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A Bundle of Mannies 2020 Lorelei M. Hart
ISBN: 978-1-68361-415-9
Editor Wizards in Publishing
Published by Decadent Publishing LLC
Table of Contents
The Omega’s Alpha Manny
The Alpha’s Mentor Manny
The Professor’s Omega Manny
Saved by the Manny
Completed by Their Manny
His Miracle Manny
Manny’s Mannies: Where parents finds more than just childcare—they find everything.
Omega Ronnie thought he had everything until cancer stole his happily ever after. Left alone with his beautiful daughter, he soon discovered he was pregnant with baby number two, a child with a rare birth defect. He’s an amazing father to his two little girls, but he knows he needs help—so he turns to Manny’s Mannies.
But when Ronnie opens the door to see his college crush, Zave, he realizes he might be getting more than he bargained for.
Alpha Zave has never quite found his place in the working world. But even though he’s had bad luck at his jobs, he’s certain the perfect career is out there. He just doesn’t know where to look. When his current company has a temporary shutdown, he goes to work for Manny as a stopgap.
He never imagined his temporary position might lead to love.
The Omega’s Alpha Manny is the first book in a sweet with knotty heat contemporary MM Mpreg romance series of standalones featuring hot mannies, the men they love, and the families they grow to be a part of. The Omega’s Alpha Manny features an alpha who is very un-alpha, an omega who is all alpha, and two adorable little girls.
The Omega’s Alpha Manny
By
Lorelei M. Hart
Prologue
Ronnie Jones
“Daddy, read me my story.” Maggie grabbed the bottom of my shirt, giving it a little tug.
“Did you pick up your toys?” I asked, already reaching for her book.
“I put my blocks away.” Which wasn’t a yes, but it was a start.
When her mama first passed, I did everything for her. Trying to somehow make up for the loss of her alpha mother by being both alpha and omega for her. One day she looked up at me with her big brown eyes and said, “Mama never thought I was a baby.” And it slammed into me hard. My dear sweet daughter took my attempts to make the transition easier for her as my way of saying she couldn’t handle things. Nearly broke my heart.
I was not supposed to be doing this alone. Lauren was supposed to be here by my side forever. That was our vow. Our promise. And then cancer. Fucking cancer came and stole her out from under us.
Lauren kept her promise, though, in the best way she knew how, in the form of a book. Which made sense, given her career as a technical writer. Not that stories and technical writing were the same, but still.
“You will put the rest away after your story.” My attempt at being firm with her earned me a giggle. Fair enough. I deserved it.
This single parent thing was hard. So very hard.
“On the couch.” I sat down and she hopped on up, sitting in my lap. She was getting too big, and I knew these times would soon be over. Not that four was old, but she had her mother’s height, often being asked why she wasn’t at school if we snuck away for a mid-week lunch. My growing belly didn’t help.
“Do you want to read it or should I?” I asked, and she grabbed the book in response.
“I’ve got it.” She turned to the first page. “Once upon a time, there was a beautiful little alpha, and she lived in a bright-green house.” She pointed to the house. “Do you know who that beautiful alpha was, Daddy?” she asked, mimicking the way I’d told her the story for six months.
“It was your mama. And her parents are your nana and papi.” I pointed each of them out. The book was technically a photo book Lauren had ordered from the drugstore. Nothing fancy, but the pictures were everything.
“The house is tan now. Nana said the green made her sad.” That I had not known, about the green anyway. Green had been Lauren’s favorite color. She often teased me, saying it was why she married me, my bright-green eyes.
“What happens next?” I asked, not wanting to think about the hurt I knew my in-laws were still feeling. I got it. I truly did. Sleeping at night was getting easier, but I still woke up more nights than not, reaching out for her only to find her spot bare.
She turned the page.
“One day, the beautiful alpha met a handsome omega, and they played kissy face.”
I had not told the story like that.
“And they got married and had a beautiful baby girl.” She tilted her head, looking up at me. “I am that beautiful baby girl. But I’m not a baby anymore.”
“No, you are not a baby. You’re Daddy’s big girl.”
She went back to reading the book, slamming it shut before the picture of her mother the day before she got sick, or at least figured out she was sick. It had been a great day. We’d gone to a concert in the park and danced and danced.
The next day, there would be no dancing. Instead, I woke up to the crash of Lauren passing out. It was nothing, they said. She probably stood too quickly. She’d be fine.
Except it wasn’t nothing, and she wasn’t fine, the tumor in her head growing rapidly, stealing our days together from us one at a time until there were no more.
The day the doctors told us there was nothing they could do was the same day I discovered I was carrying our second child, a child she would never live to see. Life was not fair. I knew this. But feeling the blow of having your mate yanked from you when your lives together had barely begun slammed that home.
