Chapter 46
I t was not even eight by the time they got to the civic centre, but since they were going back to Kallen’s parents to eat the grapes as the clock struck midnight, he’d figured he’d want to get in early.
Levy was behind them as they came in, all but hiding from the people milling about. Kallen slowed down and offered him his hand, which his boyfriend took, hazel eyes a little too wide. But when Kallen raised his chin in silent question, he nodded and smiled tightly.
It wasn’t like he didn’t know why Levy felt like he was out of place in a party for an omega organisation. The beautiful night they’d spend on his heat had gone a long way to reassure him that Levy was handling his own issues with what he’d been pushed to do. But in the same way Kallen wasn’t going to feel comfortable with any strange alphas any time soon, he couldn’t ask Levy not to feel guilty.
Maybe it was logical, but humans were illogical. “Come on, I want you to meet Taylor.”
Taylor was all smiles, offering a hand for Levy to shake without easy confidence. If anything, it took Levy a second to reach out and take it. “Nice to meet you, Kallen says you have been great to him.”
“Is that translation for I have managed to outstubborn him on occasion?” Taylor joked, shooting Kallen a mischievous grin.
Kallen laughed. “Yeah, that’s it,” he agreed.
“Then it’s true,” Taylor told Levy. “Come try the food, my partner’s a chef.”
They followed him to one of the tables on the sides of the room, which were piled high with a variety of finger foods and some salads. But once they got there, it was a tall dark haired alpha woman who caught their eye instead. Her heavy-lidded eyes were lined in kohl and she wore a red dress that wouldn’t have been out of place in a five-star hotel, form-fitting but elegant. “And this,” Taylor announced. “It’s my beautiful partner, Amoia. These are Kallen and Levy, love.”
Kallen was shocked when her eyes turned to him first and not Levy, like was customary for alphas. But he took her proffered hand and returned her smile. “The famous Kallen, I’ve been wanting to meet you.”
“Oh, um, thanks. I don’t know that I’m famous—”
Levy elbowed him gently. “Take the compliment.”
Kallen rolled his eyes at him, but nodded at Amoia, and in a burst of bravery, clarified, “Levy’s my boyfriend. He’s never been to a Fair Sport event before.”
Amoia’s eyes were lit up with amusement. “Ah, fresh blood. Don’t worry,” she added, winking at Levy of all things. “We don’t bite.”
Levy had burst into laughter and before Kallen knew what was happening, Amoia and he were talking recipes.
***It wasn’t until he found himself talking to an older woman in a modest blue dress about policy that he remembered to think of Analisa. He glanced around. “You know what? You should really be talking to my friend Analisa, I don’t think I’m getting my point across, but she’s going to be a lawyer and— Would you excuse me a moment?”
Analisa had been in a corner with a shorter woman, dark-haired and pale-skinned, that hadn’t looked pleased to have her stolen away.
“I’ll give her back, I swear,” Kallen told the stranger, and his friend had fallen into the conversation with the older lady like a lion upon its prey. Within moments, Kallen was simply watching them argue back and forth the finer points of the law, just about able to follow but most definitely wishing he could record them so he could listen to it again later and look up the references he was missing.
He sipped at his wine and even stepped up to one of the tables to try some of Amoia’s cooking—she’d made ham from scratch that tasted more real than anything he’d tried from a store before and since he was drinking and would later need to drive, he allowed himself some of the freshly baked bread as well.
By the time he got back, they’d truly moved past anything he could understand, so he stepped away and looked around for familiar faces. Leo was there with both his grandfathers, Richard nodding an invitation Kallen took without hesitation.
“Hey, teach,” Leo said, making Kallen smile and roll his eyes at him.
“What did we say about that word?”
Leo raised both hands. “Nothing! And besides, that was in class. Here you got no authority, do you?”
Tami and Kami laughed at his dramatics.
Kallen could have argued, but he didn’t really mind that much anymore. It was difficult to deny that he had helped them, even as they had helped him in turn.
“Are you going to expand this class of yours in the new year, young man?” Anthony asked him.
“Maybe these three can teach someone else the basics,” Kallen suggested, eyeing them all in turn. Leo and Kami were underage so he wasn’t really serious, but Tami could probably manage a group of four, and Taylor could probably do double that.
“Nah,” Leo said, easy and self-assured as usual. “You are the teacher, man. I just like to learn.”
