ELIANO #3
"Even if our situation is not ideal, we can at least make it mean something. Not be complete strangers to each other. That feels important."
Wow.
So, the decision has been made.
I study him carefully. To be honest, ever since we left the medical office, I had already started preparing myself for this internally.
All day long, the gears in my head kept turning, slowly letting everything sink in. I came to terms with the fact that my first time would not happen in a romantic setting, with no love confessions and no tender closeness.
But let’s be real, how many people really get that anyway?
I cannot complain, not when I am being truthful with myself.
Salt is incredibly attractive and, as it turns out, surprisingly my type after all.
I want him, and as for emotions, I do like him, in a slightly defiant way, and I believe that something between us could grow.
Even if the future is still wrapped in fog, the thought alone brings me a strange sense of comfort.
I am not betraying myself by feeling this way, am I?
"Alright. I’m on board."
I see him draw in a deep breath. Maybe my quick agreement surprised him? But I certainly put a lot of thought into it.
He glances at the bathtub.
I scratch my chin. "So, what’s the idea?"
Salt gestures briefly toward the tub. Water is already pouring in a wide stream, and he must have added some bath salts or liquid, because foam is starting to form.
"Maybe we get in together?"
Only then do I notice something else standing on the floor next to the tub.
A bottle of wine. I frown. "I am not sure alcohol is the best companion for this."
Salt scoffs. "I am not trying to get drunk. Just a little. I heard it can be…" He swallows. "Relaxing."
Our eyes meet.
Salt’s mismatched eyes are hard to read right now. Is there still a trace of that strange anger he always seems to carry inside? If there is, it does not feel aimed at me, more like at the world, at life in general.
It is strange to be in this situation. Forced. Cornered. And also low-key excited. I nod slowly and start taking off my clothes.
Salt gets into the tub first, kneeling in the middle of it. I can tell he is unsure about what position we should take, so I quickly help by stepping in and leaning my back against the deeper, sloped side of the tub.
I make an inviting gesture. "Do you want to lean back against my chest?" I ask, a slight smirk curling at my lips.
Salt looks like he wants to roll his eyes, but he has clearly decided to take this seriously.
He grabs the bottle of wine and scoots closer to me. There’s a hint of shyness in the way he settles against me, resting his blue-haired head on my shoulder, right in the hollow of my neck.
The water has reached about mid-thigh by now, so we sit in silence for a while, listening to the sound of it filling the tub. When it reaches the middle of Salt’s chest, he finally turns it off.
"I was thinking," he says, taking the first sip from the bottle, "that I should try to look at the bright side of this. For years, Senu guarded my virginity like a hawk. He kept telling me to save it for a special moment, for someone exceptional…" His voice trails off.
There is a pause. I hesitate, unsure what to say, but then decide it might land okay.
"I hope you won’t be disappointed," I say quietly, "because I know that you don’t see yourself spending the rest of your life with me, but I’ll do my best to make it at least a decent experience."
"Well, we cannot have everything," he mutters. "But sometimes things are just good enough. And you’re okay, not some asshole I would give my v-card to and regret it afterward. Maybe… this will be good."
"Thanks," I murmur dryly.
"The question is whether you see it that way," Salt adds. "I know you had your own objections."
I hesitate before answering. I know that a lot of what I say now could hurt him.
"Well, as I said before, for me it is more of a moral choice," I admit.
"I could not leave you to your fate and let them send Drax to you.
Maybe I frame it as duty, but do not take it the wrong way.
I am also an alpha, and I find you very attractive.
I cannot deny that my body has a say in this too. " I try to keep my tone light.
He stays quiet for a moment. I cannot tell how my little speech landed, but I still sense turbulent emotions in him.
What else can I do? I think about it, and then add, "There is something else too. A part of me is starting to believe that maybe, despite everything, there could be a way for us to… you know, mean something to each other." I let out a cautious breath. "Someday?"
I realize how awkward that sounded, how vague and open to interpretation I left it. But to my surprise, Salt seems to react positively. Something in him eases, almost like a release.
I do not know what that means for his plans, but apparently that small hint of hope for a shared future gave him something he needed to relax a little.
Does he enjoy the idea that I see him as more than a hookup, maybe even someone I could actually be in a real relationship with?
After a moment, he takes two more sips of wine, then sets the bottle aside and corks it.
We stay like that for a bit longer, him resting against my chest, before I slowly move my arms forward and wrap them around his stomach, pulling him closer.
He holds his breath for a second, as if the gesture took him by surprise, but then he seems to accept the new position.
"Alright, time for the looong stories," he sighs. "Ready?"
"Go ahead. We have all evening."
"It all started before I was even born, with my dad and his… irresponsibility."
"Wow! You’re going that far?"
Salt snorts. "Yeah, it’s the whole drama starting point."
"Okay, then hit me with it."
He begins to speak, his fingers absently playing with the little foam hills formed by the bath salts.
"My dad had a thing for older men with status. He got preg by his own college professor, but they kept the relationship hidden to protect the guy’s career.
Senu was born as a kind of secret. My dad was super frustrated about it, not interested in caring for a newborn.
At the time, he lived in a duplex he had inherited as an only child.
He had a neighbor named Lloyd, someone he often vented to, and he pushed the baby onto the guy to babysit.
One day, Lloyd had a cousin visiting, a colonel who was on leave from the military.
My dad was, of course, instantly taken with the guy, who was ridiculously handsome and had status.
They fucked. My dad did not realize that just a few days later his heat would start.
He did not think it could happen again so soon after giving birth to Senu. "
"What about the professor?" I ask quietly.
"He had no idea about the affair. When my dad’s heat started, they used protection, but the professor wasn’t shocked when it turned out my dad was pregnant again. After all, a similar thing had happened with Senu."
"Your dad didn’t tell him, even after he found out he was pregnant?"
"No. He knew damn well that the colonel wasn’t husband material.
He decided I would be something like a cuckoo’s egg," Salt’s tone turns bitter.
"But the professor was blond, my dad had light-brown hair, and I came out different. When I was about a year old, with a ridiculously thick mop of jet-black hair, he did a genetic test and found out I wasn’t his.
They had a huge fight, and the professor left. "
"Well… I kind of get it. He got straight-up lied to."
"I get it too. My dad tried to reach out to the colonel.
For a short while, the man promised he would make things right.
He even sent my dad some money. But Lloyd, the cousin he had been staying with during leave, told my dad straight up what kind of man the guy really was.
He told him about six other children, about the trail of pregnant omegas the colonel had left behind, and how he was basically absent from all of their lives. "
"Seven kids in total? Yeah. Definitely not great partner material."
"And all starting with the letter S! Sun, Sage, Stone, Seth, Sirius, Soren, Salt."
"Wow, cool names. Do you know them?"
"Met them a few times during funerals, for my father and granddad. No close relationship."
"Did anything come out of your dad's attempts to, you know, make the colonel a part of your life?"
Salt sighs. "Sadly, no. My dad really hoped things would be different with us, because being a single dad was hard on him. But it never happened. The colonel was a deadbeat."
"Sounds like a mess."
"Yeah. To say the least. Meanwhile, my dad grew closer and closer to that neighbor, Lloyd. It took a long time before anything really happened between them. My dad was never truly attracted to him. Lloyd couldn’t have children after an accident, so he kinda latched onto my dad because he wanted some kind of substitute family.
He was obsessed with my dad, his ethereal beauty, and they eventually got married.
My dad agreed only because Lloyd was well-off, an engineer with solid money. "
I can feel the tension building in Salt’s body, and I know his story is nearing its tipping point.
"Sounds like he used him in a way."