“When the baby comes”—Maggie centered me, taking me away from the train of thought that would accomplish nothing—“I will be your big girl helper.”
“I know you will, sweetheart. I know you will.” I kissed the top of her head, holding her close.
I had no idea what I was going to do when the baby came. As it was, juggling a job with a four-year-old was nearly impossible. Juggling it with two children, one needing surgery almost immediately after birth? I’d cross that bridge when I came to it. For now, I would focus on keeping my baby healthy while balancing the roles of both alpha and omega parent to my dear sweet girl.
I could do this.
I had no choice.
Chapter One
Ronnie
“Are you awake, Mae?” I asked as I reached down to pick up my little bundle. She was such a good baby. An amazing one.
When she was born and they refused to put her in my arms, every fear I had when the ultrasound indicated gastroschisis came flooding back into me. I couldn’t lose her. Not after having lost her mother.
Three surgeries later, I found myself holding my little one every chance I could, cherishing each second as the gift it was. They had managed to put all of her intestines back where they belonged, and the scary times were over. Sure, she still needed to sleep propped up from the reflux that was common with her condition, but, for the most, part it was the same as when I had Maggie, only alo
ne.
So very much alone.
Lauren’s parents offered to help, but seeing Mae in the NICU had been too much for them, and they pulled back slowly. I got it. I did. It still made things far more challenging for me than they had to be.
“You ready for a change and some yums?” I singsonged to her as I got her ready for the morning. She always woke up so happy, the complete opposite of Maggie who I was going to have to drag out of bed in the next half hour. It was my first day back to work since having her.
My boss had been great about allowing me to use my sick days and then allowing me to tap into the sick bank instead of using family medical leave, which would have been unpaid. I had enough of a cushion we could have made it through it, but not touching it was so much better all the way around.
“Gramma Sally will be here soon.” I pressed a little kiss to the spot where the doctor’s had made her little belly button. “As soon as I wake up your sister.”
She scrunched up her nose. It was gas, the poor thing was still struggling with that, but I always played it off as being her reaction to my words.
“I know, baby girl. She can be grumpy in the morning.”
And as if on cue, Maggie came barreling in.
“Is today a Gramma Sally day?”
And that was why. She was excited. I couldn’t blame her. Sally was technically no relation to us, but our kindly neighbor had taken us under her wing when Lauren and I first moved to the neighborhood and then stepped up even more when we lost Lauren. I don’t know what I’d have done without her.
“It is. She will be here soon. Better go brush your teeth. You know how she is.”
Maggie rolled her eyes at that. Teen years were going to be interesting with her.
“Gramma said that I can’t hug her if I forget to brush my teeth.” Who knew such a simple thing could so easily alleviate the stress our daily toothbrushing battles had created.
She scampered off, and I carried Mae into the living room where her bassinet lived. I had about a half an hour to get both girls ready before Sally arrived. When I had Maggie, Lauren was working, and I got to stay home. I loved it. But then when Lauren got sick, money needed to be made and insurance needed to be obtained and transferred before she was too sick to work, so off I went back to the workforce, scoring a really amazing job as a copywriter. A job that came with insurance and family sick days.
Taking that time off now just wasn’t feasible, and the guilt was only exacerbated by Mae’s weakened immune system. She would be fine. Perfect, even, but she needed to heal fully first.
“I’m going to make some eggs, and then it is time for your breakfast.” Not that she would have eggs.
Our open floor plan was ideal for times like these. I kept an eye on her as I took out the hard-boiled eggs and peeled them for Maggie. They were her favorite. I had a feeling it was because they were the one thing her mother could eat near the end.
I plopped two peeled eggs in a bowl and grabbed a mini croissant out of the package, placing them on the table just as she got there.
“Thanks, Daddy.” She climbed up on her chair and had started eating when the doorbell rang. Gramma Sally was early.
“Hello.” I opened the door, a smile slapped on my face. I so very much didn’t want to leave my baby girls.
“I’m early.” She walked in with her knitting bag on her shoulder and a cup of some weird-smelling tea in her hand. “I have some things to discuss.”
I shut the door behind her, crossing my fingers she was all right with the financial arrangement we had made. I had been fair—offering more than I’d have paid at the local daycares, but that meant I didn’t have a lot of wiggle room. Sally had a decent enough retirement coming in, but she also had a leech of a son, Jonathan, who called her for money pretty much every week. A little part of me felt guilty knowing I was inadvertently funding her son’s lifestyle—a lifestyle I feared included drugs.
“I made a list like you asked. It’s on the fridge,” I began. “I was going to feed Mae before I left, but I have been a pumping demon, so there is plenty in the fridge and a stockpile like you wouldn’t believe in the freezer.”