“That is a very new take from my grandson indeed,” Richard commented and they were all laughing as Leo argued that he had always liked learning.
Tami took him aside to introduce him to her three children, two betas and a young omega girl who barely stood still long enough to be introduced before she was running off to get into what looked like mischief. Tami’s oldest, a boy who he’d just been told was fifteen, sighed like he was fifty. “Don’t mind her, she’s either eating, running after a ball or asleep.”
Kallen snorted a laugh in surprise. “Well, guess she’s living the life, isn’t she?”
The boy grimaced, shooting his mother a look.
“We are all a bit worried about her,” Tami explained. “That’s why I joined the group. Sports are the only thing Elisera seems to focus on for more than five minutes at a time.”
Kallen nodded, understanding. “I was like that too.” He tried to sip at his cup, only to discover it was empty.
“I can get you more,” Tami’s other daughter said at once. She looked a lot like her mother, a softness to her that would have made anyone seeing a picture think she was the omega.
Kallen looked at Tami, who nodded, and passed her his empty cup.
She placed her hand on the boy’s shoulder, squeezing. “Max and Claudia like to help,” she explained. “They are a lot like me. Eli takes after my alpha, we think.” She shared a smile with the boy, whose own was a bit of a grimace.
“Could you...?” Max started to ask, but cut himself off.
“Yeah?” Kallen asked.
“Could you do the lure thing? Like, now? Mum says she doesn’t want to try it with us until she’s ready. But... Well, it sounds amazing. I mean, you said it feels nice, right?” He turned back to his mother.
Tami offered Kallen an apologetic smile. “It does,” she told her son. “But I have just started to learn it, and I wouldn’t want to do anything that could...” She wavered. “That could make you uncomfortable. And Kallen doesn’t need to do it either.”
Claudia got back with his cup, a little overfull, and gave him a bright smile he couldn’t help but respond to. “Thank you, that was kind of you.” He sipped at the cup to get it to a level where he wouldn’t accidentally spill it. “How about you guys get us all some food while I talk to your mum for a minute?”
They took the hint without checking with Tami first. But the moment they were gone, she started apologising.
“Wait!” Kallen interrupted. “I don’t mind. They seem like good kids, but do you want me to use lure on Max? Or Claudia?” He thought to ask because he’d been a younger sibling and he knew he’d wanted to do anything his older brothers got to do, often including things he’d have found completely unappealing otherwise.
“Well, if you—”
“I don’t mind,” Kallen insisted gently. Tami could get stuck on politeness, he’d learned, and if you let her go on she’d just get more and more anxious. Once Kallen had stopped her babbling and asked her for permission to use lure just to calm down the storm he could feel brewing inside her and spilling all over the room.
This time, she seemed to hear him. “Okay.” She paused. “Yeah, that’s— if they want to, I trust you.”
He nearly swallowed his tongue and then found himself blinking hard. He’d been working to earn her trust, of course, careful to establish healthy boundaries for everyone, but he’d fucked up too. Lure was still fairly new to him and he knew nothing about teaching at all. But even when he’d messed up, they’d somehow believed him when he’d apologised and explained, and hadn’t held it against him.
He was still struggling to believe it could be that easy.
“I...” He shook himself, then reached for her hand. “Thank you, that means a lot.”
The kids came back with food for all of them and they got distracted comparing the different canapés. Claudia admitted she’d never had anything as good as the vol-au-vents and Tami gasped and pretended to be offended.
It was then that Kallen felt a warm presence by his side and leaned closer to discover Levy had come to find him. He grinned, helplessly pleased. He’d been keeping an eye on the alpha to make sure he was alright, and he’d found him engaged in different conversations each time.
But now Levy was back where Kallen couldn’t help but feel he belonged, and he’d have gladly snogged him if not for the children present.
He’d barely introduced him and his boyfriend had already hit it off with both kids by what Kallen could only assume was magic. Tami and he ended up talking about her latest art exhibition, to which they were all invited, and so he was surprised when Levy interrupted with a gentle tap at his elbow, smiling at apology at the other omega. “Sorry, I’m just mindful of the time, and these two have been telling me you were going to use lure on them?”
“It was only a request!” Max clarified, perhaps sensing his mother was about to. “You don’t have to,” he added to Kallen. “Only it would be cool.”
