Heaven's Ballroom

by Aiden Bates

  I took a step back, gritting my teeth again. At this rate, I was going to need fucking dentures—or maybe just a new coping mechanism.

  “It is,” I said abruptly. “I’ll take the stairs.”

  “Max—wait, no!” His hand shot out toward me, fingers curling around my elbow. He trotted along after me as I made my way toward the stairwell. When I got to the door, he pressed me against it with his hips, desperation in his eyes.

  “We’re not doing this, Ethan.” I pulled my shoulders back and put my hand to his chest, pushing him away.

  “That Omega you were with at the gala the other night—he’s really pregnant?”

  I took a breath. “He is.”

  “I…I didn’t realize that’s what you wanted.” Ethan fluttered his eyelashes up at me. A few months ago, that might have worked on me. It didn’t anymore. “Max, if you would’ve just told me you wanted to become a father…”

  The elevator dinged behind us, the doors finally opening. I wished to God they would’ve come a minute earlier. Might have spared me this bullshit with my cheating ex.

  “I didn’t,” I found myself spitting at him. How could he possibly understand? Things with Riley hadn’t been planned. They hadn’t been some scheme on Riley’s part to entrap me—or on mine to draw him in. It had all been happenstance. Fate.

  Someone like Ethan never would’ve gotten that. He saw fate in every man with a bulge in his pocket—and whether it was a hard cock or a fat wallet waiting for him there, he didn’t seem to mind.

  “In that case…leave him, Max. Come back to me. I missed you. I want you. If you never wanted to be a father, why not—”

  “Your elevator’s leaving.” I nodded to the doors, hoping that Ethan would catch my drift. Get the fuck out of my office building. Out of my life. For good, this time.

  But as the doors closed, I saw a glimpse of a face between them. It was twisted in heartache, like someone had just killed its dreams before their tear-filled eyes.

  Eyes the color of scotch—the expensive kind, pooled in a crystal decanter and held up to the sunlight.

  Riley.

  Fuck.

  “Get the fuck off of me.” I shoved Ethan away, ignoring the hurt in his own eyes as I did it. That wasn’t a hurt I cared about anymore. It was fake—fucking bologna. Any tears he cried were only the crocodile kind.

  I took the stairs two at a time on the way down, then three at a time, then jumping from the fifth step all the way down to the landing. Anything to beat Riley to the lobby. To pull him into my arms before the elevator hit the ground floor.

  But I was on the eighth, and the elevator in our building was faster than any feats of speed on my part. When I got to ground, the elevator was already filling up with men wielding briefcases and wearing suits. The lobby was empty.

  Riley was already gone.

  13

  Riley

  My heart had lodged itself into my windpipe. It was beating against the back of my tongue like a drummer who’d just traded his sticks for rubber mallets.

  “Max, if you would’ve just told me you wanted to become a father…”

  “I didn’t.”

  I clutched the paper bag I’d carried from Max’s apartment all the way to his office so tight in my fist that I could feel the paper begin to tear as I trudged through the sea of business suits and overcoats out on the street.

  “Spare a dollar?” a homeless man asked me from his place on the sidewalk.

  I stopped, patting my pockets down for spare change that I didn’t have, then placed the bag into his lap. I hoped he liked turkey and Swiss on rye. I’d even used the fancy mustard that Max liked, fat load of good it did me now.

  It was a half hour walk back to my place, but at the pace I was going, I’d make it in twenty minutes. Ten if I ran—and I wanted to run. The streets went by in sidewalk cracks and dress shoes. I kept my eyes to the ground as I walked. I didn’t look back.

  Max and I had never given a name to what we had. Not “boyfriends”. Not even “lovers”. But he’d taken me into his home. He’d told me that he’d keep me safe. Just three nights ago, he’d told me that he loved me—and naturally, my naive ass had gone and believed him.

  “…you wanted to become a father…”

  “I didn’t.”

  I couldn’t decide what hurt worse. Seeing him with that other Omega, their bodies so close they might as well have been fucking, or hearing those words from Max’s mouth. This was the situation with Kevin all over again—but this time, I’d dragged a baby into the drama.

  This time, I had all the evidence I needed to know what was going on behind my back.

  Thankfully, there was no Kevin outside my apartment. Damon and Anders had boarded up the window that Kevin had broken, and someone—I had a strong suspicion of who—had spray painted prude across the front steps—but at least I felt safe as I came through the door.

  “Riley?” Damon’s eyes rose to me the moment I walked in. The whole place smelled like garlic, basil and onions. He placed the lid back on a pot on the stove as I stood in the doorway, blinking away tears.

  “That…that smells good,” I said, sniffing.

  “Bolognese sauce,” he said dismissively. “What’s wrong?”

  I ran my fingers through my hair in frustration as I closed the door behind me. “How do you know when someone’s cheating?”

  Damon blinked. “Ry…god, please don’t tell me you’re trying to get back with Kevin again. What happened to Max?”

  I shook my head. “Max is the problem. How do you know?”

  The bathroom door creaked open as Anders exited with a cloud of steam, wrapped—barely—in what was meant to be a hand towel.

