by Aiden Bates
“I’m sure you have your ways.”
“And I’m sure they have theirs. But from the looks of things, I’m afraid it appears they’d rather have their way with you, hot stuff.” Mitch sniffed delicately, feigning a wounded pride. “Some men just can’t handle their redheads.”
“Good thing I’m not interested, then,” I said, sipping at my water. It wasn’t booze, but it did its part to wash away the bad taste the idea of being shared by three horny alphas left in my mouth. “Although, that is how you end up like Silas and Teddy, I guess.”
“Only if Silas and Teddy are each secretly seeing two of their husbands’ friends on the side.” Mitch’s eyes narrowed in delight. “Wait, are they?”
I laughed. “Slow down, Gossip Girl. You know they’re not the type.”
“Then what? Happily, monogamously married with a long future full of fat, giggling babies?” Mitch rolled his eyes and raised his glass again before drinking deeply. “Preach, brother. Lord, the humanity.”
“Pregnant, at the very least,” I said. “I mean, give me the right alpha, and obviously just the one…”
Mitch drew back in his chair, his dark red eyebrows shooting up toward his hairline. “Hold up, Benny. You can’t be serious.”
“About what? Getting pregnant?” I cast a quick glance at the gaggle of alphas at the bar, then looked away immediately as they caught me doing it. “I mean, not by them obviously, but I don’t know… Someday it could be nice.”
“Bennet Long, you ridiculous, beautiful idiot. One of these days we’re going to get your priorities in line.” Mitch shook his head mournfully. “And in the meantime, we’re gonna get you some condoms. Believe me—fat, giggling babies are the last thing you want in your life.”
“What’s wrong with fat, giggling babies? Better than…skinny, grumpy ones, at least.”
“Babies at all, Ben. Why would you want one of those anyway?” He huffed, sinking back into his chair to sulk. “Sounds like a lot of work to me.”
“It’s the next step, isn’t it?” I asked with a shrug. “Silas and Teddy are getting on with their lives, babies and husbands and careers and all… It’s not the craziest thing to want, anyway.”
“Grass is always greener,” Mitch grumbled. “Same color your eyes are going to turn if you don’t stop being so jealous, for that matter.”
“I’m not jealous.” I waved the idea away with the back of my hand. “Envious, on the other hand…”
“Envious of their lives or their properly functioning uteruses?” Mitch asked, a dark glimmer in his eyes.
From anyone else, that little jab might have hurt—but coming from Mitch, it was just par for the course. I didn’t mind when he gave me guff about my wounded womb, considering he’d been my knight-in-shining armor when it came to whisking me away from the asshole who’d wounded it. As far as I was concerned, he’d earned the right.
He was just lucky I didn’t return by ribbing him about all those so-called boyfriends he went over to Charlotte to entertain. If I was more like Mitch I might have, but in reality I would’ve just spent the rest of the night feeling bad about it.
“Yeah, well, you know me. When someone tells me I can’t get pregnant, it only makes me want it more, I guess.” Considering the envy I’d been feeling for Silas and Teddy lately, the reminder that the lives they were leading would likely never fall in step with my own… It kind of weighed on me a little.
“Catch-22, isn’t it? The less the possibility of you getting pregnant, the worse you want to be pregnant.” Mitch paused suddenly, his face going a shade paler as he realized the implications of that statement. “Oh, shit. That means I’m going to end up like, hyper-fertile, right?”
“Looks like you’re the one who’s going to be needing those extra condoms, huh?”
Mitch raked his fingers through his hair and wiped a non-existent bead of sweat from his brow. “You’re telling me. My dates can start double-wrapping. Guess we can learn from Silas and Teddy’s mistakes, huh?”
I frowned. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy for Silas, and for Teddy, and if that’s all I get—that vicarious experience with their kids—I’ll be happy with that.”
“But?”
I sighed. “But sometimes I think, you know… It’s a little unfair.” I blinked as I caught what I was saying and turned to Mitch with a firm look in my eyes. “But don’t you ever tell them I said that. The last thing I want is for either of them to feel like I want less for them.”
