by Noah Harris
Dylan got home just before dinner that night. When his parents asked him where he had been, he told them the truth: he had been out exercising and training and then he had spent the day with Blake. His mom seemed pleased by this, the prospect of her oldest son being in a happy relationship. She knew nothing of the lovers Dylan had had in the past. She only knew he hadn’t been in a relationship since Ben.
Cynthia, too, seemed to be happy for him, but there was something in her eyes that made him uneasy. It was a vague protectiveness, sadness, and pity that he didn’t like. He could have been imagining it, but he doubted it. Not after their conversation the previous night. After dinner, they did the dishes, and he escaped to take a shower. He could tell his sister wanted to talk to him, but he didn’t want to talk to her. Not about that subject.
Unfortunately, she was waiting for him in his room when he got out. She stared at him from her perch on his bed. She tried to look casual and intimidating like an older sister might, but it was difficult to pull off with the size of her belly.
“Dylan.” She said casually, though he knew this visit was anything but casual.
“Cynthia.” He said slowly, closing the door behind him. He walked to the other side of the room. “I’m gonna get dressed.” He warned. He wore nothing but a towel wrapped around his waist.
“I’m not gonna look.” She said, and he could hear that she was rolling her eyes. She kept her back to him as he quickly slipped on boxers, pajama pants, and a t-shirt. When he was done, he went to stand in front of her.
He crossed his arms over his chest. “What’d you want?”
Her lips quirked. “Can’t I come see what’s going on with my little brother?”
His eyes narrowed suspiciously. “Not after our conversation last night, no.”
She sighed. “I’ll cut right to the chase then.” She pulled out a box that she had been keeping at her side that he hadn’t seen. It was obviously a pregnancy test.
“No,” He said automatically. “That’s not necessary.”
Her eyes narrowed. “It is, and you know it.”
“I’m not …” He lowered his voice, glancing behind him at his door to make sure it was shut. Werewolves had sensitive hearing, and he didn’t want his parents to overhear. “I’m not pregnant. I can’t be. I know I’m not. I don’t need to take a grocery store test. Besides aren’t those just for women?”
She smirked, but her eyes remained hard and demanding. “Actually, it’s been proven that they’re just as effective for detecting male omega pregnancies. They search for a certain hormone that your body starts to give off within the first few weeks of pregnancy. Male or female, you start producing the same hormone, so it’ll work for you.”
“How do you know?”
She smirked. “Several of the omegas in the pack use them, and they’re effective. Now go pee on the damn stick.”
“No,” He repeated, firmly, narrowing his eyes.
She sighed. “Dylan, don’t you want to know for sure? I know this has been bothering you. There’s no way it couldn’t. For your own peace of mind, take the test. Positive or negative, at least you’ll know.”
Dylan’s frown deepened, his brow furrowing. Despite his denials of the possibility, she was right. He was worried. It was constantly haunting him every moment of the day. If he idled for one moment, mentally or physically, his mind returned to the possibility of him being pregnant. He did need to know. He was just scared of the outcome.
“Fine.” He snatched the test from her, shoved it in the pocket of his pajama pants and opened the door. “But only to get you off my back.”
By the time he closed the bathroom door behind him and looked down at the box in his hand, his legs were shaking. He opened the box with shaking hands. There were two tests. He decided to do them both, just in case. He read the instructions, peed on the stick, capped it, and waited. It was the longest ten minutes of his life. He tried not to think of anything, so, of course, he thought of everything.
Then when it came time to look, he found that he couldn’t. He tossed the sticks back in the box and hurried back to his room, closing the door behind him.
“Well?” His sister asked. She was still sitting on his bed. She set her phone aside.
