by Aiden Bates
After a couple of weeks, Mal approached him on a Friday evening. "Listen, Nick, I know this is kind of short notice, and I don't know if you've got plans for the weekend. My husband, Trent, is coming back from deployment tonight. I want to have a little get together with his unit at the condo to celebrate. It's nothing big, just a little gathering, but if you and your son wanted to stop by that would be nice." He blushed. "I don't know many people in the area, just them, really."
Nick had to smile. "I don't know anyone, other than you and the girls. So I'd be honored."
The party was set for Sunday. Nick and Sammy didn't so much dress up as clean up. A little get together at a condo for a bunch of SEALs didn't sound like a terribly formal affair, and ten-year-old boys pretty much never did formal anyway.
The party was just getting underway when they showed up. Mal was obviously there, accompanied by a beautiful red-headed infant and a tall, handsome SEAL he introduced as Trent. There were a few other men there, all identified as SEALs, and Nick couldn't keep track of all of their names. All he knew was they were all perfectly nice and breathtakingly gorgeous.
"Is there a requirement that SEALs have to be hot?" he whispered to Mal, as they brought another round of beers out to the guys in the backyard.
"I'm not sure. I think there must be for this unit at least. They're not even all here yet." Mal looked so much more relaxed now that he was with his husband.
Nick would have been lying if he said he wasn't jealous.
The SEALs kept coming. Nick appreciated their beauty, until one came to the door Nick would never have forgotten.
Tom had gotten older since they'd been kids, but he still looked like Tom. His muscles had filled out, and his tight tee shirt made sure everyone around knew it too. His dog tags bounced between his pectorals like a decoration, and he laughed and joked with his friends.
Nick ran through a whole gamut of emotions. He wanted to run up and punch Tom right in that square jaw of his for having left the way he did. He wanted to throw his arms around that narrow waist and beg to know what he'd done wrong. Most of him wanted to grab Sammy and run, take him as far away from Tom and Portsmouth and Virginia as his feet could carry them.
Tom's easy grin disappeared when he saw Nick. "You have got to be shitting me." He curled his lip. "You have got a lot of balls showing your face anywhere near me."
"Me?" Any urge Nick might have had to seek forgiveness, or anything else, from Tom disappeared. "You think I sought you out? Eleven years and you think I sought you out? You can go straight to Hell, Tom Fitzpatrick."
Trent, Mal's husband, stepped in between them. "Hey. Listen. I don't know what's going on here, but this is supposed to be a happy occasion." He turned to Tom. "Can we maybe be civil? Maybe you and I can go out back?"
"I ain't staying where he is." Tom turned on his heel.
"Run like you always did." Nick grabbed Sammy's hand. "Come on, sweetie. I don't want to be within ten miles of that deadbeat."
"Aw, you've got a kid. Where's the dad? Some scumbag you met in a bar?" Tom turned his back. "I always knew you were a tramp."
Nick snapped. He dropped Sammy's hand, shoved his way past Trent, and punched Tom in the face. "That child is your goddamn son. When you left, you son of a bitch, you know you left me pregnant. You're a deadbeat and a piece of shit, Tom Fitzpatrick. You don't deserve these good people, and you sure as hell don't deserve whatever nice family you built after us." He grabbed the now-gaping Sammy and left.
Sammy didn't speak a word until they got on the road. "That was my father?"
Nick gripped the steering wheel. "Yeah, Son. It was."
Sammy considered that as he stared out the window. Then he sighed. "Wow, Dad. You have awful taste in guys."
~
Tom stared at the door that slammed behind his high school boyfriend. No one moved. No one spoke for a good five minutes. Then Lupo turned to him. "Dude. You have just used up your entire drama allowance for the next ten years."
"Are you kidding?" Tinker grabbed a bowl of popcorn off the coffee table and tossed a piece up into the air. "That's, like, telenovela level stuff. I'll be living on this for weeks, and the best part is I won't need a dictionary. At all!"
Tom flipped him off. "This is my life, you know."
"And your kid, you know." Mal glared at him.
Tom waved a hand. "You don't believe that shit, do you? If he'd been pregnant, don't you think he'd have told me? Or someone? Gotten word to me somehow? It's bullshit, it's all bullshit. There's no kid, no nothing." He rubbed at his face.
"Wow." Iniguez stood up and went to the galley kitchen. "You did see the kid, right? Because he looks just like you."
