“I’m Casey.”
They paused outside the bakery, and the man noticed me staring as he glanced in my direction. I quickly looked away and took a large bite of cinnamon roll. Great. Now they would think I was being rude.
“Hi.” His voice was suddenly above my head. No pheromones. He was marked, and so were the women. Marking suppressed our pheromones, and only the one who marked us could smell them.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to stare.”
“It’s fine.” His cheerful smile was almost dazzling. I hadn't seen someone that happy in a long time. “I’m Jace. This is my sister, Sue, and her wife, Alice.” The women nodded to me with equally bright grins.
“I’m Casey.”
“We’re on a road trip and we stopped here for gas, but this town was so pretty we had to look around. Do you live here?”
“No. Not really.” Not yet, is what I really wanted to say. “It’s nice here, though, you’re right. Quiet, like you said. It feels like… home.” I didn’t realize how true that was until I said it out loud. It did feel like home here.
“As pleasant as this place seems, we have lives back in Hanford,” Sue said as she gave her brother a knowing look. Clearly, they’d had this conversation before.
“I’m from Hanford, too,” I told her.
The baby started fussing, and Jace quickly found a pacifier in his bag. He plugged the baby’s cries mid-screech, and he instantly calmed down. “Oh, no way! You here for family or something?”
It didn’t really matter how I responded, but my insides twisted just thinking about what to say. “Kind of,” I settled on. “It’s complicated.”
An eyebrow raise passed between the three of them before Jace turned to his sister.
“You guys keep walking. I think Preston needs to rest for a bit.” He took the seat in front of me and waited for his sisters to leave, his hand patting Preston’s back until he calmed down.
“I had a feeling you might need someone to talk to about…” He gestured towards me and my half-eaten pastry. “...whatever is so complicated.”
I didn’t realize how much I needed to vent until he offered.
My friends knew nothing, and even though Devon was an omega like me, he wasn’t the kind I could really share things with.
Jace felt different. We looked about the same age, but he had this wisdom about him that wasn’t from the baby he held or his swollen belly.
“I’m fucking my boyfriend’s dad,” I blurted out.
Jace’s eyes widened in surprise, and he continued giving the baby gentle pats even when Preston fell asleep. “Ahh… well, I wasn’t expecting that, but… that’s on me, I guess.”
I fiddled with my cinnamon roll and set it back on the saucer as my appetite dissolved. It was equally humiliating and cathartic to finally talk about this with someone. Despite that, I still felt the shame I’d carried with me from the beginning. “I didn’t want to. It was like being consumed.”
“He forced you?”
“No,” I said quickly. “Nothing like that. He was just… irresistible. His pheromones are like a drug. I was addicted the day we met.”
“Addicted,” Jace repeated, his eyes fixed on the table in thought.
“I know what that’s like. When I met my husband, we just couldn’t stay away from each other.
It wasn’t physical at first, but when we got to that point…
it was like drowning. Being utterly consumed by a hunger you can’t sate.
Even with our second little one on the way, we’re still like that.
I don’t think it will ever change. My sister is the same with her wife. ”
It was a relief to hear someone else describe the exact emotions I’d been feeling for over two months. This whole time I felt like no one would understand. Jace didn’t just understand. He knew.
“I’ve never felt this way about an Alpha before. It’s like being tortured.”
Chuckling, he leaned back in his chair, patting his belly with one hand and holding a sleeping Preston with the other.
“It feels that way sometimes. Desmond was a first for me, too. One minute, I was fine without him, and the next, my entire life seemed meaningless if he wasn’t in it.
I’ve never seen a relationship like that before.
It made me wonder if anyone else had ever felt something similar. I’m glad to see I’m not alone.”
A peaceful quiet settled over us as I helped Jace place an order from the coffee shop. I went to retrieve it for him while his son slept peacefully on his shoulder. He tore off small bites of his bear claw and took a sip from a hot cup of coffee before continuing our conversation.
“Okay, you’re dating an Alpha and secretly sleeping with his father at the same time.” I nodded with a slight frown. That pretty much summed it up. “And you haven’t ended things with your boyfriend because…” He trailed off, giving me time to fill in the blanks.
“I wanted to from the beginning, but I kept telling myself it wasn’t serious, and then it was serious, and I can’t break up with Marshall without him noticing I’m going straight to his dad’s bed.
He could probably forgive being cheated on, but cheating with his dad?
A little less forgivable. I’m telling him tonight either way.
I’ve been trying to type out what to say, but…
I just can’t seem to phrase it the right way without making him hate us. ”
Jace was slow to respond, and I felt a knot in my stomach as he thoughtfully ate more of his pastry. “Is it really about him?”