He tossed the box at her, frowning. “I can’t look.” He leaned against the door. His legs were having trouble holding him up. He watched as she pulled the tests out of the box and looked at them both. Her lips pressed into a thin line, and her brows furrowed slightly. When she looked up at him, sympathy and pity filled her eyes. “Oh god …” He mumbled. His legs gave out, and he slipped down the door to sit on the floor. He felt nauseous. “Oh god, oh god, oh god …” He put his head in his hands and shook it side to side. “No, no, no, this can’t be happening.” Shaking his head only made his nausea worse. He leaned forward and put his head between his knees.
Cynthia didn’t say anything. She stood and shuffled over to him. She carefully knelt beside him and wrapped her arms around him. He leaned into her, desperately clinging to her comfort to keep him grounded. His breathing came quick and rapid, his chest was tense and tight, squeezing his lungs. He was losing control and realized he might be having a panic attack. He couldn’t calm himself even if he wanted to. Two words kept repeating in his mind, over and over: I’m pregnant. I’m pregnant. I’m pregnant …
Chapter Five
The next few days passed in a blur. Dylan felt numb, and he went through the days on auto pilot. It was still a couple of weeks before Alex’s wedding, but everything was as hectic as if it were tomorrow. His mom was wrapped up in just as many planning things as his aunt, and there were several family events, dinners, and lunches to attend.
Dylan stayed in his room as often as he could, watching TV and playing apps on his phone. He occasionally went to his brother’s room, and they played Xbox together, wasting hours like they did when they were younger. He avoided Cynthia as much as he could. It proved to be fairly easy to avoid a pregnant lady. She didn’t move very fast, and she didn’t like to move much at all. She spent her time helping their mom or sitting on the couch or working on her laptop. Though she did make a point to check on him throughout the day like he was a child.
They had to go out to dinner once with some old friends, and then have a family dinner at Aunt Margery’s place. No one questioned him too much. They took his silence as him being a stoic soldier of few words. He answered direct questions, but otherwise, he sat there, barely listening, and feeling the time pass. A few questions were asked about Blake, which was common knowledge in the family by now, and he answered them as brief as he could before changing the subject. No one seemed to notice. No one except for Cynthia, who frowned at him in worry and eyed him piteously whenever she thought he wasn’t looking.
Blake tried to contact him several times, but he wasn’t in the mood for talking. Although part of Dylan wanted to ignore Blake completely, blaming him for what he was now going to have to deal with, he couldn’t bring himself to do it. It was partly because he knew last time he stopped communicating, Blake knew something was wrong. He didn’t want to deal with the guilt over Blake’s worry and have him question what was wrong. If Blake knew something was wrong, Dylan knew it would only be a matter of time before he found out.
So he tried to act normal, refusing to answer calls and preferring text, because he knew the lack of emotion in his voice would give him away. It didn’t take long for Blake to ask him if something were wrong, and Dylan just told him he was tired from constantly having to deal with family and wedding things. It wasn’t a complete lie. It just wasn’t the whole truth. It was real enough that Blake believed it without question. He was dealing with much of the same thing on his end. Only it was more hectic because one of the grooms was his brother. Blake would then ask if Dylan wanted to get away and spend some time together, to which he always made an excuse and changed the subject. He could usually get Blake to forget about it if he mentioned his project of refurbishing his old tree h
ouse. It was his current obsession.
Cynthia tried to talk to him about it several times, but he refused. She finally backed off when he said he simply wasn’t ready, and he still needed to process it on his own before he went to anyone else. She agreed to leave him alone as long as he promised that he would go to her when he was ready.
Overall, he passed the days in a state of numbness that seemed never ending. Even the thought of pregnancy didn’t incite terror or nausea. Everything was the same state of gray. He seemed like an emotionless zombie, stumbling through life at his family’s commands. He had a feeling that it would take something drastic and big to actually break through the shell and kick him into gear. To make him feel something, anything, again.
Dylan got that several days after he took the pregnancy test when Benjamin texted him.
The text was only five words long, and yet he had to read it several times to fully understand. Not because he didn’t understand what they were saying. Because he fully understood what Ben meant. But it took several times of reading it to fully understand that Ben had indeed texted him, and it wasn’t a hallucination.
