5. Chapter Five
Chapter Five
Robert
Jackson had been gone from my kitchen for about ten minutes–maybe longer–when there was a quick rap on my front door and Wyatt barged in, Julianna wiggling to be put down. He set her on her chubby legs, and she rushed over to the basket I kept for her in the corner, filled with toys and books.
I was still standing there, shell-shocked, my fingers lightly touching my kiss-swollen lips.
I had never had a kiss like the one Jackson had laid on me.
Not that I had kissed that many people–a few before meeting Jane–but all those kisses paled in comparison to what had happened the second Jackson’s lips had touched mine .
Was it really possible for a kiss to change your entire world?
I had never thought so until now.
Now I was questioning my entire life.
“Pops?” Wyatt stood in front of me, looking both concerned and amused at the same time. It was possible he had called my name more than once.
“Huh?”
Yeah, words weren’t going to be wording in my jumbled-up brain for a bit. Not to mention my dick was still half hard in my sweats, and was that slick making my ass damp? Yes, it was. So, I wasn’t a shriveled up omega just yet. Good to know.
“I asked if you were okay?” Wyatt said slowly, pausing a bit between each word. Going over to my coffee machine, he busied himself making a cup.
“Uh, yeah, I’m fine.” Running a hand through my hair, I gave him a tentative smile. Obviously, I wasn’t fooling my son any more than I was fooling myself, because he rolled his hazel eyes and handed me the cup of coffee he had just made. My nerves were a jangled mess, and more caffeine was probably the last thing I needed, but I took the cup gratefully.
“Want to try again?” he asked, amusement lacing his words. The coffee machine gurgled and whirled noisily while he made himself his own cup .
“Hops! Hops!” Julianna calling my name in the tone of an annoyed toddler, had me giving her my full attention. She was standing in front of my sofa, the remote in one pudgy hand, waving it wildly towards the TV. “Beast!”
I busied myself turning on the movie for her, then helped her get settled on the couch, while Belle sang about being stuck in her life and small town.
Sing it, sister. I hadn’t been stuck in a small town, but I had felt stuck in my life most of my adulthood.
Ignoring Wyatt’s frown, I went back to cupping the warm mug between my hands.
“Please don’t allow my daughter to boss you around like that,” he urged me.
Grinning at him, I took a sip of the coffee, before sinking into a chair at my small dinette. “Grandparents don’t mind being bossed around.”
Wyatt took a seat across from me, tucking his long, thin frame into the corner. “Okay, enough about my daughter's manners. What exactly is going on between you and Jackson Sobek.”
“Nothing,” I blatantly lied, ducking my head so he couldn’t see my eyes. I was a shit liar, and I knew Wyatt would be able to see right through me. “He wanted to apologize for scaring me, that’s all.”
Wyatt grunted, drumming his long fingers across the tabletop. “Pops, I can tell the man kissed you. Your lips are all red and swollen. ”
My fingers came up to touch my lips, remembering the feel of Jackson’s lips on mine.
“So, what gives? Do you like him?” Wyatt demanded, his eyes sparkling. “He’s hot. Not as hot as Becks, but he’s definitely easy on the eyes. I guess this is where, technically as your boss, I tell you all the reasons I would caution you against dating one of the daycare dads. But there’s no rule against it. Jackson seems like a very nice man, and…you deserve some happiness.”
The softly spoken last part of his sentence caused a lump to form in my throat, and my gaze locked onto his. Reaching a hand out, I squeezed his arm in a quick embrace, before going back to spinning my mug around and around.
“Thank you for saying that,” whispering, I swallowed past the tightness that made it hard to get the words out. “It seems that Jackson and I are, well, we’re fated mates.”
Wyatt’s brows flew up to the wild curls that fell over his forehead, and his eyes got big. “Really?” He somehow made the word have about four syllables.
“Really,” I nodded, then waved my hand in the air. “It’s silly though. I mean, it’s just…it would never work. It’s some kind of mistake, obviously.”
My fingers lightly touched my still tingling lips. It hadn’t felt like a mistake though, I had to admit. No, it had felt…perfect .
Wyatt’s brow knitted in confusion. “Why do you think so? You and mother weren’t fated. Hell, she never even mate claimed you, Pops.” I could hear the sympathy laced within his quietly spoken words.
