5
Noah ducks his head, breaking into the sweetest, shiest smile. “O-oh. Yeah, I have thought about it. A lot.”
I dissolve into uncontainable giggles. It terrifies me for a second: I don’t want to celebrate a promise for future kids too early. Not again.
But I can’t stop myself. With how sweet and shy Noah looks, laughter spills out of me, filling my parents’ old living room with my excitement.
Noah takes breath after breath, in an apparent struggle to speak, until he exhales hard, dropping his stare. “Fuck. I keep imagining you with Sarah in your arms during Rainn’s class. And her little heart, it felt so happy, and I—” Noah exhales hard again, shaking his head. “I can’t believe how lucky I got. That you might— You might w-want that— with me.”
I grip my heart to keep it from bursting. When Noah glances at me, anxiety creases his features, but I can’t suppress the deep, elated grin from erupting from me. We break into shy laughter, dropping our foreheads together.
“I can’t believe you might want that with me,” I say.
“I do,” he whispers. He can’t look at me, but he said it.
“Noah,” I whisper.
He peeks up at me. We stare into each other’s eyes, forehead to forehead. Neither of us speak, but it’s not silent; our anxious breaths tangle between us, heating my cheeks.
“I really do too.” My voice shakes, but my confession rips through me, excitement and nerves sending my nervous system through the roof.
“I know, I— I can feel it. B-but I also get the sense you’ve put a lot of thought into it,” Noah mutters. “Having kids and how you want to raise them, I mean.”
All I can do is nod. I don’t know where to start. How much excitement might be too much? What if I scare him away?
But Noah can’t bear to look at me. “I-I don’t know, I’m a little nervous about that. Not because I haven’t thought about it, but after the whole Forest School thing, I realized how much I don’t know about what human kids need to learn. When you find out what I’m like raising kids, I’ll probably seem a little— I don’t know. Immature.”
I sit back, cupping his cheeks in my hands. “What I’ve seen of you around kids hasn’t been immature. Far from it. You’re their favorite role model in the world, and an absolute sweetheart to them.”
He ducks his head, burrowing into my neck before breaking into shy giggles. “Don’t compliment me to my face.”
I sputter out a laugh. “Noah, I’m serious! You don’t need to have the same knowledge as me. It’s all about what we bring to the table together, right?”
Noah sucks in a heavy breath, then holds it. My words catch up to me, heating my cheeks. I groan, burrowing my head into Noah’s shoulder.
“You’re giving me cute aggression,” Noah growls. He squeezes me hard, and I bust out laughing. “Teach me something about parenting, Miss Matsuoka. Please. Before I eat you.”
I laugh even harder, digging my nose into his mark until he squirms away from me. We meet eyes with beaming smiles and bright red cheeks, and I love every second of it. I feel so wholly present.
My voice comes out shy and shaky. “Actually, I do have a few books about a few different parenting styles.”
Noah’s eyes widen. “Shit, see? There are styles? With definitions?”
I laugh, kissing his cheek. “Yeah, but I— Um— We don’t have to strictly use any of them.” My heart flutters, still so unaccustomed to discussing this possibility with a partner. I can feel Noah’s pointed stare on my cheek, but I unruffle my button-up, standing from his lap. “But defining each style was helpful for me to categorize different belief systems in my head. I already know I work better with a goal in mind, so I like to pull my favorite morals from each style to create my own personal style— For teaching, at least. I can show you my favorite books.”
Noah stands, straightening above me in excitement. “Wait, what do you mean by a goal? A goal about how to act as you teach them, or what morals to teach them?”
I clasp my hands, working out my thumb in an attempt to cope with Noah’s gorgeous stare. Is it just me, or is he as excited as I am about having a baby? God, is this real? I’m not used to being this happy.
Shit, what did he ask me?
I clear my throat. “Sort of both. My goals are focused on what I’d like to teach kids about the world. I want to show up for them with compassion and my own morals to help them through life.”
Noah’s pure, grinning excitement melts into something new that I can’t name. Heated, pointed stares roam across my body. “Show me.”
Taking Noah’s hand, I can’t stop myself from grinning as I guide him to my bedroom bookcase. He joins me on the carpet, grabbing each book from my hands as I continue to pull them out—until we’re left with a giant stack that has Noah chuckling beneath his breath.
When I meet his eyes, he’s beaming. “I had no idea you had so many parenting books.”
My heart flips at his soft, delighted murmurs. I shuffle through my bookcase, unable to hold eye contact as I gather the two remaining titles. “W-well, part of it was for teaching.”
“No, don’t hide your excitement. I love it. You’re about to kill me with how fucking cute you are right now.”
I laugh, dropping my portion of the stack onto the bed. Once we have them all spread out between us, we sit facing each other on my unmade blankets.
But I don’t have to hand Noah the books that matter most; he rifles through the stack, pinpointing the one with a thick bundle of sticky tabs poking from the pages.