“Meet me at our tree.”
Their tree was a big old tree near the swimming hole. It was off to the side and wide enough that they could both be out of sight of the swimming hole itself. They had stood behind that tree, concealed from the view of their friends, when they had shared their first kiss. They had carved their initials into the tree a year later, on their first anniversary. They always referred to it as “their tree.” As he stared at the text, he felt his chest tighten, and he realized he was holding his breath. He forced himself to breathe, but he couldn’t slow his heart rate. After nearly skipping a beat, it had started pounding into overtime. His hand was shaking as it held his phone. He nearly dropped it when a second text came in.
“Tonight at seven.”
He put his phone down on the bed, staring at the ceiling. It was five o’clock now. Two hours. He wanted to meet in two hours. But why? Hadn’t Ben made it clear what he thought of Dylan and his relationship with Blake? Maybe he wanted to apologize … but no, that didn’t sound like him. Of course, he could have changed over the years. Dylan certainly had. Then again, he could also be trying to tell Dylan in person that he didn’t want him at the wedding. But the only reason he’d do that at their tree was to rub it in his face. Maybe he just wanted to catch up on old times? Make amends for the sake of what they once had?
Dylan didn’t know what to expect, but against his better judgment, he knew he was going to go. He was too curious not to. He needed to know what Ben wanted, and maybe settle the discourse between them once and for all. And … it was the first time since he’d found out he was pregnant that he had felt anything. So the apprehension, nervousness, and excitement he felt at the prospect of whatever Ben wanted was enough to make him want to go.
Dylan wanted to go to the swimming hole by wolf form. He jogged to the edge of the neighborhood and ducked behind the tree before stripping. He shoved his clothes into a bag he had brought with him, drew the drawstring closed, and shifted into a giant, copper brown wolf. He grabbed the bag in his mouth and darted off toward the swimming hole. It wasn’t that far, but it was quicker to run in this form, and he was already running late after eating dinner with his family and helping with the dishes.
When he neared the small lake, he shifted back to his human form and slipped on his clothes: simple jeans and a t-shirt with running shoes. He folded the little drawstring bag and shoved it into his pocket. He walked around the water’s edge toward their tree, trying not to seem too eager but at the same time trying to calm his hammering heart. He hadn’t been alone with Ben in years. From what he had seen so far, he wasn’t impressed with what those years had done for him. True, he was still just as handsome as he had always been. More so, even, with the mature look that age brought out and without the traces of awkward teenage youth. But his personality was rougher around the edges than Dylan remembered. Or maybe he could just see past the glamor now.
Still, he found he was nervous. He told himself that was stupid. He was a spoiler. A Navy SEAL. As a Navy SEAL, Dylan had been trained and prepared for so many different dangerous situations. He knew how to handle the unexpected. Yet here he was, breaking into a nervous sweat to see his ex-boyfriend again. Pathetic.
He straightened his back as he neared the tree, lifting his chin. He might feel nervous, but he wouldn’t let Ben see that. Ben had never been as good at reading him as Blake was.
Ben was already there. He found him leaning against the tree with his arms crossed over his chest and head tilted up toward the sky. It was seen in patches through the tree branches. The sun was setting, casting the sky in shades of orange and red and purple. It washed across Ben’s face, adding color to his hair. Still as a statue and with chiseled and handsome features, Dylan paused as he came around the tree and into view. His breath was kicked from his lungs, and he was taken aback by how handsome he was.
His nostrils flared, and he turned his head, a small smile curving his lips as he turned to face Dylan. “I wasn’t sure you’d come.” He said softly. He tilted his head in a gesture so like Blake. His smile faded, and he shook his head. “Not after how I acted the other day.”
Dylan took the last few steps around the tree, one hand on its giant trunk as he stepped over roots. “I wasn’t either. What do you want?”
His smile returned, small and soft as he gazed at Dylan. “Straight to the point, as always.” He said, chuckling with obvious fondness.
