Chapter 5
Five
Brady
In the weeks that followed my heat, I went cold turkey on Xavier’s pheromones.
The first few days after his scent finally faded from the clothing he’d left me were rough.
My skin itched, I could barely concentrate, and my mouth was constantly dry.
Somehow I made it through each day only to return home for a cold shower, the only thing that gave me relief.
There were very few treatments for my problems, so I had to suffer through the best I could.
The easiest thing would have been inviting Xavier over and letting him cover me in his scent every few days until I could go longer and longer without needing him.
However tempting that was, I couldn’t bring myself to use Xavier like that, especially while he was struggling with the breakdown of his marriage.
Gio fought him on the cheating, stating they were in an open marriage.
He wanted alimony from Xavier since his job paid more and infidelity meant he wouldn’t get any.
Xavier also had to get a paternity test because he was liable for child support otherwise.
The law around poly-bonds was murky. As Gio’s husband, Xavier had an equal claim to the twins Candice carried.
He had to prove both the affair, and that he wasn’t the father.
Just claiming he hadn’t gone through a heat with her wasn’t enough, since female omegas were fertile longer than male omegas. Even up to ten days before their heat.
I was angry for him. It was so unfair to drag things out when Gio had everything he wanted. Xavier had given him half their savings, the apartment, and even some art he’d been collecting as investment pieces. What more did he want?
Well, I knew Gio wanted his husband back. He didn’t want to be a dad alone with Candice. He wanted to keep his marriage and get his babies, no matter the cost to Xavier. It was cruel and showed me a side of Gio I hadn’t expected he had.
Although it was hard, I kept my distance from Xavier.
We didn’t meet up, even when I felt like he could have really done with a friend.
There were other people in his life for him to turn to instead.
I had my own feelings over this fucked up situation to deal with.
Instead, I kept my distance, washed his clothes and waited for a good time to drop them off.
Preferably a time when I wouldn’t see him.
I wasn’t ready. Everything was too messy, too chaotic for me.
I wanted to give Xavier time to heal from his husband’s betrayal before we revisited what we were.
Friendship was all I could offer, and even that came at a distance. Gio’s threat often rang in my mind. It was better for all of us for me to stay away.
Besides, I didn’t have time for anything like dating after my promotion.
The publishing company I worked for had made me an agent!
Jae was, of course, my first client. My speciality would be omega authors due to my designation, which would set them at ease.
I’d gone up against a few betas, so I knew it wasn’t only my designation that got me the job.
I’d put in years of hard work cultivating strong relationships with the authors who visited the publishing house.
The training was intense, yet so worth it!
Xavier sent me the biggest bouquet when he heard the news.
We texted often, just little things about our lives.
While I was keeping him at a physical distance because of the threat Gio made and my mixed up emotions, I was struggling with doing the same with keeping him out of my heart.
We had such a connection, I hesitated to give it up.
Xavi
So proud of you! You’re gonna do great things in this job.
I looked at that text a lot when times were hard or if I’d had a bad day. Just knowing he was in my corner helped.
When the news broke about AlphaPharm and the faulty DuoStop they’d knowingly sold, I was struck once more with how compassionate Xavi was.
He knew all about Jae and was on the phone immediately to ask if he was one of the affected omegas.
Then he offered to help in whatever way he could.
Even though that type of law wasn’t his speciality, he knew plenty of people.
“His ex offered to help?” Xavi sounded as stunned as I felt.
“Right? Hwan was a dick to him, but Jae said he and Seungmin, his husband, apologized for how things went down. Hwan’s connections might really help.”
“Won’t Jae find that awkward?”
“Nah, Jae’s the sweetest, besides he’s so gone over Curtis, it’s like he was never with anyone else.”
“Speaking of exes, Gio’s dropped the alimony and the claim for child support now that the paternity test is in.”
“Fucking finally!” I exhaled loudly with relief. On the other end of the call, Xavi laughed, a sound full of the same feeling as my sigh. “They really dragged their heels over it.”
“Gio said they wanted to focus on the babies now that they are here. He’s too tired after feeding them to worry about a piece of paper,” Xavi drawled.
“What a dick. He just doesn’t want to admit he was wrong.”
There was a long pause over the line. I tried not to talk to him on the phone much because just the sound of his voice made me want to forget all my reasons for staying away.
“Have…?” he began, “have you decided how to deal with your heat?”
There were only a couple of weeks until I went into heat once again. I was dreading it.
“Not really,” I sighed. The idea of my heat had kept me up at night more than once.
“I’ve been too busy to date. Not that I want to.
Things are still… too fresh,” I finished softly.
We danced around our feelings most of the time, trying to keep a strictly friendship boundary.
There were days when that was harder than others.
“Right,” he sympathized. “I’m going to make a really bold proposal considering… everything.”
“What?” I straightened. Anticipation fizzled through my gut. I knew what I wanted him to ask.
“I miss you, Brady. This isn’t me asking for us to try again, but I miss seeing you. Would you let me share your heat with you?”
