Chapter Fifty-Two
Calder
Wes came down the stairs with a wry look on his face.
“Well?” Calder asked.
“You were right. He definitely had questions.”
“Were you able to answer?”
Wes nodded. “Yeah. I think so.”
Zinn and Lachie were at a doctor’s appointment and Ked was at rehearsal. With the house quiet, Calder had asked Wes to come over, saying vaguely that his older son might have some things on his mind that would be better discussed with another beta.
Wes had knocked on Jordie’s door under the guise of asking if he needed help with his history project, since the teen was studying the ancient alpha/omega wars which were Wes’s area of expertise.
“Is there anything you can tell me that wouldn’t break his confidence?” Calder asked.
“He said he didn’t need help with his assignment, but he had this look on his face like he wanted to talk.
So I asked if I could see his paper anyway, out of professional curiosity.
Then, while I was scrolling through the document, he got all flustered and blurted out questions about what it was like to be a beta dating an alpha. ”
“Good. I’m glad he felt comfortable asking.”
“It was a surprise, honestly, but a good one. Valentin said the same thing after he talked with Jordie the other night. He was flattered Jordie sought him out, although he refused to tell me what they talked about specifically. Guess I know now.”
“I’m sure both of you eased his mind. I don’t want my son to feel like he has to end up with another beta because it’s easier. If his heart takes him in a different direction, I want him to follow it.”
“He was receptive when I said being true to yourself is always the answer. I also told him that the gender differences that seem so important in the beginning of a relationship fade over time. As you grow together, you learn to fit together.”
Calder’s lips twitched as a blush took over Wes’s face.
“Thank you for speaking with him.”
“Anytime. You know I love that kid.”
Calder did know it, and he was grateful his sons had such incredible beta role models in Wes and Assa.
But that didn’t stop him from digging deeper into Wes’s statement. “Do you think you’d notice more about Valentin being an alpha if you didn’t have two partners?”
“Hard to say. We’ve never been monogamous, so to some degree that element has always been there. Our exclusivity as a triad, not being with other men—that’s the part that feels new.”
A wave of something close to guilt washed over Calder at Wes’s mention of their closed polycule.
On the Pashuks’ porch last week, he’d pushed the other alpha, challenged him on his vision for the future. He had covered Valentin’s hand. Kissed his fingers.
Yet he couldn’t bring himself to regret it, not when he’d done it at the insistence of his inner alpha.
Last night, Calder’s rogue brain had conjured an intense dream.
In it, the Pashuks were naked. Valentin stood in front of the bed, and Wes and Assa knelt before him, taking turns licking his cock.
Valentin started growling. At that point, Calder had walked in, also naked.
He cupped the back of Valentin’s head with one hand and claimed his lips in a filthy kiss, muffling his growls.
With his other hand, he grabbed Wes’s dark hair, yanking him onto his cock, fucking his throat brutally. Wes took it with a moan.
The image had sharpened as Calder inched closer to orgasm.
He pulled off the kiss with Valentin, rumbling loud enough to echo.
The two alphas squeezed their torsos together, then shouted as they came simultaneously, Valentin releasing into Assa’s mouth while Calder unloaded down Wes’s throat.
The betas worked themselves over with their fists, shooting onto the floor.
In the dream, Calder had looked up, hoping to find Zinn. He’d felt the omega’s presence in the background but hadn’t seen him.
As dream-Calder glanced from side to side, reality-Calder was startled awake by a very real Zinn greedily sucking the last dregs of cum from his cock.
Calder came to full awareness quickly, staring at the omega with big eyes.
“I couldn’t resist,” Zinn said as he popped off Calder’s dick. “You were moaning in your sleep, and I could tell you were having a sexy dream. We haven’t had much time for that since Lachie was born, so I figured I’d make the most of it.”
As Calder stared at him without speaking, Zinn’s hand flew to his mouth. “Cap? Was that okay? Should I have woken you up? … I’m sorry, I thought you were aware. You seemed really into it.”
Calder blinked. Zinn was afraid he’d done something wrong when it was Calder who had shot his cum down Zinn’s throat while dreaming of Wes, Assa, and Valentin.
“I’m sorry, sunshine. I was just surprised.” He smiled reassuringly. “That was a lovely way to wake up.”