"He looks just like you," Hopper drawled, "and then he saw you call his dad a 'tramp.' Who says tramp anymore, Fitzpatrick? What year is this, 1926?"
Trent shook his head. "Don't you want to be sure? They're right. The kid does look just like you. Go find him, and get a DNA test. That should be enough to tell you everything you need to know."
"Get a lawyer too." Baudin lifted his head up. "Get the lawyer to go about getting the DNA. Don't interact with the guy directly. It's not worth it. You obviously don't like him very much, and he's obviously not your biggest fan either. Just go through a lawyer, and everything should be easier."
Mal stood up. He was still cradling that baby of his. No one would ever doubt whose kid that was. He had Mal's hair, but Trent's complexion and nose. "I do feel I need to stand up for my friend," he said in an icy tone. "And for a fellow omega. Do you honestly believe he'd have put himself through the misery of being a single parent in the Bible Belt for the pleasure of it? And do you think he's got the cash to hire a lawyer?"
"Then he should have thought of that before he started throwing around accusations." Baudin stood up too. "People love to accuse SEALs of being the father. They'd love to get a piece of our death benefits for their brats."
"Trust me, Baudin. He didn't come here looking to get stuck with a tie to one of you." Mal's voice dripped contempt, and he turned around to look at the rest of them. "And wouldn't he have been a little friendlier if that were his strategy? But no. You hate omegas so much you think we're all just out to trap a SEAL into some kind of union, looking to get our hands on your bennies."
Baudin sneered. "Aren't you?" He gestured to the condo.
Tom had to speak up here. "That's enough, Baudin. If you want to talk shit about Kelly's husband, don't pretend you're defending me while you do it." He stuck his hands in his pocket. "I will get a lawyer. That's a good idea, but this thing you've got going on where you just hate on omegas? You need counseling."
He left the party before he could see Trent and Baudin get into it. Or worse, before he could see Baudin and Mal get into it. Mal wasn't a joke when it came to fighting, and he wouldn't feel compelled to fight clean either. Kelly and Baudin had the brotherly bond, not Mal.
He started looking for a lawyer as soon as he got home. It took a few days to find one, thanks to the wonderful game of phone tag, but he finally did. Darrell Green was willing to take on his case for what seemed like a reasonable sum. "It shouldn't even be that hard. If he's looking for child support, he should be willing enough to prove paternity."
Green called him the next day. "Actually, this might be more complicated than I thought. Mr. Kosloski has secured an attorney, and a damn fine one too. His response, through said attorney, was to tell you to go to hell. He says he doesn't want child support. The child in question says he doesn't want contact with you, and Mr. Kosloski says he's going before a judge to prevent any contact between you and him or you and the child."
Tom gaped. "That's…that doesn't make any sense. Why would he do that?"
Green sighed. "I don't know what happened between the two of you, and I haven't spoken to Mr. Kosloski directly. You told me you never heard from him after your little…incident…back in Bow String. Maybe there's more to the story. If he's telling the truth, and if you are the father —"
"Then he damn well should have let me know!" Tom punched the wall behind him. It hurt. He didn't think he'd broken the knuckle, though.
"Well, based on what you've told me, there might not have been time. Think about this, Mr. Fitzpatrick. Think about whether or not there are other sides to this story, other ways that this could have played out other than the way it did in your head. See if there's anyone who might be willing to help facilitate a conversation."
Tom gritted his teeth. "I'll take that under advisement. Thank you."
He approached Trent at base the next day. "Have you seen Baudin?"
Trent squirmed. "It was an accident. I swear."
Tom stared at him.
"Okay, it wasn't an accident. Baudin threw the first punch. He'll be back in six to eight weeks, depending on how the arm heals, and he owes me for every piece of glassware we had to replace." Trent sighed. "They had to take him to someplace that wasn't Portsmouth, too, because no one in the ER would treat him."
Tom covered his face with his hands. "That's because of me."
Trent gave him a hard look. "It's because Baudin had a bad breakup and because his parents tried to make him pretend to be an omega. Okay? This isn't your fault." He sighed. "What's going on?"
Tom rubbed at the back of his neck. "I was kind of hoping Mal could help me out with something."
Trent let out a whistle. "You don't ask for much, do you?"
Tom grinned. "If anyone's going to be able to do it, it's Mal. Come on." He fussed with his keys. "So I got a lawyer and tried to get a blood test from the kid, but it turns out Nick already got a lawyer."