Kallen smiled, hopelessly charmed by the sudden appearance of a boyish facet. “Okay, so what’s something you would like to do but don’t feel you can? Right now, I can’t do anything about tomorrow.”
Max frowned at him, then glanced around the busy hall. He swallowed and finally said, “Talk to someone I don’t know.”
Kallen nodded, holding back a smile. He had no business feeling proud of this boy he’d just met and his bravery. But what he could do was support that bravery. It was different than anything he’d done before because to get Max to talk to a stranger would mean sending him away from Kallen, but he took the mental steps towards the oasis anyway as if being led by a force he didn’t quite understand but trusted implicitly. In a way, it wasn’t so different, because what he’d always promised was safety, and as he let the calm roll over him, relaxing his muscles and slowing his pulse, the gift was the same. Only this time he meant for Max to find that same calm inside himself, a seed that would grow into his own confidence that he could do what he wanted.
The boy straightened across from him, cupid lips parting. “Oh.”
Kallen felt his own lips curve upwards as if from a distance, a gladness that was completely empty of this own desire. He didn’t need anything from Max, and Max didn’t really need anything from him either, but Kallen could point him in the right direction.
Max met his eyes, lips pursed together, and then he let out a long sigh and turned away, smoothly stepping around a big group next to theirs and approaching a young woman sitting alone on a corner table. His words were lost to the music, but the tilt of his head as she glanced up at him was enough for Kallen to call it a success.
When he looked back at his own companions, he saw Tami’s and Claudia’s attention were still on Max. But Levy was looking at him. “Very impressive, any day now you’ll be curing cancer too.”
Kallen frowned. “I haven't cured anything, he could always do it.”
Levy sighed, shaking his head, and tugged him close to whisper in his ear the same refrain from earlier, “Take the compliment.”
LEVY HAD OFFERED TO drive, so Kallen was still drinking when Analisa came to find him. "I’m staying,” she told him without even a greeting.
“Okay...” He frowned a little. “Wait, how come? Didn’t your parents want you back?”
She shrugged, mouth quirking into a smile and eyes avoiding his own. For all that she was a fairly happy person, he couldn’t remember ever seeing her act like that before, and even his alcohol-fuelled brain caught up eventually.
“Oh, you—”
“Shush,” she cut him off with a look that was not nearly as sharp as she probably intended. “I’m staying, and if you are good, you’ll hear about it later.”
He nodded his acceptance, if she’d really met someone worth annoying her parents for, the last thing he wanted was to interfere. “How are you getting back home?” he checked instead.
“Someone will drive me. Taylor said they’d call one of those volunteer group taxis if we couldn’t manage to fit everyone into cars.”
Kallen grimaced. He couldn’t imagine anything worse than getting stuffed into a van with a bunch of other party-goers by a sober volunteer. Then again, he realised, looking around himself, maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if it was these party-goers. He looked back at her. “I’m going to miss you, you know?”
“Miss me?” She repeated. “You are going to visit me . Don’t think getting a boyfriend is getting you out of that.”
“No way,” he agreed. It sounded exciting, really, having somewhere new to go where he could stay and explore for real, see the place beyond a hotel and a stadium. He still missed the ice enough to make his stomach twist at the thought, but at least there were no more early flights. And besides, he hadn’t thought of hockey that much lately. Teaching lure wasn’t what he’d imagined for his life, but now that he was doing it, he often forgot. It was easy when everyone around him was so happy to see him, so appreciative of his ideas and so forgiving with his failures. “Do you think you could teach lure?”
“Me?” Analisa looked startled. “No way, I can barely learn lure.”
“That’s not true, you are getting really good.”
She sighed, lifting a perfectly manicured hand she could have never kept that neat if she’d still been playing baseball—her own small silver lining. “Okay, okay. But no, I don’t think I could teach it. I’m not just saying it; I tried showing Carella when I met up with her a couple weeks ago. I managed to make her give me her phone, so not saying I haven’t learned anything. But when I tried to get her to do it...” She shook her head, shrugging. “That oasis of yours is no joke, Kallen. I think even you being in the room makes it easier for everyone else. Like training wheels or something.”
“Did you just call me training wheels?” he laughed.
“Mmm...” She was already nodding, smile turning wicked. “Well, we could call you that if you still don’t want to be our teacher?”
And just then Taylor came to take them back to the older lady from earlier, who turned out to be a senator . Kallen couldn’t say a word as he listened to Taylor delineate their current programs. Analisa had either known who the woman was or was impervious to politicians because she was contributing as well.