My heart pounds into my ears. It’s a book by one of my favorite Early Childhood professors, detailing how to raise kids with full belief in kids’ intentions to be good. That when they’re “bad,” it’s a sign they need support meeting one or more basic needs.
But before Noah opens the book, I put my hand over the cover. Noah looks up, surprised.
“I don’t want to push my ideologies on you,” I say. “I had plenty of time to research this, so please, don’t feel like you have to copy me or decide this right away.”
“But these are the ones that sound the best to you, right?”
When I nod, Noah bites back a smile.
“Then I really want to know what you think sounds good. I trust your judgment.”
The silence burns between us.
Until Noah sets the book aside. “Here’s a better idea: how about you tell me what goals you have in mind, instead? And I can tell you what I want to be like as a parent too— Or, well, I might have a clearer idea of what I don’t want to do.”
My heart flips. “Okay.”
We shuffle our sitting positions, facing each other with straightened, alert backs.
But neither of us speaks. We break into sudden, blushing laughter, and Noah buries his face in the hand I left on my knee.
“I-I’ll start,” he mutters into the back of my hand.
My eyebrows raise. I thought I’d have to be the one to get my shy Alpha to speak after I took my turn, but his wolf paces in our bond, preparing himself to be vulnerable with me.
“All I know is, I d-don’t want to ever, ever hit my kids. I don’t even want to yell at them. I guess if I had to sum it up, I-I don’t want to believe it’s my job to scare them into behaving.”
My stomach flutters. I’ve never heard someone put it so plainly before. “God, exactly. I don’t want to do any of those, either.”
“Your turn.” He smiles against my fingers, and I laugh.
How did he stomach this? I’m quivering where I sit, half from excitement and half from raw fear. But this fear is beautiful; it’s reminding me this is something I care about most.
“I guess one thing I’ve thought about a lot is that I want to help my kids to not only express their emotions with words, but to also identify their feelings through physical and mental cues. I feel like our generation missed out on that, and it’s something that worries me for my students.”
Noah nods with furrowed brows. “Fuck, yeah, you’re right. That one might be more of your wheelhouse. I really suck at it still.”
“I don’t think so.” Running my fingers through Noah’s hair, I can’t stop smiling. “You’ve shared some really vulnerable things with me in our cuddle balls, my shy Alpha.”
Noah laughs, rubbing his forehead against the back of my wrist. “That’s because I’m more open with you than anyone. Either way, I’d love to get better at expressing how I’m feeling so I can teach them alongside you.”
He kisses my fingers, but I can hardly feel it over the elation vibrating through my chest. He’s saying “them,” as in our future kids.
With a hum, Noah lifts his head. “I have another: I want to try not to expect their lives to look a certain way.”
“What do you mean?”
Noah sits back on one hand, clinging to mine with the other, but he’s still feeling too shy to look at me. He studies my ceiling, rousing my heart muscles with his soothing, deep voice. “I don’t know how to phrase it, exactly. Just that I don’t want to tell them who or what they are, I guess. I felt a lot of pressure as an Alpha, growing up. I don’t want that for them. I don’t want them to think we’d be disappointed if they turn out— Well, different.”
I can tell Noah is tense, even without his wolf pacing in our bond: his shoulders are practically up to his ears. This desire means a lot to him.
Scooting closer, I gently rub the back of his hand. “My shy Alpha, I love that idea.”
When we meet eyes, a spark zaps from my heart to my gut. We break into instant, contagious smiles. And with that, Noah breaks into giggles.
I laugh. “What is it?”
Noah can’t stop giggling. “Nothing. I just haven’t seen you so excited before. It’s making me extra happy.”
My heart swells, threatening to burst. At the same time, it aches. I take a deep breath through my pounding heart muscles, preparing myself to admit the truth. “I’ve never had a partner to share this excitement with before.”
Noah gazes deep into my eyes, giving me a pained sigh. But when his hand releases mine to land on my hip, his thumb tracing over my hip bone, we grow extra quiet.
His touch holds more meaning than I expected it to. Someday soon, he could be pulling me to him by the hips with the intention of getting me pregnant.
My heart flips into my throat at the mere thought. I flush to my neck, no longer able to hold Noah’s focused stare. But as my yearning scent floods the room to meet Noah’s rising Alpha musk, I bite my lips, unsure what to do with myself. Does this mean he wants to try soon-soon? Maybe I’m not actually ready if I can’t even look into his eyes.
But I want to be. I dare to peek back up at him. The second I meet his shy, flustered stare, his hair tousled over one eyebrow as he ducks his chin, I melt in adoration. Stroking his chest, I do my best to extend my soothing scent.
Instead of calming Noah’s breath, his chest rises faster beneath my fingertips.
Noah’s quiet huff breaks the silence. We meet eyes, and his irises are vibrant again—his wolf demanding to be front and center in our bond. Our sudden, sexual desire heightens, building upon itself until there’s no way to ignore it. Even before either of us speaks, the intention is clear; there’s nowhere else for our affection to go except in a fit of passionate sex.
Noah clears his throat. “Do you want to—”
“Yes,” I blurt out.