“Aww. And what do you want for them, Ben?” Mitch asked, his voice playful and teasing as always.
“I want everything for them,” I said genuinely. “Of course I do. It would just be nice to feel as if I can at least think about having it, too.”
“Okay. But think seriously here. Are you really even ready for a baby?” Mitch cocked his head toward the alphas at the bar again. “Because if you are, I bet any one of those guys would be more than happy to shack up with you until your next heat comes on. Wouldn’t even have to ask all that nicely.”
I didn’t need to take another look at the aforementioned alphas to know that was the opposite of what I wanted right now. Given my history with alphas, being in heat around one of them struck enough fear in me to turn my stomach—and thankfully, blow the rising steam of my baby fever away.
My heat wasn’t like the average omega’s heat. It came on twice as suddenly, three times as hard, four times more unpredictably and five times more intense as any other omega’s I’d ever known. Mitch could track his with little more than an app on his phone—but as far as mine was concerned, I might as well have conversed with the moon, charted the stars, sacrificed a goat and read the entrails—and I still wouldn’t have been able to guess when it was going to set in.
And once it did…
I gave Mitch a sad smile. He knew exactly what kind of things could happen to me once my heat really fired up when an alpha was around.
“It’s frustrating, but you’re right, I’m not really ready for a baby. That’s fair.”
“Poor thing.” Mitch patted my cheek sympathetically. “But, you know, if you really wanted to change that, the dating pool is wide open.” He gestured widely with his arms, like a merchant showing off his wares. “Tall alphas, short alphas, bald ones, hairy ones. Or you could go the omega route.”
“No thanks, I’m afraid I don’t swing that way, not like you,” I said with a smirk.
“All I’m saying is, pregnancy or no, there are options out there. Not every alpha is going to be an out-of-control Neanderthal like Chris.”
We both blanched simultaneously at the mention of my ex’s name—like spitting at the first sign of the evil eye.
“Ah, I just don’t know, Mitch—”
“Oh come on, Ben. If a family is really what you want—and god help you if it is—then there’s no reason you shouldn’t have one. Settle down with a nice alpha, foster some kids. Hell, you can even adopt. I mean, is anyone ever really ready for a baby?”
Before I could argue that point, I felt a buzz in my pocket. Not my phone, but my beeper.
“Aw…shoot.” I fished the beeper out, frowning at the way its little screen lit up. “Looks like I’m done for the night. Duty calls.”
“No!” Mitch complained, making a half-hearted slow-mo attempt to grab me and pull me back into my seat as the bar lights went low and the stage lights came up. “But Miss Penny is about to go on. Our bet, remember?”
“If she’s not doing Tina tonight, I owe you one,” I promised with a wink as I slipped away, keeping my head down as I passed the trio of alphas on my way out the door.
In a sense, Mitch was right. I didn’t hate the idea of being with someone. Being with someone meant a shot at the life Silas and Teddy had. A life I sorely wanted. But in order for that to happen, some things about my present life would have to change. Change in big, uncomfortable ways. Ways I really didn’t know if I was ready for yet. If life was a fast-moving river, I was a big, heavy rock stuck
right in the middle of it.
The thing was, being with someone meant letting someone in, which was going to feel like pulling teeth if I ever managed to talk myself into it.
However, I didn’t want to be alone forever. And it was beginning to feel like every year I stayed stuck in the middle of the river was another year where I sank a little deeper into the mud. Mud I’d someday find myself completely buried in.
I drove out to the VA hospital the same careful way I always did. Blinker on ten feet before I had to make a turn. Three second stop at every stop sign along the way. My head might’ve been a mess, but at least my driving was alright—unlike Mitch’s. The last time I’d let him drive he’d treated stop signs more like suggestions and tried to race every red light.
It’d been said before that Mitch was a bad influence on me. It’d probably be said again. But I had to hand it to Mitch—at least he handled change better than he handled my car. Spontaneous, uninhibited and free—there were things I knew I could learn from Mitch. Things that maybe, someday, might actually rub off on me. Just like my past had made me into the cautious, set-in-his-ways omega I’d become since I left Chris, Mitch’s past had made him inherently difficult to pin down.
