31. Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-One
Assa
Assa sat in the reading room of the university library. He and Wes were supposed to meet here to go home together, but his husband was nowhere to be seen.
It was crowded for a Friday evening, likely because mid-semester testing started soon.
A group of lively young alphas nearby caught his eye.
Assa smiled as they laughed and gestured at one another.
It seemed like a million years since he’d been a student, studying for exams and falling in love with Wes.
The brash alphas also made him think of Valentin.
A week had passed since his and Wes’s night at The Cracked Heart, and Assa hadn’t been able to get the man out of his mind.
He daydreamed about Valentin’s lips when he should have been analyzing lab samples, and instead of focusing during meetings, his brain conjured deliciously filthy images of the alpha fucking him.
Deliciously. Filthy.
It was a distraction, but a welcome one. Before Valentin, he had not felt a spark of genuine attraction to someone other than Wes for years.
Wait—no. That wasn’t accurate. He’d been attracted to Calder at the bakery last month, but that didn’t count as recent since he’d been intrigued by him eight years ago when they spoke over the phone.
But Calder wasn’t an option for him and Wes. Valentin might be. They had his number. Should they use it, or wait for the alpha to reach out to them?
Assa angled his head to rub his neck. When he straightened, he caught a man staring at him from across the room.
The beta, who appeared to be in his late twenties, tried to be discreet, but did a poor job of hiding his interest. When Assa attempted to meet his gaze, he quickly looked at his book. It was upside down.
Assa’s lips flattened. Did he know this man? He didn’t believe so.
A tap on his shoulder startled him.
“Sorry, sorry.” Olin held up his hands. “I didn’t mean to sneak up on you.”
Assa chuffed. “No worries.”
“Deep in thought?”
“Aren’t I always?”
Olin chuckled as Assa invited him to sit. When Assa glanced back toward the other side of the room, he saw that the beta was gone.
Oh well. He smiled at Olin.
It had been eight years since Assa and Wes spent the night with him in Warburton.
When they began working at the university in Bellwether, Olin had re-introduced himself.
There was no question of sleeping together again—the alpha was happily and monogamously married—but it was nice to have him as a friend.
“Wes is finishing up with a student who came in at the last second for office hours. I had an errand at the library, so he asked me to find you and tell you he’s running late.”
“Why didn’t he text?”
“Something about leaving his phone at home.”
“That explains why he never responded to the message I sent after lunch,” Assa said. “I’m not surprised he forgot. It was hectic getting Ryde to the bus this morning.”
“Everything okay?”
“Typical stuff. He neglected to tell us until halfway through breakfast that it was crazy hair day at school. Best I could do was a bunch of tiny ponytails. Not sure how creative it was, but it certainly looked insane.”
Olin barked a laugh. “I’ll bet.”
“Make fun all you want. It will be you soon enough.” Olin’s omega was expecting their first child.
“Oh, I know. I’m looking forward to it.”
“I’m jealous you get to do the newborn thing. Those days are so special. You’ll have to let me and Wes babysit sometime.”
Olin gave him an inscrutable look. “I’m sure we’ll take you up on the babysitting, but if you really want to experience that stage again, have you guys thought about having another?”
Assa felt the sharp jab of pain in his heart that came whenever this topic arose.
His feelings must have shown on his face because Olin quickly added, “Of course it’s none of my business. And you don’t need to explain anything you don’t want to.”
“No, it’s fine.” Assa recited the information he and Wes had agreed was safe to give people.
“We love being fathers, but surrogacy is not in the cards for us. Too expensive. We adopted Ryde, but it almost didn’t happen—I’m sure you’ve heard the story of how a professor in Wes’s department outed our polyamory to the university? ”
“Yes. I’m sorry that happened to you. Especially since I know from experience how professional and discreet you are.”
Assa waved his hand. “I appreciate that, but it’s water under the bridge.
Honestly, I prefer how it is now. Everyone knows, but they’re fine as long as we don’t openly display it.
That feels better than trying to keep the secret.
” He paused before continuing, “Exposing us didn’t placate Lux.
He also blackballed us with every adoption agency in the province.
None of them would work with us anymore because of our questionable lifestyle. ”
Olin’s face pinched thoughtfully. “But if you were blackballed, how did Ryde come into your lives?”
“Pure luck. Wes knew someone at the university who arranged a private adoption with an omega father who didn’t have an issue with our open marriage.”
“Ah. Well, that’s good. And who knows, lightning might strike twice.”
“Maybe,” Assa said.
“If you and Wes ever need a character reference or anything like that, I’m happy to help.”
Assa and Wes were lucky to call this man their friend. All the same, Assa hoped Olin was done asking questions. The alpha meant well, but they had to be careful about discussing Ryde’s adoption.
Olin assumed the Pashuks had met Ryde’s omega father, but that wasn’t the case.
The couple didn’t even know his name. When the agency representative insisted on a closed adoption, Wes and Assa had been so desperate for a child that they hadn’t thought twice.
Later, when they noticed details that didn’t add up, they decided not to dig too deep.