“I just hope it was as good as whatever was happening in your head.”
Calder appreciated Zinn not asking for specifics. “It was better. Real is always better.”
Real was always better, but darn if that dream hadn’t felt real as fuck.
He’d been able to put it aside. But Wes standing in his living room after doing something nice for Jordie brought the fantasy back in vivid detail.
Calder had been comfortable with Wes from the start, seeing much of himself in the beta who cared so deeply about others’ happiness. But sex dreams? That was new. Another sign that the relationship between the five men was constantly evolving.
More often lately, such as when he’d had his moment with Valentin, Calder admitted to himself that he felt something beyond friendship for the Pashuks.
Valentin’s guilelessness, Assa’s softness, and Wes’s resoluteness called to him.
And his relationship with Zinn was not the same as it had been with Denni.
It wasn’t that he loved Zinn any less than his first husband. It was more because Calder had changed. After Denni died, he thought he’d never experience that type of all-encompassing love again.
Now he had more love, more family, than he could have ever imagined.
And he was secure enough to admit it could be more than it was.
Teal had once spoken to him about the concept of pack. Modern society had essentially abandoned the idea, but in the past, men had often lived and loved in polycules, or packs.
Calder realized that, while he’d been adept at being a typical husband to Denni in his early twenties, life had thrust him into this position as part of a two-family pack. And perhaps he was always meant to push them toward the inevitable future.
Make sure your dreams are big enough, he’d said to Valentin.
Wes moved to leave, but Calder stopped him with a hand to the shoulder. “What you said about being exclusive with Valentin, about that part feeling new…”
“Yes?”
“Exclusivity is right for you now, but do you think it always will be?”
Wes’s jaw ticked. “That’s a personal question.”
Calder stepped closer. “Are you saying I shouldn’t ask?”
Wes studied him, moving his eyes in slow perusal. “I don’t know if being exclusive with Valentin and Assa will always feel right. No one can predict the future.”
Calder sucked in a breath. Wes was usually so careful. But his mask was slipping. A glimmer of interest flickered in his gaze.
“You realize where this is headed?” Calder asked boldly, running his palm down Wes’s arm until he gripped his wrist.
Wes gave a clipped nod. “Each time we put a piece of the past to rest, I see it more clearly.” Pulling away quickly, he strode out the door.
***
Calder came back from a cake delivery to find Ked and Ryde sitting at one of Felton’s front tables, sharing a giant snickerdoodle and reading a comic book.
“Hey, you two,” he said. “What’s going on?”
Ryde looked up. “Ked got the new Beta Force comic, so Papa V brought me over to look at it.”
Calder glanced around but didn’t see Valentin. The other alpha had been avoiding him since that night on the porch.
“Valentin went inside to say hi to Zinn and the baby,” Ked said.
After confirming with Lolo that he could handle the bakery on his own for a while, Calder ventured into the house.
He heard voices in the family room.
“…Oh, my goodness.” Zinn chuckled. “I’d forgotten about that. Chef’s chicken salad was the worst! I have no idea what he did to it, but it was impossible to choke down.”
“The employees got it served to us a lot,” Valentin said. “But Chef was such a nice guy, I didn’t want him to feel bad, so I just ate it.”
“Well, you get a gold star, because Asher and I used to spit it into our napkins.”
Valentin snorted.
“What the heck did he put in it that made it so awful?” Zinn asked, his question punctuated by the soft sucking sounds of Lachie chest-feeding.
“Too many pickles. Olives. Dried cranberries. Red bell pepper. He definitely took the more is more approach.” Valentin laughed heartily.
Calder’s breath hitched. Valentin didn’t laugh enough. It made him sound younger, probably more like the person he’d been before being thrown into prison.
It was a testament to the healing power of happiness that Valentin and Zinn could discuss their past without bitterness.
Lately, they’d been more willing to talk to the other men about the lighter parts of it—finding Decoy, Zinn’s artwork, and Valentin’s gardens.
But this was the first Calder had heard about inedible chicken salad.
He backed away, giving them privacy.
Ten minutes later, Calder was reading at the kitchen table when Valentin walked in, Lachie on his shoulder.
“Oh, um…hey, man,” Valentin stammered. “I didn’t know you were here.”
“Got home a few minutes ago.”
