by Aiden Bates
When I got to his apartment, a slip of yellow paper caught my eye. It was from the same notebook Teddy used for all his calculations when an idea struck him at home.
Ro-
Had to get out. Meet me at The Bronze for dinner. It’s easier that way.
X
Teddy
Well, I hadn’t expected a night out. I’d figured Teddy would demand pancakes or omelets or French toast. For the last few weeks, Teddy had been working non-stop on his simulation program, but I guess he’d gotten a little stir-crazy. Even geniuses needed a break sometimes. I’d grabbed a shower on base before I left for the day, so it really was just a matter of throwing on something that looked presentable. Teddy, bless him, had taken to gathering together the pieces of my clothing that looked good with one another, so I found a jacket and a dark pair of jeans hanging right above my best pair of boots and threw it all on without thinking twice.
When I got to the restaurant I saw Teddy sitting on one of the benches waiting to be seated. I didn’t think I’d ever get used to the smile he gave me every time his eyes found mine in a crowd. I took his hand and followed the host to our seats at the windows. Before Teddy could sit down I pulled him closer to me and gave him a short kiss.
“Hi, sweetheart,” I murmured.
“Hi.” Teddy ran his fingers along my jaw, the touch so soft and sweet I couldn’t help but pull him in for another kiss. He sighed against my lips, and then gently drew back, his eyes sparkling in the candle lit room.
I pulled out Teddy’s chair, and then settled into my own, and the second I did so the waiter came with a bottle of champagne.
“Oh, sorry. We don’t need that. He’s pregnant, so, no alcohol,” I said, giving a firm nod to Teddy. “For either of us. You know, solidarity.”
The waiter at first acted as though he hadn’t heard me at all. “I insist, sir. It’s such a good vintage, and it’s on the house.”
He went to rip the foil off the cork and I held out my hand to stop him. “Look, buddy, I appreciate that, but I said no—”
“Roman, just leave it. Please?” Teddy seemed fidgety all of a sudden. Nervous.
“But I don’t—”
“Roman, it’s a thing. Okay? Just leave it.”
I was confused. I didn’t really see why Teddy was pushing back.
“But I promised I wasn’t going to drink while you were pregnant.” I became aware that the waiter was still there, lingering. I sighed.
“Leave the bottle,” I said before looking back over at Teddy, who was now flushing. “We can just, I don’t know, give it to Silas and Garret or something. They’ve got an anniversary coming up in what…a couple of months?”
Teddy rolled his eyes and swore under his breath. I heard, at the same time, laughter from the table behind us. Then it seemed like the whole restaurant was laughing. I looked around before again glancing at Teddy.
Teddy reached over and picked up the glass sitting in front of me, rattling it at me. There was something inside. Rings? Two rings. Why were there rings?
My lips parted slightly and my brow furrowed. And before I could even tell Teddy I didn’t understand what was happening, Teddy was fishing them out of the empty glass before standing up, coming to me, and descending to his knee.
My jaw had to have dropped as things finally clicked together.
“Roman Carpenter, I fell in love with you when we were just kids, and I was lucky enough to fall in love again with the man you are now. You’re so good, so honest. You help my world make sense. I don’t deserve you, but do you think you could marry me anyway?”
I was an idiot. I’ve said it before, but it bore repeating. I was an idiot. Teddy had planned this whole thing for us. Still, it felt strange.
“But, I don’t—I’m the alpha. I’m supposed to—”
“Good god, Roman,” Teddy said, exasperation bleeding through. “Just say yes?”
Oh. Right. Teddy had asked me a question. The question. I felt all the tension leave my body. This part was easy.
“Yes, sir.”
I was startled when the whole room burst out in cheers and applause. I heard a wolf whistle and there was… Garret? And Silas and Bennet and Marcos and Charlie, and everyone. Everyone in the room was someone we knew, the people Teddy and I cared about most.
Suddenly, there was music, and I was still in a daze when everything seemed to shift from restaurant to…engagement party?
“You went to all this trouble,” I said in awe.
Teddy smiled. “And you almost blew the whole thing to smithereens.”