Wincing at his reminder of one more of my many failures, I touched the skin over my mating gland lightly.
Thank fuck for small favors , my gazelle snorted. We’d have never gotten rid of that cold witch if she had.
That wasn’t necessarily true, but it had made things easier with the divorce that Jane and I had never mate claimed one another. In the beginning, her reasons for not doing it had somehow made sense. Or maybe I was just fooling myself, and I had made them make sense in my head. Later, it had just never been a priority. Possibly it had been my gut intuition knowing that we weren’t right for each other that had made me stop pushing the issue.
Still, there would always be a small part of me that felt like it was a failure on my part. That I hadn’t been a good enough omega for her to want to claim me, even after all our years together.
“The man is thirty-five, Wyatt,” I told him, as if that explained everything. “I’m way too old for him.”
“Oh please,” Wyatt scoffed, rolling his eyes, his arms crossed over his thin chest. “Becks is older than you are, Pops.”
“Don’t remind me.” Because yes, I found it a little weird that my son’s mate was a couple of years older than me. And yes, I was aware I had some old-fashioned ideas. I was working on them, but I wasn’t there yet. “But I’m still almost fifty. And Jackson is not. Biologically, the age thing makes a difference.”
Wyatt’s eyes softened, and he glanced over at Julianna on the couch. She was doing her best to sing along with the movie, even if most of the sounds she was making weren’t exactly words or even the correct words. “You mean bearing children?”
“Yes. I…” Shrugging nonchalantly, I admitted, “I’ve started the omega change. Children aren’t an option.”
Wyatt shrugged his own shoulders, “Who cares? Did Jackson tell you he wants more children? That it’s a deal breaker for him if you can’t give him children?”
“We didn’t discuss it. We just found out we were fated the first day he dropped off Aiden.” Staring back into what was left of my now cold coffee, I muttered, “And I kind of avoided him all week.”
Wyatt snickered, “That explains your eagerness to do the supply ordering.”
“I needed a minute to deal with it, okay?”
“Oh, I get it. It can be a shock.”
We were both quiet for a minute, lost in our own thoughts, when he finally asked, “Where did you both leave it?”
“He wants to take me to dinner on Friday night,” I told him. “On a date. ”
“You said yes, right?” Wyatt asked, “Because I think you should.”
Rolling my own eyes at him, I mumbled, “I said yes. It will give me a chance to go over all the reasons he and I won’t work.”
And I would need to tell him that kids weren’t an option. If our age difference wasn’t a deterrent for the man, which he insisted it wasn’t, I was positive that my inability to bear children would be.
“Maybe just enjoy the date,” Wyatt advised, standing up and rinsing his cup in the sink. “In my experience, Fate doesn’t get it wrong. I think it would be great if you met someone that will treat you the way you should be treated.”
Tears welled in my eyes, and I told him softly, “We didn’t have a bad life, your mother and me.”
Something flared in Wyatt’s eyes, and I knew I was walking on thin ice. Things with Wyatt were complicated. We had come so far in repairing our fractured relationship, grown so much closer than we had ever been, but some things were still sore subjects. His childhood being one of them.
Wyatt opened his mouth, then closed it, before he took a breath and whispered, “It might not have been bad, but it sure as fuck wasn’t a happy one. For either of us. So, if you have the slightest chance to be happy Pops, of experiencing what I have with Becks, you owe it to yourself to take it. Let go of whatever fucked up ideas have been planted in your head about what should and shouldn’t be, and just enjoy the ride.” He winked then, a sly smirk curving his lips. “And I do mean, enjoy the ride.”
My face flooded with heat. “Wyatt Cooper!”
Tossing his head back, laughter filled the kitchen. “What? Fuck, Pops, you act like you have one foot in the grave. You don’t, far from it. And if a hot, younger , alpha wants you, enjoy it! And it’s Cooper-Beckett. If you’re going to full name me, get the name correct.”
Shaking my head at his sass, I didn’t know quite what to say. Other than that he might not be wrong. My son was a certified genius, after all. Maybe I should listen to him.
I did deserve to have someone treat me well, and Jackson was hot.
But a relationship between us?
I wasn’t so sure about that.
But one date with the man wasn’t going to hurt anything, and despite Wyatt’s encouragement, I did plan to spend the date pointing out all the reasons that Jackson and I wouldn’t work. Despite what Fate had to say about it.