Valentin patted Lachie’s back. “Zinn looked tired. I offered to burp the baby so he could go lie down.”
Lachie made a sweet gurgling noise, then followed it up with a noisy belch.
The men grinned at each other as Valentin took a seat at the table, transferring the baby to the crook of his arm.
“Do you want me to take him?” Calder asked.
“I’m good.”
Lachie stuck his tiny fingers in his mouth and drifted off to sleep. Valentin gazed down at him.
“I’m sorry I was so weird about this little guy. But now that I have my head firmly dislodged from my backside, I’m going to be asking to hold him a lot more. I already warned Zinn that you’re going to get sick of me.”
“I doubt that.”
“He’s so beautiful. He already looks like his daddy and his brothers. Especially Ryde.” Gently, Valentin touched his fingertip to the mole on Lachie’s cheek.
Calder wondered if holding the baby reminded him of how much of Ryde’s life he’d missed.
He inhaled. “Valentin, I can’t regret the sequence of events that brought Lachie into our lives, but I don’t think I’ve ever told you directly how sorry I am for all the terrible injustices that happened to you. You know that, right?”
Valentin eyed him. “You have nothing to apologize for.”
Calder bit his lip. “Sometimes I feel like I took something from you.”
“No.” Valentin’s Adam’s apple bobbed. “You’re not the bad guy here.
And I’ve never thought of our situation as you taking something from me.
I’m grateful you were there for Zinn. Just like I’m glad I found Assa and Wes at the end of my own dark tunnel.
It’s no one’s fault. It’s just how the story unfolded. ”
“I suppose.”
“Truthfully, looking at Lachie, it’s impossible for me to regret anything. I wouldn’t want him to be different than he is.” Valentin placed a tender kiss on the baby’s forehead before handing him to Calder. “I can’t help feeling connected to him.”
Calder smiled. “Of course you’re connected to him. He’s your son’s brother. You and your partners are his de-des.”
“Yes.”
“And most importantly, you’ve loved his daddy for a long time.”
Valentin’s cheeks flushed, but he met Calder’s eyes head-on. “I don’t regret that either. Any more than I regret loving Assa and Wes.”
“Nor should you… Zinn loves you too.”
“I know.”
Calder admired Valentin’s directness. He felt compelled to match it. “I realize it was hard for you to hear this when I said it last week, but the future isn’t set in stone.”
Nodding slowly, Valentin murmured, “It’s difficult to trust that I can influence my fate.”
He placed a hand on Valentin’s wrist. “You were brave to love Keyes and Deveron Parkenson’s son all those years ago, and brave again by not pushing away Assa and Wes.”
Calder thought of his dream, side-by-side with this alpha, being with the omega and the betas they loved.
“I think you have more brave choices in you,” he said.
“I don’t know.” Valentin withdrew his arm and rose abruptly, gripping the chair.
“It’s okay not to know,” Calder said. “It’s okay.”
“Being near Zinn is interesting,” Valentin said quietly. “I still see all the incredible qualities that were always there. But the thing that drew me to him in the first place, his brightness, has changed. It’s not gone, but everything he’s been through has reshaped it.”
Lachie fussed lightly. Calder stood and began pacing.
“When I first met Zinn, he was extremely closed off,” he said.
“More cautious than bright. Over time, I came to recognize his underlying goodness and creativity, the way the real Zinn would peek out. That resilience is what I fell in love with. It took a lot of courage for him to let down those walls.”
“Being strong is who he is. He lifts up everyone around him.”
Calder nodded. “After Denni died, I thought I was done with love for good. Zinn brought me back to life.”
“I never dreamed loving Zinn would eventually lead me to Assa and Wes. But I believe I was always meant to love them. That’s why you shouldn’t feel like you took anything from me. Having them, and still having Zinn…and you…”
Valentin didn’t continue. He didn’t need to.
We are a pack, Calder thought. We live in different houses now, but we are one family.
He stepped closer, until they stood face-to-face. He shifted Lachie back into Valentin’s arms. The baby stirred briefly before settling his cheek on Valentin’s chest.
“No matter what the future brings, I’m grateful Lachie has you,” Calder said.
In the quiet kitchen, side-by-side with Valentin, he thought again of his dream. He could wait for everyone to catch up.
But he knew the future he wanted.