Sometimes, I thought if science could just combine the two of us, we might actually manage to be one well-adjusted, normal omega. But until then…
Until then, I supposed I had a job to get to. At least throwing myself into work would help me get my mind off my baby panic.
In the locker room at work, I carefully unbuttoned my dusty-blue shirt and shrugged it off as I stepped out of my chinos. Clad in only my underwear I startled as I heard the locker room door swing open, praying like hell it wasn’t one of the alpha doctors ducking in between shifts. Some of them were handsome, sure, but I hadn’t been properly naked in front of an alpha in four years, and given my newfound pregnancy temptations, I didn’t want to start now.
“Hey, Bennet,” Jose said, coming around the corner and leaving me breathing a sigh of relief. Jose was another omega CNA at the hospital, a few inches shorter than me with darker brown hair and a perpetual tan. “Ready for a long night?”
I gave him a sympathetic smile as I noticed the dark circles under his eyes. “Guess I’d better be. I’ve also got another shift bright and early tomorrow. You headed home?”
“Nah, I’m doubling up as well.” Jose sighed, popping open his own locker and grabbing a water bottle from within. “Andrew and Lex were supposed to be in for the night, but if I had to guess…”
I groaned. “Don’t tell me they called in sick again.”
“Stomach flu, apparently.” Jose chuckled with a strained smile. “Which really just means they decided they’d rather spend the night in bed together.”
I shook my head. “Good thing we’re generous enough to cover for them.”
“Generous is one word for it.” Jose rolled his shoulders back, tilting his head side to side and cracking his neck as he closed his locker again. “Meet me up on the third floor when you’ve finished changing? We can figure out how we want to split rounds then.”
“Sounds good.” I gave him a little wave goodbye, then shook out the navy pants of my scrubs.
As I was pulling on the shirt, I heard my phone buzz with a text. Probably Mitch letting me know I’d been right about Miss Penny’s set for the night. But to my surprise, I found Teddy’s name lit up on the screen.
Hey man. You seen my dad yet? Last text he sent sounded a little despondent.
Aww. Think he’s missing you? I smiled at the thought. I knew Teddy and his dad hadn’t always had the best relationship, but maybe being a grandfather had finally softened the Sarge up.
Maybe. He’d never admit it, of course. You mind dropping in on him?
I groaned slightly. Teddy’s dad could be a bit of a hardass, and I highly doubted the Sarge would actually appreciate being checked up on, but I did promise Teddy I’d keep any eye on the old man.
Sure. As soon as I get a chance, I messaged back, then I tucked my phone into the pocket of my scrubs and headed to the sink to wash up in preparation for a long night.
3
Logan
At exactly one minute to five, my eyes shot open. I lay there in bed until my alarm went off sixty seconds later. The soft pillows beneath my head, which had been so comfortable and inviting when I’d lay down on them the night before, no longer held the same kind of seduction. I easily pushed myself up off them without so much as a grumble, and then rolled out of bed.
Push-ups came next. One-hundred even. They came with a few more aches and pains than they had twenty years ago, but other than that, my arms worked just as well as ever. Benefits of keeping a military level of fitness all these years. I might’ve been fifty-five now, but I could still do push-ups like the best of them.
Five-thirty meant breakfast. Wheat toast, hot and fresh from the toaster. Three eggs, poached. Grapefruit, halved, sans sugar. Coffee, black. Not the kind of diet that would make Gordon Ramsay smile in delight, but it’d keep me energized and full until lunch.
At the base, I hit the gym as soon as I parked my truck. Monday meant leg day. Sumo squats with as much weight as I could pile onto the bar. Romanian deadlifts, hip thrusts, lunges and a few walking squats with the medicine ball for good measure. It all left my chest soaked with sweat and my heart pounding with effort, but thankfully, no chest pains to speak of. Not today at least. As I stripped out of my workout kit and hit the showers, I felt like patting myself on the broad muscles of my back.
Still fit, and I sure as hell wasn’t feeling my age or slowing down.