Senator Adrietz, was a beta, and she didn’t reveal why she was so interested in changing the regulations besides having a working moral compass. “So you are the one with a natural affinity for lure, correct?”
Kallen offered a shaky nod.
“Does it work the same on everyone?”
He swallowed, more to postpone his answer than for any other reason. “I don’t know,” he told her simply, meeting her eyes. “From what we have tried, it seems that developing your own ability to use lure or will creates a sort of protection from being influenced.”
“So we betas are the most vulnerable to it?”
Kallen remembered his and Analisa’s theories. “We don’t know that. When we practised with volunteers, it didn’t seem to be any easier with betas than with omegas. Alphas had a bit of an advantage, which we think it’s because alphas get taught how to use their own willpower. And betas must have willpower, or there wouldn’t be so many great people who were betas.”
Her mouth went up a little. “Flattery will get you some places,” she told him, not quite a chide.
“He means the presidents,” Analisa said then. “That’s Kallen’s theory, that betas use their willpower internally and that’s what makes them successful at occupations that require a certain level of... perseverance.”
“How do you explain that leaders are most often alphas?”
“That’s leaders who work one-on-one with other people, though,” Kallen said. He didn’t know where he was getting any of this from. He’d always been average at history in school, but somehow it was obvious. Or maybe he had drunk too much. “Then having external will and being able to make other people do what you want would be a great asset. But that’s only useful if you see those people all the time to reinforce your will. If you are a president, you are mostly passing on your orders through lots of other people, or even writing and the phone, so it’d be much more important to not get side-tracked.”
“As you can see, we are full of new ideas,” Taylor told the senator then. “And we can’t wait to test them. One of the students in Kallen’s class is very keen to gather data so we have some surveys, but obviously we’d need to expand the class to other cities to get enough to even suggest any patterns.”
Senator Adrietz gave a soft nod, eyes shining like she was amused at Taylor’s lack of subtlety.
At least she didn’t ask for a demonstration.
LEVY HAD RESCUED HIM from any more hand-gladding with a soft smile and vague apologies about having promised Kallen’s parents they’d be home by eleven. Somehow, he’d just spend over three hours with a large group of people and he didn’t really want to leave.
“Do you see Analisa?” Levy asked, leading him away from the group.
“She’s not coming,” Kallen told him.
Levy’s face illuminated. “Really? So...” His smile was mischievous.
“Yeah, really,” Kallen told him, smiling helplessly back. He was happy for her. Or he was happy, full stop and he was glad she was too, a further gift piled up on top of the ones he’d already got, almost too much to accept from the universe.
Except he was giving too, because he was full and easy in his body and his mind. He was loved and he was valued, and if he could make Max feel confident enough to be brave, and Levy smile like he couldn’t quite believe how lucky they’d got too...
He didn’t expect it, but he wasn’t all that surprised by Levy’s hand on his cheek leading him into a kiss, soft and almost chaste except for the electricity caressing his skin, the fire in his eyes as he pulled back, an invitation Kallen had to bite his own lip to resist.
“Later,” Levy told him, a promise Kallen had no doubt he’d keep.
“WAS THAT ALRIGHT?” he checked once he was slumped in the passenger seat.
“Mmm?” Levy asked distractedly as he took a turn. He had a good sense of direction, but he’d still only been though this route once. “What? The party?”
Kallen nodded, making a noise when he realised his boyfriend couldn’t see him.
“Yeah, I had fun. Amoia stayed with me for a bit, then introduced me to an another alpha. It felt a bit like I was the parcel they were passing around, but they were all nice and I guess... Well, they were there, so it was fine that I was?”
“It was,” Kallen confirmed. “But thanks for coming with me. I know it wasn’t easy.”
Levy shrugged, then flashed him a smile. “Who wants easy?”
THEY WEREN’T PRECISELY late to Kallen’s parents’ party, but it was nearing half past eleven by the time he unlocked the door.
He’d barely taken a step inside before Mikey was there drawing him into a hug, squeezing way too tight as he’d done since they were children and laughing when Kallen resisted being suffocated.
The moment he let go, his brother’s eyes went right over his shoulder. “And you must be Levy.”
Levy offered a hand, his smile to all appearances sincere despite the ambush. “And you are... Mike?” He guessed.