Dylan’s eyes narrowed slightly. He was feeling suspicious. This wasn’t at all how Ben had acted the last two times he saw him. True, one of those times was with his fiancé, and the other had been when Dylan was making out with his brother, but still. It was strange, and it put him off, making him wary. Dylan continued to stare at him, saying nothing, until Ben finally sighed.
He pushed off the tree, hands dropping from his chest. He reached up to scratch the back of his neck while he turned to face Dylan. “Look, I just wanted to apologize. I said some really shitty things, okay? And I didn’t mean them. It’s just that it hurt to see you with someone else. And my brother, of all people.”
“I didn’t know who he was when we started seeing each other.”
“I know, that’s what he said.” He looked off to the side, frowning a little. “But he should have said something instead of hiding it.” Dylan couldn’t argue with that, so he didn’t. Ben continued. The bitterness left his voice. “How did you not recognize him?” He asked, sounding so piteous and sad and just a little bit accusatory.
Dylan bristled a little at the accusatory part, but he shrugged and answered honestly. “He looked so different from the kid he used to be that I did recognize him as an adult.”
“Yeah, but you always had a fondness for him. Even when he was just a kid, he always knew how to work you and get you on his side.” He sounded bitter again, and a hint of the anger and hurt that Dylan knew he was feeling started to show.
Dylan’s eyes narrowed. “What’re you trying to say, Ben?”
He held his hands up, shaking his head. “Nothing. It’s nothing. It doesn’t even matter that it was him. It would have hurt just as much to see you with anyone else. It’s just tough when it’s a family member, you know?”
“I can’t imagine what that’s like,” Dylan said flatly, his voice dry and humorless.
“Oh, right …” Ben said sheepishly, scratching his neck again and looking away. They were silent for a moment, the awkwardness stretching between them. Then Ben shook his head, letting his hand drop. He put both his hands up. “Look, forget that it’s Blake. It doesn’t matter. As I said, it would be the same way with anyone. I just don’t like seeing you with someone else.”
“You have no right to say that.” A little anger was seeping into his voice, but he clenched his fist and forced himself to remain calm. He was determined to remain calm and civilized and unaffected by this topic. He would show th
at he was strong and better off without him.
“I know, I know. I fucked up. I know I did. And every time I see Blake, I’m reminded of how badly I fucked up. Every time I see him, I think about you, and I wonder why he’s better than me, and I wonder what it would’ve been like if we were still together.” He took a few slow steps forward. Dylan turned to continue facing him until his back was against the tree. “We could’ve made it work, you and me.”
Dylan wasn’t so sure about that. He had spent a while in the wake of their break up convinced that they could’ve made it work. He was desperate to. But the further from the situation he got, the more he realized that they probably couldn’t have. And he had made peace with that. At least, he thought he had. But here, he found his heart rate was still pounding at the nearness of Ben. “Why now? It’s been years, and you’re about to get married.” Dylan demanded.
Blake shrugged, smiling sadly. His shoulders were hunched slightly, and he looked up at Dylan sheepishly through his lashes. “I thought I was over you. I didn’t think about it. I didn’t think you’d come. And if you did, I was sure I’d be fine. But then I saw you. And now I don’t know how I feel.” He took another step toward him, stopping only a couple of feet away.
Dylan glared at him, pressing his back against the bark of the tree to keep himself grounded. “Ben, you’re making a mistake.”
“Am I?” He turned his head, reaching out to touch the crudely drawn heart that had been carved into the tree trunk. Their initials were inside the heart, made by jagged, straight lines. He ran his fingers along their edges. Dylan glanced at it but turned his attention back to Ben’s face. He had a feeling he knew exactly where this meeting was going, and he wasn’t sure how he felt about it. Nor did he know how he was going to react to it.
“I tried to reach out to you, you know?” He continued. “When I realized my mistake. It was only a couple months later, but you were already gone.” He shook his head sadly. “You never responded.”