A simple question, but one that stayed with me over the next few days. Xavi suggested I think it over, then maybe think of some ground rules before we went ahead with my heat. The pros and cons of Xavier taking me through it had me spending several sleepless nights before I caved and called Mom.
Sure, I could have asked Jae for advice.
He was always ready with a sympathetic ear.
He just wasn’t particularly worldly when it came to relationships and sex.
His upbringing had impressed upon him a need for a relationship before being intimate.
Jae didn’t do hookups, though he didn’t look down on me for my past. If I wanted to have a stream of alphas through my bedroom, he wouldn’t judge me, it just wasn’t something he could do.
Mom was more pragmatic than Jae. He’d had several flings and a couple of serious relationships before he met and mated with Dad.
Another reason why Dad’s mom hadn’t liked him.
Dad had been raised Catholic. We’d tried to give Grandma what she wanted, with us attending church, but it wasn’t us.
Mom was too liberal about everything for that life.
In my home growing up, sex and pleasure were never taboo subjects.
My parents were open about heats and ruts since they didn’t know how we would present until we were in our teens.
I was the eldest of four, with twin alpha brothers and an omega sister.
Despite the six-year age gap between me and my sister, we had grown closer once she had presented, and we had often discussed our heats.
I’d left her out of this mess with Xavier with her off at college.
Concentrating on coursework and exams was more important than my drama.
“It’s coming up on your heat again, everything okay?” Not even sparing the time to say hello, Mom cut straight to the heart of the matter.
“Xavi offered to take me through my heat instead of me using a service or finding a hookup,” I blurted out, also forgoing the pleasantries. I could just imagine the fond smile Mom was wearing.
“Alright. Walk me through what you feel.”
“It makes sense because I’ve been with him before—”
“What you feel, Brady. Where’s your heart at? Let’s not pretend you don’t care about that man.”
“I—I think about him all the time. When I get up in the morning and see a text from him, it gives me a high for the rest of the day. Just knowing he’s thinking about me as much as I think about him is… it keeps what I feel for him alive.”
“So, what’s the problem? You’re in love with the man, why not share your heat with him? Is he bad in bed? He can’t be if you want to go back to him after all the shit you’ve been through.”
“Ugh, he’s the best in bed! There were a couple of times that Gio suggested just me and Xavi hang out, probably because he was fucking Candice, but those times were so intimate. Xavi really knows how to work my body.”
“Still not seeing the problem, sweetheart.”
“Gio told me to stay away from Xavier, and there’s the mess of the divorce, which still isn’t final. There’s always this worry he’ll go back to Gio and have that picture-perfect family life I’m not sure I can give him.”
Mom swore an impressive line of expletives. “I never should have let my parents push us into the genetic testing. It’s caused more harm than good. Not that your grandmother on your dad’s side was any better.”
Although they likely had good reasons for it, my grandparents had us all tested for dominant and recessive gender traits when my sister presented.
My brothers were just your garden-variety alphas, and my sister a regular omega.
It was only me who was different. Recessive.
Likely to struggle with fertility. Now imagine being told that at eighteen. Messed up, right?
Dad’s mom was worse somehow. Born in Colombia, she had come to the US for school and ended up staying when she fell pregnant.
She had raised Dad alone and put her messed up feelings of shame onto him.
He went away to school and met Mom. When Grandma found out he’d mated Mom, she disowned him, because she thought male omegas were “unnatural.” Lovely, huh?
She came back into our lives later, but when early signs suggested I was an omega and Dad tired of all the loathsome things she kept saying about Mom, my parents cut her off for good. Good riddance.
“It’s fine, Mom.”
“No, it isn’t, and if they weren’t dead already, I’d be giving them a mouthful.
” I could hear him pacing and a few muttered insults.
“You deserve a good alpha to take you through your heat. Why don’t you just treat this as a friends with benefits thing?
If it gets too emotional for you after your heat, you can cut the cord. ”
“Wouldn’t that just be me using Xavier?”
Mom gave a loud chuckle. “Honey, he’s offering.
Why are you turning down a decent knot? Shove those feelings out of the way and enjoy it.
” His tone was softer, the humor gone. “Brady, if you can trust this guy to look after you when you’re at your most vulnerable, don’t turn it down for fear of your heart getting involved.
It might be what you need to make the decision about Xavier’s place in your life. ”
When he put it like that, he had a point. I ended the call with him soon after. For the following hour, I made my list of rules, then took a pic, sent it to Xavier, and waited.
A week later, my heat began, and just like we’d arranged, Xavier was waiting on my doorstep to take me through it.
The smile he wore when I opened the door was blinding. He reached down to cup my cheek, brushing along the arch with a butterfly-soft touch. “Can I kiss you?”
I smirked. “We’re about to do a whole lot more than kissing, but yes.
” I went onto my tiptoes as he leaned down to meet me.
Our kiss was only a brief touch of lips, yet it set my nerves alight.
His pheromones settled around me like a hug.
I stepped aside to make room for him to enter.
“You’d better get in here before we give my neighbors a performance they won’t forget! ”
Xavier brushed another kiss to my lips, whispering, “Do you want to be watched, or is that a boundary?”
This heat was sure to be an experience.