Instead of the pat, I rubbed the low ache of yesterday’s shoulder lifts out of my traps as the water poured over my body, nice and cold. Warm showers were fine for nighttime, but I’d discovered a long time ago that a quick, brisk wash kept me more alert for the day ahead. And with my appointment with Dr. Kent Smith looming overhead that afternoon, I knew I’d need to be up and at ’em on that day more than most.
In uniform and ready to give my new recruits a hard time, I headed over to the barracks at seven for morning inspection, same as always.
“Morning, Sergeant Wheeler.” I gave Wheeler a once-over, pleased to see he’d managed to find an iron that morning, then a nod. “At ease. Let’s see if your men have figured out how to make their beds yet.”
“Here’s hoping, Sergeant.” Wheeler dropped out of his salute, but then looked a little worried as we crossed through the barracks. Maybe Ross had managed to put the fear of god in the man after all.
The beds, as I suspected, still needed work. Under Sergeant Carpenter, the bunks would’ve been made up so tight I could’ve bounced a fifty-cent piece off of their blankets and found it leaping back up into my hand, but Wheeler wasn’t nearly as demanding as Teddy’s husband had been.
“Disappointing,” I commented, flipping Private Beckett’s lumpy blanket back to reveal still-rumbled sheets beneath. “And sloppy. Private Beckett, do you have anything to say for yourself?”
“I’m s-sorry, s-sir,” Beckett stuttered, sweating bullets as he stood at stiff attention at the corner of the bed. “I’d never made a bed before I enlisted, and—”
“Never made a bed?” I shot Wheeler a dubious look. “That’s a shame, Private. Did your mommy make it for you, or were you just living in your own mess back home?”
A few snickers sounded from two beds down, but I silenced those with a sharp look.
“My, uh. My m-mother made it for me, Sergeant,” Beckett stammered. “But—”
I shook my head. “Is your mother here with you now, Private?”
“W-well, no, Sergeant, but—”
“And do I look like your mother?”
Beckett’s face went white. “Absolutely not, Sergeant.”
“What about Sergeant Wheeler? Does he?”
Beckett cast a sidelong glance at Wheeler, then swallowed hard and drew his lips into a thin line. “Only in the eyes, Sergeant.”
Whee
ler’s brow furrowed as the rest of the recruits joined in a roar of laughter—confirming what I suspected. He might have been their Drill Sergeant, but they didn’t respect him. Not yet, at least.
He’d have to change that awful quickly if he ever intended to get them through the remainder of bootcamp.
“Despite the resemblance, Beckett, I can assure you I am not, in fact, your mother—nor will I be making your bed. Strip them down and do them again! All of you!” Wheeler barked, his voice carrying throughout the barrack. “And since we’re all in agreement that Private Beckett here is quite the comedian, let’s see how funny we find him after another five miles when you’re done.”
The laughter died off quickly, shifting into groans as the recruits shucked their beds of their sheets. While they busied themselves with remaking their beds, I gave Wheeler an unsympathetic shrug.
“They wouldn’t laugh at you if you hadn’t started out so soft on them,” I said, quiet enough only he could hear. “Those five miles will do them good.”
Wheeler nodded with grim acceptance. “I’m beginning to realize.”
The rest of the morning passed like clockwork, which didn’t stop me from checking my watch every half hour anyway. The impending doctor’s visit that afternoon was a break in my routine that I was looking forward to like a lobotomy. If everything went well, things would be back to business as usual—with a clean bill of health to smack down on Ross’s desk to boot. But if things went poorly…
Well, I didn’t exactly want to think about that.
The chairs in the waiting room at the VA were hard and unwelcoming. Obviously meant to be a deterrent from making a visit at all. I sat in mine in silence, unshifting and unmoving. No matter how uncomfortable they were, I had to hand it to Uncle Sam—they were still more comfortable than and an overseas deployment.
As I waited to hear my name called, I realized I would rather have shipped back out to the Middle East all over again than go through that office door. Sunburn, dry-mouth, cracked heels and dust storms were all preferable to having Dr. Smith put his stethoscope to my chest and dish out bad news. As far as I was concerned, I was a healthy man. Tip top shape. But there was still a good chance Dr. Smith might issue the verdict that my heart wasn’t up to scratch.