“Yeah, sorry about that. It’s just, all this? For me? For us?”
Teddy took my hand. “Of course, Ro. We fought like hell for us. I thought about it and realized for once your approach to things might be more appropriate.”
“Oh? And what approach is that?”
“Flying by the seat of my pants,” Teddy responded.
I was still in the middle of laughing and kissing him when I heard someone clear their throat from behind me. Teddy saw who it was first and pulled back a little. I looked. Logan. He looked…stern. Jesus, he always looked stern, so that wasn’t any help in gaging his response. He took my hand firmly and shook it, dark eyes still trying to bore holes into my own. But as the handshake ended he leaned in and put his hand on my shoulder.
“Welcome to the family, son. Don’t fuck it up.”
“I don’t intend to, sir. Not if it kills me.” That answer seemed to please Logan, and he turned from me to give Teddy a hug before melting back into the flow of folks coming up to speak with us.
Teddy reached for the bottle on our table, popping the cork and pouring two glasses of champagne. Then to my surprise he downed the whole glass in one long gulp before handing me mine.
“What the hell are you doing?” I asked. I’d been to every single one of those appointments with Teddy’s doctor, and I could just about recite backward and forward what things he was allowed to eat and drink and what things were decidedly off-limits. Teddy was a smart man. I knew he had heard just as well as I did what rule number one was.
“Relax. You look like you’re about to pop a gasket. Taste. It’s sparkling grape juice.”
I took a sip and realized he was telling the truth.
“Jeez, can you stop with the surprises tonight? I’m gonna fall dead from the stress of it soon.”
Teddy just laughed.
“I’m sorry I’m such an idiot sometimes.”
Teddy shook his head. “I love you, Roman. For your heart and everything else.”
“Well, the way I figure, I just gotta work at everything else ten times harder to make up for it. I promise I will.”
Teddy’s smile could have lit up the night. “I know you will.”
28
Teddy
“Dude, stop! Stop!” Naomi cried, as she looked, with mounting concern, between the screen of her laptop and me.
From inside the kitchen and around the Christmas tree, Roman peeked at us curiously.
It was the middle of December and for months now, Naomi and I had set up camp in what used to be my breakfast table, which I’d turned into a sort of home office. Our after-work Piggy Bank meetups had been replaced with home office visits here at my apartment. We’d made good progress on the simulator, and with Naomi’s help we’d moved faster than I’d ever thought possible. We were only a few lines of code away, we only had a few more demos to run, a few more bugs to troubleshoot before we were ready to turn in our software. It was a good thing, too. Since Lovelace’s worker-collective had unanimously and permanently given themselves the holidays off, the deadline to submit all projects at Lovelace was the night before Christmas Eve, and the deadline was laboriously approaching.
Just as laboriously as my contractions, which were quickly growing in frequency.
“Holy shit, what’s he doing?” Roman asked no one in particular, stepping out fully from behind the Christmas tree and jogging over to where I sat at the coffee
table opposite the very concerned Naomi.
Without looking up at him, I raised one of my arms in the air and swatted to warn him away. My other arm remained rested on the table while my fingers typed away furiously at the keys of my laptop keyboard.
“Leave me alone, Roman. I’m fine. I’m fine, Naomi. I’m fine. Let’s, oh, god”—I groaned through gritted teeth—“Jesus. Let’s just finish. Let’s get it done.”
Were they fucking kidding me? All the preliminary talks with Lovelace made them seem very interested in me and my project, and they had even offered of their own accord to let me telecommute.
From Montana.
Because of the baby. And my alpha’s job.
“Yeah, it’s the twenty-first century,” the omega I’d spoken to had said matter-of-factly. “Like, half of us telecommute. It’s no big deal.”
Like fuck, I wasn’t finishing this code. This code was coming and there was no stopping it.
“Theodore…” Roman warned, but once again I continue typing one-handed while I menaced him with my other hand. Naomi said nothing, but just looked pale and aghast as the furious scene unfolded before her.