“Mikey,” he got corrected because Kallen’s brother was a weirdo like that and refused to give up his childhood nickname.
“I heard you went up north?” Levy mentioned casually as they walked towards the kitchen; and between photos of the glaciers and being offered dessert and ice-cream, it was like Levy had always been one of them.
Paul’s girlfriend Lia was there too, as were both his mother’s brothers and their own partners, assorted aunts and uncles and, in the corner on his wheelchair, Kallen’s one remaining grandfather watching the chaos.
Kallen went to him and squeezed his shoulder, bending over to kiss his cheek. “How has it been?” he asked.
His grandfather replied with the usual combination of nonsensical syllables, but his tone conveyed his meaning anyway. As good as can be expected . He’d said that a lot before the stroke in that very tone.
“I brought someone,” Kallen told him softly. It wasn’t like anyone else could have missed Levy, but it still felt a bit like a secret.
A good one he wanted to share with someone he loved. Someone who would be uncomplicatedly pleased. The inquiring noise led him to seeking his boyfriend out. “There.” He pointed. “His name is Levy, we are moving in together.”
The response was somewhat indignant.
“It’s new!” he explained, laughing a little. “Like, we were... close before, but it’s not even been a month since we started dating. Only we used to live together, in Jiro when I worked over there, you know?”
His grandfather grunted an acknowledgement, all humour disappearing.
“I’ve quit the team,” he explained, following Levy with his eyes as his boyfriend cut some of the cake at the centre table and served people around him. Right at home. Like he belonged in Kallen’s childhood home. “It’s okay,” he reassured his grandpa when the next noise was worried. “I... They weren’t treating me right. I think I know what I want to do next.”
He met his eyes again, grey and faded but very much focused on his own. “Have you heard of omega lure?”
And just like that it was pouring out, what he could do and what he could show other people how to do, what it’d felt like to help Max be brave, how every day he seemed to think of another way to open up the world wider with this power he’d been given. How it felt to hear that what he was doing was helping other people, and how afraid he was he’d fail.
His grandfather reached out with his left hand at that and squeezed his forearm. More nonsensical syllables followed, except for how the tone was perfect, confident and self-assured, offering Kallen the faith he didn’t quite have in himself just yet.
He sighed, smiling a little despite himself. “I guess all I can do is try my best, right?”
And his grandfather’s smile was more than confirmation enough.
HE WENT TO FIND LEVY afterwards, getting pulled into a sideway hug the moment he was in range. Levy still smiled at him like he was the sunrise, too beautiful to look away from. Something to be grateful for each day no matter how sure you were that it was coming.
Lia was smiling at them. “You guys are adorable,” she told them. Paul and Lia had been together for years now, so even though he didn’t see her often, Kallen felt absolutely free to roll his eyes at her.
Levy turned to grin at her, completely unapologetic about how sappy they were being. “Thank you.”
“A little bird told me you are moving in together?”
“Yeah, found a little cottage by the water. You can put the housewarming party in your calendar for...” Levy glanced at Kallen. “Do we know when?”
And for the first time Kallen realised the flush on his cheeks wasn’t for him. “Are you drunk? We just got here!”
But before he could ask more questions, his father was ringing a little bell to get their attention and they were spilling over into the backyard. There was another table set up outside with rows of champagne flutes and bowls of pre-peeled grapes.
“What’s with the grapes?” Levy asked, he was hanging onto Kallen’s arm like his balance wasn’t so great, and Kallen had put his own arm around his waist. Mostly to support him.
“You don’t do grapes in Veral?” he asked in surprise. He’d always returned home for New Year’s, so he didn’t actually know anything about other traditions. “You eat one with each strike of the bell during the final countdown, and then the thirteenth afterwards. To give thanks for past blessings and ask for more sweetness to come this year.”
“Oh.” Levy’s smile turned goofy. “I like that. But I think I would need a watermelon to give enough thanks for my past blessings,” he added, giving Kallen a meaningful look. So completely over the top and yet also unarguably sincere.
So in the end he was still laughing when the first bell went off. But really, that’s precisely how he wanted to end this long hard year, letting it all go and finding joy in the process.
Instead of the thirteenth grape, Levy drew him close into a kiss, and Kallen found himself kissing him back hard. There was no way he could give enough thanks either, but he could make this promise; he’d give his all to nurturing this bond between them.