“What?” I asked, my stomach churning further.
“Did you put off breaking up with the son because you don’t want to be hated, or is it about you?
” His emphasis on that word made me flinch.
“Seems like your boyfriend is a safety net, someone you think won’t hurt or betray you, and your Alpha is the opposite.
He consumes you, as you said. And finding love like that is terrifying.
Someone made you afraid of genuine feelings. ”
Jace had known me for all of ten minutes and could already read me better than almost everyone I knew.
With one sentence, he unearthed thoughts and feelings I wasn’t even aware I had.
He was right. Of course, he was. I’d convinced myself that I was keeping Adam safe from heartache, when really, I was the one keeping myself safe.
Marshall was my safe choice, a man I had never truly given my heart to, so he could never break it.
But Adam had more than my heart. He had all of me.
“I’m right,” Jace guessed in a soft voice, giving me an encouraging smile. “Who was it? The one that made you afraid to love?”
“My ex-husband.” My eyes drifted to the sleeping baby and Jace’s belly.
“I couldn’t give him children, and he got rid of me.
” I slowly touched my stomach under the table.
I thought I’d moved past all the pain over what Josh did to me, but it appeared one final scar had lingered all this time.
I stared at my phone screen, my message to Marshall already forming in my mind.
Jace’s phone buzzed, and he quickly checked the screen.
“It seems Alice had her phone confiscated because she kept looking at houses for sale in town. I should get back to them before she quits her job at the museum and moves us all here.” We both got up and threw away our empty cups.
With that done, Jace held his phone out.
“I need your number. I need some new friends, and I suspect you might as well.” I typed in my number and passed the phone back.
“Awesome. I will be blowing you up, so be prepared for that. Whenever we’re back in Hanford, we should get dinner.
You can hear all about the craziness that happened when I met my husband.
” Readjusting his son, he reached back to rub his spine.
“Ahh,” he sighed in relief. “Preston barely knew how to roll over when I got pregnant again. I told Desmond we should wait a few years, but then I missed my heat and…” He trailed off and brushed a hand over his belly.
“Having an intense pheromone connection is all well and good until you end up pregnant for the rest of your life.”
We chuckled together, and my eyes drifted to his belly again. Missing a heat was one of the first real signs of pregnancy for omegas. It was almost impossible for us to go into heat if we were already pregnant.
Wait…
Jace said his goodbyes and left to catch up with his sisters while I remained frozen on the sidewalk, a silent statue, unable to move, to breathe, or even think.
When was my last heat?
How could I forget? It was when Adam came over for dinner and we spent the night together.
That was almost five weeks ago. Five weeks.
I should’ve had another heat since then.
I’d been so distracted with everything going on, I didn’t even notice I missed one.
I was more than a week late. I was never late.
Maybe I was sick. There were a few diseases that could make your heat stop, and none of them were good.
I pulled my phone out to look it up, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it.
The answer, for once in my life, had to be the most obvious one.
But how? My doctor told me it was unlikely I would ever get pregnant.
I’d accepted it, as difficult as it had been to do so.
I couldn’t speculate. I couldn’t panic, as much as I wanted to. Hope was a forbidden emotion.
With my throat thick and my stomach churning, I found a drugstore and bought a pregnancy test. Those five minutes of waiting for the results were the longest of my entire life.
Two lines.
I was pregnant.
What if the test is broken? The box had two more tests inside. Another five minutes of waiting, and they were all positive, just like the first.
Numb, I threw away the evidence in the drugstore bathroom and walked back to Adam’s home, every step a struggle.
It couldn’t be. This wasn’t happening. I told myself over and over that it wouldn't happen. I’d lost every hope, given up on every dream.
I’d tossed those thoughts aside a long time ago. But it was happening. To me.
I stood at the front door for a few seconds, thinking about how I would tell him.
What would he do? What would he say? Would he be disappointed?
My shaking fingers turned the handle, and I stepped inside the warm, green house.
Adam was cooking something in the kitchen.
David stood on the other side of the counter, stealing bites of food when his father wasn’t looking.
Adam’s face lit up at the sight of me. “Casey! We’re making dinner…” He trailed off, his smile falling when he saw my expression.
“Smells delicious, doesn’t it?” David commented, his hands full of stolen hamburger crumbles.
I forced a smile. “I’m going to get washed up.” I made my way to the downstairs bathroom, my knuckles clenched, waiting for him to find me.
It only took a few minutes before Adam’s large frame filled the bathroom doorway. He came into the small room with me, the door cracked just in case anyone walked by. “What’s wrong? Did something happen? Are you okay?”
I swallowed hard and let it all go.
“I’m pregnant.”