“Teddy, please just go to the hospital. You’re sweating onto the keyboard and I can really finish this by myself. Please just g—”
“I. Am. Finishing. This. Now,” I growled between the deep breaths I’d practiced in Lamaze classes.
“Alright, just you wait, you goddamn, stubborn omega. You’ll listen to me one way or the other. Watch,” Roman muttered disapprovingly as he pulled out his cell phone from his back pocket.
He made a show of thumbing through his contacts but I barely threw a glance his way, I was so determined to finish this. I kept on clicking on my laptop and kept my eyes glued to the screen until I heard Roman speak again.
“Master Sarge? Sir, yes, sir. It’s me, sir. Yes, sir. Here and now, sir. It’s happening, sir. No, sir, he’s refusing to follow orders. He says he’s finishing his code. Yes, sir, I’ll tell them. Yes, sir, we’ll meet you there. Thank you, sir.”
Roman hung up, and I once again tore my eyes away for only a moment to make sure he’d hung up before returning to my task.
“Dirty…dirty trick, Carpenter. Dirty trick,” I said, accusingly.
“Teddy, please. Jesus,” Naomi pleaded with me as Roman retreated into my bedroom. Our bedroom, now. As he left our field of view, he called over his shoulder at me.
“Your daddy’s gonna meet us at the hospital. He’s calling your papa, but he’s not sure if he’s going to make it today. It’s probably going to be a few days. That aside, you’ve got until I get the bags ready and then you’re getting in the car, Teddy. I’m not joking.”
Roman sounded remarkably calm for what was going on, and definitely sounded calm in comparison to how I was feeling. Granted, my body was spasming in preparation to expel an eight or nine-pound person, so I didn’t exactly think I was overreacting, but when Roman was this deadly calm, he usually meant every word he said. He was honestly likely to pick me up over his shoulder and force me downstairs.
The thought of being literally ripped away from my computer only impelled me to work harder.
“Alright, Teddy…” Roman re-emerged laden with all kinds of suitcases and bags and satchels. He was a vision in his gray hoodie, as one arm supported a tasteful, forest-green polyester bag tipped with brown leather handles, and the other arm balanced a bag printed with baby lion cubs.
I would have laughed at him had I not felt as close to dying as I had ever felt before.
“Time to go, sweetheart,” Roman said, pausing to see if I showed any intention of listening to him.
It’s like he didn’t even know me, even after all this time.
“You probably want to load those into the car, Ro. What if I fall and you don’t catch me because your arms are full. Load them, then come back up for me, and then we’ll go,” I said reasonably.
Roman sighed and almost audibly rolled his eyes while I smirked at Naomi, overcome with pride at my adrenaline-fueled plan to stall for more time.
“How are you that smart and that stupid at the same time?” Naomi asked in all seriousness, but I barely heard the question.
I merely typed.
While we waited for Roman to come back up, Naomi made a noise like she was going to say something.
“I’m going! I’m going!” I yelled, cutting her off pre-emptively. “I’m fucking going, but before I go, I’m finishing this fucking demo because once this baby is out of me, I’m going to have lost my goddamn mind, and I’m going to forget everything and there’s no way I’m letting you finish it all by yourself, and there’s no way my brain will be back online by the deadline, so I’m finishing this—”
“I’m back,” Roman announced while I ranted in Naomi’s general direction.
He was coming closer, and I was trying to focus on my screen, but every few seconds I’d look up. Each time I’d look up, Roman had gained ground from the doorway to where I sat at the breakfast table.
I only typed more furiously as he approached me, preparing to be physically lifted out of my chair once Roman lost patience with my excuses.
“Say, do you think the baby’s going to be good at computer stuff like you are?” Roman asked as he stooped to gather my messenger bag. He began to stuff papers, notebooks, USB drives, and whatever else he could find that looked like my work-stuff, into it.
Bless him. Bless that beautiful man.
“Maybe if you stall long enough, she can come out and you can catch her up to speed. Maybe she can help you. We can get her a tiny, baby laptop,” Roman muttered as he moved about the room and cleared off most of the contents of the table and dumped it into my bag. “Fixing to have to deliver Lima Bean on her daddy’s table where he eats breakfast, I swear…”
“At least she’ll come with a pre-programmed sense of work ethic,” I said weakly.