"Yeah, I know. Mal paid for it."
"How?" Tom shook his head. "That's one of those things we probably don't want to know about. Anyway, Nick says he doesn't want child support and he doesn't want contact with me. The kid says he doesn't want me either. I just want to know what he does want if he says I'm the father."
Trent pursed his lips and looked away. "I don't think he wants anything, man. Did he know you were even around here?"
"I don't know. He must have!"
"Or not. I'll talk to Mal, see if he'll talk to you. But I'm pretty sure his decision to come here had nothing at all to do with you." He grinned. "Believe it or not, after ten or eleven years, omegas' lives don't usually revolve around their high school sweethearts anymore."
Tom had to laugh at himself. "Okay, point, but something's just not making sense here. I have to get to the bottom of it."
Mal agreed to meet him at a local bar the next night with Trent in tow. He was still in his scrubs and didn't look thrilled about the meet up. "Danny's with your uncles," he told Trent as he took a seat.
They ordered a round of drinks and a plate of appetizers. "It's been a long day," he said. "There was a training accident at the Naval Station, and it was ugly." He pressed his lips together and turned his dark eyes over to Tom. "Well? What is it you wanted to talk about?"
It was an underwhelming invitation, but it was still an invitation. "Something's not adding up," he said. "I'm going to tell you something pretty confidential." He glanced at Trent, who mimed zipping his lip before he continued. “There was an incident in high school, my senior year. I didn't do it, but I was around when it happened. The local sheriff thought it was easier to blame it on the 'queer kid' than the mayor's son. I had the choice to either join the Navy or get prosecuted for a crime I didn't commit.
"I was basically run out of town on a rail. I never heard from anyone in town again, outside of my own family I mean. I had been dating Nick, but he dropped me like a rock too." He took a deep breath. "The other day was the first time I'd seen anyone from those days. I haven't been back. I can't. I'll be arrested." He gripped his fork hard enough to bend it. "He should have fucking told me."
"He fucking tried to tell you. As far as he's concerned, you just disappeared. He doesn't think you're capable of what they said you did. He believed in you. But he did call up your parents. He told them he was pregnant, and that you were the father."
"Bullshit." Tom smacked his hand on the table. "I'd have paid for that kid. I'd have supported him. I'd have married Nick."
"Well, obviously you need to talk to someone, and yell at someone who isn't Nick about it. Your mother told Nick he was a whore. Nick's mum said the same thing, more or less, and kicked him out. He had been intending to go to college for English, but that went away. He bounced from lousy job to lousy job, until he could afford a part time nursing program. He's finally got his BSN, and Portsmouth hired him. That's why he's here. It's nothing to do with you.”
"He'd leave, but he can't afford it. Now he's in an absolute panic, because you called him a tramp in front of his kid — the one you gave him — and you came around demanding blood tests. It's been a hard, harsh life for him." He grabbed Trent's hand and squeezed it. "He loves that son of his, though. Sammy's a good kid. Strong. Smart. Good at maths. He'll go far. He wants to be a scientist."
Tom thought his throat might be closing. "I can't believe my parents would do something like that to me."
Mal sipped from his drink. "This is a good drink. What is it, the Bee's Knees? Fitzpatrick, look. What happened with you and your parents, that's not my business. To put it bluntly, I don't care. It's not my problem. I hope you can resolve it. My concern is my colleague and friend, and his son." He sat back and smiled.
Tom swallowed. "Fair enough. Do you think there's any hope he'd be willing to talk?"
"I'm pretty sure he doesn't want that."
"What does he want?"
"He's just barely got on his feet, Tom." Mal tilted his head, just a little. It gave him a softer look. "He wants to be left alone."
"I don't know if I can do that. If that's my son, I need to be responsible." Tom ran his tongue along his teeth, trying to think of the right way to phrase what was on his mind. "They shouldn't have had to struggle, or at least not alone. I can't change the past, but I can do the right thing now."
End of Book 1 – Please Read This
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Acknowledgements
Without these amazing people the book would not be the book it is today, Thank you so much!
Ron-Michael
Kristen
C Mitchell
Cindra
Zoe Mogensen
María Real
SEALing His Fate
Aiden Bates
© 2017
Disclaimer
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.
This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters and events are all fictitious for the reader’s pleasure. Any similarities to real people, places, events, living or dead are all coincidental.
This book contains sexually explicit content that is intended for ADULTS ONLY (+18).
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