After all, the baby had a birth certificate and the agency was reputable.
Lux had made it impossible for them to adopt any other way, so they’d taken their miracle and hadn’t asked questions.
But they didn’t live in Warburton anymore.
Perhaps they could list themselves with the agencies here, Assa thought.
They could be open about being polyamorous this time, and if an omega chose them, awesome.
If not, then they already had the greatest kid on the planet.
Their family was complete with or without another child.
Thankfully, Olin switched topics, grousing about a student napping during his lectures. Assa listened with half an ear, grateful his participation required little more than the occasional nod.
Wes strolled into the room.
“What were you guys talking about?” he asked.
“Nothing much.” Olin stood up. “I was telling your husband about the omega student who keeps sleeping in my class.”
“Ha! I have him in one of my sections too.”
“Then we’ll have to trade methods for waking him up, because I literally dropped a book on his desk today and that didn’t do the trick.” Olin said good-naturedly. “Before that, Assa was explaining about how you adopted Ryde privately.”
Assa shook his head subtly at Wes.
“That Lux was a piece of work,” Olin added. “To expose your marriage like that. What a dick.”
“Yeah.” Wes’s tone held a hint of roughness. “One of the first things I did as assistant dean was put him on the list of professors who are never allowed to guest lecture.”
“Petty.” Olin grinned approvingly.
After the alpha left, Assa and Wes walked out in the other direction. “How did you get on the topic of Ryde’s adoption?” Wes asked.
“Olin was wondering why we didn’t try for a second, so I explained about the agencies in Warburton refusing to work with us. Naturally, that made him curious how we ended up with Ryde. Don’t worry. I didn’t give him any specifics.”
Wes slung an arm around Assa’s shoulders and kissed him on the side of the head. “I know you wouldn’t do that. And it’s not like we did anything wrong.”
Assa bit his lip. That was the rationale he and Wes had been using for eight years. The agency was reputable, in business for decades. The paperwork was all in order.
“He was brand new,” Assa whispered.
Wes halted mid-stride. “We can’t be certain of that.”
“Can’t we?”
“No.”
It was something they never discussed. When they took Ryde home on May 1, they received his original birth certificate. It said he was born on March 30. But that was impossible. The tiny, red, wrinkly baby in their arms was clearly a newborn, no more than a few days old.
At the time, overwhelmed, they hadn’t pushed for answers.
A few months later they tried to approach the agency about it—and discovered it had gone out of business.
The representative had retired and moved out of the province.
Searching online for the names on the certificate turned up zero results.
Ryde’s birth parents had no digital footprint anywhere they could find.
Wes and Assa talked about hiring a private investigator but decided it wasn’t worth the risk to put eyes on their situation.
They had legal adoption paperwork facilitated by a reputable agency.
And yet, though they rarely spoke about it these days, Assa maintained the vague sense that they were missing a vital piece of information about their son.
They remained quiet during the ride home. The silence eased the tension from their earlier conversation to where Assa had mostly put it from his mind by the time they arrived.
“There it is!” Wes said, grabbing his phone from the kitchen counter. “It’s been like living in a primitive wilderness all day.”
Assa ran a palm over Wes’s ass. “Mm. Primitive wilderness. Hot. I’m getting a mental image of you dressed as a caveman, carrying a club.”
“Oh, really?” Wes boxed him in against the stovetop, leaning down to kiss his collarbone.
Assa savored Wes’s touch for a few seconds before gently pushing him away. “To be continued,” he said, turning around to grab a large pot. “Ryde is getting dropped off soon. I’m making extra pasta since he’s always hungrier after swimming.”
“That’s weird,” Wes said.
“Hmm?”
“I have a bunch of texts from an unknown number. There’s like ten of them.”
“Spam?”
“Probably. But it’s very specific.” Wes furrowed his brow. “There’s a few from this morning asking me to text back, saying we need to meet. Then there are some saying he’ll look me up on campus.”
“Okay, that’s a little creepy.”
“The last one was almost an hour ago.”
“What does it say?”
“It says, I guess I’ll come to you.”
Assa frowned. “That doesn’t sound like spam. Could be a wrong number.”
“Maybe? I mean, if someone was going to talk to me like this, I’d have him in my contacts, right?”
Assa switched on a burner, setting the temperature to high.
Twenty minutes later, Ryde raced in through the front door. Assa closed it behind him, waving at the omega who’d dropped him off.
“Hey, Pop. I need to take a shower.” Ryde bounced on his heels. “The line was too long at the pool and now I’m all itchy.”
“Make it a quick one. Dinner will be ready soon.”
Assa was scraping pesto out of the food processor when the doorbell rang.
“I’ll get it,” Wes said. “Stay in the kitchen, okay?”
Assa nodded, grateful he could hear the shower running upstairs.
Wes looked through the peephole. His shoulders relaxed before he swung the door open. “What in the world?”
“Professor Pashuk,” Assa heard an unfamiliar voice say as their visitor stepped into the entryway.
It was the beta who’d been staring at him in the library.