I felt myself breaking out into a cold sweat, and I could almost feel my heart hammer against the inside of my ribs, but I pushed myself. I continued pushing myself. Suddenly, I realized I’d been pushing literally and not just metaphorically. A particularly heinous contraction ripped through the lower half of my body and left me clammy, pale, and gasping for air.
I shut my eyes against the pain as I heard my fingers finally stop their insistent clicking. Jesus. Jesus, this was happening. This was happening now.
“Okay!” Roman said, faux-brightly. “Time to go, Teddy Bear!”
With that I felt enormous, warm, wondrous hands bodily lifting me out of my chair and resting me against something hard and warm; a flat surface that seemed to breathe steadily enough that I could time breathing to it if I tried.
I opened my eyes and realized Roman was balancing me against his muscular chest while he maneuvered his arms around me to pack my laptop for me.
“You’re going to be a great dad!” I slurred into his chest, dizzy from the pain all of a sudden.
“You’re fixing to a be a great dad any minute now. Come on, you.” He slung the satchel over one shoulder and thrust an arm beneath my armpits.
Distantly, I heard the resumption of the clicking noise as Roman and I struggled through the living room.
“Ain’t you coming?” I felt Roman’s words rumble in his chest.
“I’m this close,” Naomi’s voice answered. “I’ll meet you there.”
“Jesus, they’re all the same,” Roman drawled as we made it through our door and prepared to tackle the steps.
Before I knew it, I was lowered gently into the car seat and strapped in. I only ventured my eyes open when I felt something flat slide into my lap. Roman was already jogging his way around the car and to the driver’s seat when I realized he’d tucked my laptop into the minimal amount of space my belly left on my lap.
“You get ten minutes, boy. Better code fast,” Roman yelled, pulling us out of the driveway and into the street as I blessed his name for the third time today and allowed my fingers to continue typing almos
t of their own volition.
I was struck by an almost religious, divine inspiration. Perhaps Jason looked down and saw me in my time of need and gifted me with the speed and clarity I needed. Or maybe the sheer amount of adrenaline, dopamine, and oxytocin coursing through my veins combined to form a powerful nootropic. Whatever it was, I leaned my head back and closed my eyes. I didn’t even look to see what I was typing. In my mind, I could see it, the finish line, the climax, the culmination of everything, just within reach. Just there, within my grasp, if I could only hold my hands steady enough to reach out and take it. It was my future, my family’s future, the legacy I would leave to my child and the promise I’d made to honor my brother. It was my destiny. It was my reason for having been…
“Goddamnit, Teddy. You weigh a whale and a half. Help me get you out of the goddamn car!”
My eyes snapped open. Roman was cussing and hissing like a wounded tomcat but my eyes were frantically scanning to make sure I hadn’t been writing nonsense in my delirium.
Nope, nope, nope. Nope, this all looked good. This all looked great. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. It looked better than good.
It looked done.
The repository committed, and my life’s work possibly completed, I closed the laptop lid as gently as I could and set it in the driver’s seat before I allowed Roman to transfer me out of the car and into a wheelchair.
I don’t remember too much about the rest of the evening, but I do remember waving as I was wheeled to the delivery room. Waving to patients and staff down the hallway as though I were a beauty queen on some type of parade float.
I’d finished it! I’d done it! I was the first omega in the history of omegadom to have it all! I was achieving work-life balance! I was literally having both a family and a career right the hell now! I was an inspiration, surely.
“Who in the hell is he waving at?” I heard Roman yell distantly, and then I remember little else.
I’d heard women and omegas debate back and forth over the importance of a natural birth versus the liberation modern medicine afforded us in the form of painkillers. Whatever changes started molding me into a parent and a husband, I don’t think I would ever come to agree with the former. I took the painkillers, and though I vaguely remember pushing, I wasn’t fully aware until I felt the first warm touch of my baby girl laid directly onto my chest.