“I can feed her.” She deposited her cup on the coffee table and her bag on the couch and picked up little Mae, cooing at her.
Maggie sat in the kitchen, wanting very much to come out from the looks of it, but knowing the rule that Gramma Sally had about staying at the table until you were finished. Being good was hard.
“Jonathan called,” she began.
An advance it was.
“I can write you a check right now.” I might not like that he took advantage of her, but he was her son, and it was not my place to interject.
“He is moving in.”
Well fuck. That was the last things she needed.
“He has two kids he didn’t know about. They are coming, too.” I had a feeling the loser of an alpha had more than a couple of kids floating around. “Next week.”
“What are you saying?” Because it felt much bigger than she was about to have houseguests.
“They are handfuls. Or so the story goes. He needs me to watch them.” She wrinkled up her nose at Mae until the little one gave her her best smile. Baby smiles were the best.
“And you want to bring them here?” It wasn’t ideal, especially if they were handfuls. But two extra sets of germs were far better than an entire daycare full. At least until Mae got a bit older.
“When I said handfuls, I meant more like unruly and dangerous. I need to help get them back on track. Their omega fathers—yes, two—were both into drugs.” She looked up at me, her eyes so very sad. She deserved so much better than the family she had. Of course, you can pick your friends, you can’t pick family.
“So you can’t watch the girls.” My stomach dropped.
“I can this week.”
One week. I had one week to find someone to trust with my girls. One freaking week.
Just once, it would be nice to have things work out as planned.
Chapter Two
Zave Arianda
Just once, it would be nice for something to work out. After a series of debacles career wise, I stood in front of a modest office building, checking the listings for Manny’s Mannies. My sigh came all the way from my toes. The job I’d filled in an online application for was one traditionally held by omegas. In fact, I’d briefly considered fast-food employment before realizing I my record would probably result in some innocent franchise owner closing down. I didn’t actually do anything wrong, but I was starting to wonder if I should pass out rabbit’s feet to all potential future employers.
The disaster in college was absolutely not my fault. I was a scholarship/work study student more than happy to clean the cafeteria kitchen late at night. How was I to know the ketchup someone left outside the back door had a pinhole leak—well, maybe slightly larger. I assumed it had been forgotten when the new supplies were delivered. Or, more likely, some enterprising dishwasher had smuggled it out there to pick up later in one of the many thefts my manager claimed were forcing the price of cheeseburgers to climb. I proudly carried that can into the pantry and set it on the shelf next to all the others.
I did them a favor, saved a full gallon of the red stuff. I thought so, anyway.
But when the breakfast chef needed something from the pantry and stepped in it, so to speak, who would have predicted he’d slide all the way to the stove where he tipped a pan of bacon fat into the fire and...well, let’s just say the damage went far beyond the loss of a can of condiment. And the price of cheeseburgers went up thirty-five cents the next fall. Nobody could prove a connection, but rumor had it they needed to cover the deductible. After that, the school assigned me to a professor as a sort of personal assistant. No fire there.
After graduation, I took my shiny teaching and administrative credentials to a big city school district where I began to pay my dues as a teacher, but while no great disasters occurred, I learned that I had no talent for
teaching. I loved spending time with the kids, but that wasn’t enough to make me the person to educate them.
I then went through a series of jobs where either I had no talent or the business failed, and three years out of school, I was tired, discouraged, and just needed a rest. And I saw an ad on Facebook: Mannies Wanted. Why social media thought I’d be interested in that, I had no idea. And if I hadn’t been drowning my sorrows in a few shots, I probably wouldn’t have done it, but I had.
I’d clicked through...and promptly forgotten about it.
Until my calendar app buzzed with the appointment reminder. And, since the insurance company I’d last worked for had been infested with carpenter ants and was closed for fumigation, I had nothing better to do today. Someone had set aside time just for me, and I wasn’t raised to be rude. At the very least, I’d apologize for wasting their morning.
The agency lobby on the second floor was generic nice. Marble-ish flooring, a few somewhat comfortable sofas, an attractive receptionist, a slender blond man who smiled at me when I entered as if I was the best thing that had happened all day. That smile kept me moving forward.
“Hi, I’m Zave. I have a ten o’clock appointment regarding employment?”
“Yes, sir.” If anything, he beamed wider. This guy must take way too many happy pills. “Manny told me to send you right back. Door at the end of the hallway.”
Manny? The head of the agency himself. Now I did feel like a jerk for taking up the boss’s time. I had to say something, let him know it was a mistake before this went any further. But I heard a buzz, and the door behind and to the left of the receptionist slid back.
A glance at the young man told me he’d already dismissed me, and, with no other option, I moved through the doorway and into a short hall with several offices opening off it. My goal was the set of doubles at the end.
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