close before opening again, Lorenzo taking one look at me before pulling me into his arms.
“Baby, talk to me. Wilson said—”
“I think I might be pregnant.” I force the words out again, smaller this time, crushed by their weight.
“The timing overlaps with a few weeks ago when Nicholas knotted me. But maybe also with Wilson that first night when we… ” I pause, hearing Wilson gasp from the edge of the room.
“Lorenzo, I didn’t plan this. I wasn’t trying to—”
“Hey.” His voice drops into that register that always stops me from spiraling. His thumbs trace gentle circles across my back as he tightens his hold around me. “Whatever happens, we’ll figure it out. You’re not doing this alone. Do you hear me?”
My chin trembles against my will while Wilson stands by the door, arms crossed over his chest like a barrier.
His jaw clenches rhythmically, eyes fixed on me with such intensity I can almost feel them burning into my skin.
“There’s a test in the bathroom upstairs,” I whisper, voice threatening to shatter with each syllable.
Lorenzo’s fingers squeeze mine as I add, “I keep one. In case.”
Lorenzo releases one hand and reaches toward Wilson with the other. “Come on,” he says, his voice steady where mine fails.
We climb the stairs in silence, Wilson following us in silence.
Some part of me needs to make sure he’s okay and the other needs to know if I’m pregnant.
The moment we get into the bathroom, I rush to rip open the box and pee into a small cup to wait for my answer.
My fingers shake as I twist the little timer on the edge of the sink to three minutes.
Then I drag Wilson against me, muttering ‘I’m sorry’ over and over again until it just bleeds into an incoherent mutter. The noise doesn’t stop until I feel Wilson’s arms tighten around my back, his lips pressing against my head.
“I’m not mad, Oliver. Just… shocked.”
I pull back from him, catching Lorenzo an inch away, his hand settled on the back of Wilson’s neck. Wilson leans into the touch slightly as Lorenzo moves forward, holding both of us against his chest.
“How can you not be angry? I was trying to make us a pack and then I stopped being careful. I even had a heat spike and—”
Lorenzo cuts me off. “Babe, that’s not your fault and you know it. And Wilson, gorgeous, because I already know your mind is working a thousand miles a minute, we are right here. None of us are going anywhere, baby or no baby. Whether it’s yours or Nicholas’. Take a deep breath for me.”
Wilson glares at Lorenzo and then down at me. “I am breathing.”
I just chuckle as I lean up to press a kiss to his lips. “No you’re not.”
The Beta complies and then lets out a shuddering breath, his shoulders falling a little.
That gives me the relief I needed to finally relax, Lorenzo holding us all together.
I don’t even know what I expect the test to come out to.
Some part of me wants it to be positive. The other part knows I’m not ready.
The timer dings, dragging me back to reality as I rush the two steps to the test, my heart plummeting into my stomach. “Negative,” I breathe out, feeling my entire body deflate with the word. Wilson presses into Lorenzo’s chest, obviously relieved even if he hasn’t said anything.
I double over as tears hit me so hard I can barely breathe.
My hand claws at the edge of the sink, and the sob tearing through my chest is loud enough that Lorenzo’s pulling me against him before the next one rips free.
His arms circle my back and I press my face into his shirt, crying with the force of something I didn’t even know I was carrying until the test said I wasn’t.
“Oliver,” he whispers close to my ear. “Baby, talk to me.”
“I kind of wanted it.” My words are muffled against his chest. “I know the timing’s wrong.
I know we haven’t defined anything, and the club’s still in danger.
I know Wilson’s still deciding if he can trust any of this but I think…
I kind of wanted it, Lorenzo.” The words surprise me but the longer I think about it, the more the idea of little babies running around up here while our club flourishes grows on me.
I want the family that my parents said I’d never had because I married a Beta.
I want the chaos and the screaming and the terrible two’s.
Not now, but at some point. “Zo, I want a family, a pack that’s loud and messy and full of people.
I want to carry our babies and raise them in this apartment above the club.
I don’t even know where this feeling is coming from butt finding out I’m not pregnant almost hurts more than if I had been. ”
Lorenzo’s hand cradles the back of my head, his mouth pressing against my temple. “Then I’ll make sure we have that family, babe.”
“I want all of it,” I stammer, my voice breaking further. “But I want it when we’re ready. When the club is safe and Wilson’s okay and Nicholas is really ours. I want the version where we build something strong enough to hold a family. I want the earned version.”
He rocks me against his chest, his hand running through my hair. It takes me several minutes to calm and when I finally do, I remember there’s another man in this bathroom, one I’ve somehow haven’t checked on. Again.
I raise my head to see Wilson just standing there, his eyes darting between the both of us, his cheeks flushed pink.
He sucks in his bottom lip, obviously working through whatever he wants to say.
I brace for the worst, the part where Wilson says he doesn’t want kids or that this is too much, too fast.
Instead, what he does say breaks my heart.
“Am I included in this family?”
A small growl pulls from my chest as I untangle myself from Lorenzo and march over to Wilson, curling my fingers into his shirt and dragging him down a little.
“I thought we got past this, Wilson. You’re mine.
All mine. Well, mostly mine.” I smack my free hand at the tears that escaped earlier.
“You’re theirs too and yes, you’re family.
You’re my Beta, Wilson and if I could claim you, I would but I can’t so that will be Nicholas’ job. ”
His eyebrows raise clean off his head, Wilson stuttering over his response. “That’s… I… Nicholas hasn’t mentioned…”
I snort. “He doesn’t have to. Now, kiss me or I’m going to die.”
Lorenzo chuckles from behind us. “Oliver, you are not going to die. You had a scare but you’ll be fine and we’ll navigate through everything else like we always do.”
I throw Lorenzo a finger and drag Wilson closer, my lips brushing against his. “Kiss me. Tell me I’m yours too. Tell me that this is just the start to the family we’ll build.”
“You’re mine,” he whispers as he kisses my lips. “Both of you. All mine.”
I’ve never heard such sweet words and earning them was everything I had hoped.