  “Know what?” he asked, raising an eyebrow with interest.

  “Cheating.” I bit my lip. “What are the signs?”

  Anders shrugged. “It’s not hard to spot it, really. Strange phone calls late at night—”

  “Seeing gifts in his briefcase, then never receiving them,” Damon added.

  “Cologne on his collar that doesn’t match the bottles on his dresser.”

  “Sudden business trips to faraway locales where his phone mysteriously doesn’t work…”

  “Give us some context, Ry,” Damon suggested. “Do you think Max is…?”

  “What about seeing him with someone else?” I scoffed, trudging across the floor and collapsing onto my moth-eaten couch. “How’s that for a sign?”

  Anders cocked his head. “Depends. Seeing him how?”

  “Close. Too close.” I buried my face in my hands. “The way I used to catch Kevin with guys who he said were his cousins.”

  Damon drew his lips into a long, thin line. A cringe. “No one’s that close to their cousins.”

  “This is that guy who whisked you his way to his penthouse up in the Garment District?” Anders asked.

  I nodded.

  Suddenly, Anders wore a cringe that matched Damon’s. “Let me put it this way—I’ve got three boyfriends in the Garment District right now, and I wouldn’t put money on any of them being faithful to me.”

  I sighed. “I don’t do the open relationship thing like you do, though. This…this wasn’t just sleeping around.” Or was it? It hit me again—we’d never really defined our relationship. Just traded I love yous and cum. Not exactly the stuff rom-coms were made of. “Or at least, I didn’t think it was.”

  “Ry…” Damon sat down on the couch beside me, placing a hand on my back. “Look, I know you’re not great at this, but give it a shot, okay? You know how Kevin was. You can see the signs now, looking back and knowing what you do. Right?”

  “Like a thousand bright red neons rimmed with flashing lights,” I agreed.

  “Then think about it. Is that the kind of man Max is? Strip away everything you want him to be. Just look at him for who he is. What’s your gut telling you?”

  It was useless. If my gut was telling me anything just then, it was that I needed to go throw up.
<
br />   “I don’t think he would,” I said softly. “But I saw him outside his office with another man. An Omega. They knew each other, definitely. And…” I bit the inside of my cheek, trying to pull the tears that were clinging to my eyelashes back up into their ducts. “He said he’d never wanted to be a dad.”

  Damon drew in a sharp breath. “Ouch. That’s…that’s a pretty big blow.”

  Anders only rolled his eyes, though. “Plenty of Alphas don’t want to be dads, Ry. He was probably just freaking out. Having a mid-life crisis or something.”

  “He knocked up a stripper in the front seat of his Mercedes,” I countered. “Anders, I am his mid-life crisis.”

  “Talk to him,” Damon suggested. “It’s the only way you’re going to get any answers. Maybe he has a perfectly reasonable explanation for all of this.”

  “Or, consider—fuck him. I mean that both figuratively and literally—and in his bank account too, while you’re at it. He’d obviously loaded. If he’s fucking around on you, might as well take him for everything he’s worth.”

  I looked between Anders and Damon, my head spinning. “I don’t understand what either of you are saying right now. You realize that, right?”

  “It’s a dicey subject,” Damon admitted. “None of us have all the facts. If you’re looking for advice though—hear his side of things before you go contacting a lawyer.”

  “And if you want my advice,” Anders offered, “Sleep with him, put Nair in his shampoo bottle, then bolt. You’ve gotta watch out for these rich assholes, honey. You should only be talking to him through a lawyer.”

  I buried my face in my hands. This was all too much—and none of it really made me feel better. I’d been living a happy little fairytale since I’d moved into Max’s place. Seeing him with that other Omega had sent it all crashing down around me with no happily ever after in sight.

  “I don’t know what to do,” I groaned.

  “Then eat some spaghetti,” Damon suggested. “It’s lunchtime anyway. You can’t choose not to be sad, but at least you can choose not to be hungry.”

  At the mention of spaghetti, my stomach growled loudly—but I couldn’t accept Damon and Anders’ charity like that. “That’s your food. I don’t have my wallet on me—and even if I did, I’ve barely got enough to cover next month’s rent once I move back in.”

  Damon laughed, rising and shaking his head. “Please, Ry. We’re not going to charge you for spaghetti. You’re letting us crash here, for one thing—and for another, we’re friends.”

  “You know, if you want to make some extra cash, you could come back to the club with us tonight.” Anders ruffled my hair then headed back to the bathroom. “You know what Foster always says—we can always use another set of hands on the floor if you don’t want to dance.”

  I didn’t even know if I could dance just then. The knowledge that I was pregnant made it feel dirty—and even if I wasn’t pregnant, I didn’t know that I had it in me. Dancing was something that I did when I was happy at best. At worse, it was something I did to take my mind off being sad. But the idea of grinding on some other man made my stomach turn so hard, I wasn’t sure even Damon’s spaghetti could make me recover.

  “I’m not sure,” I admitted. “Give me a bit to think about it?”

  “Yeah, well—think fast.” Anders craned his neck to look around the cardboard-covered window down to the street below. “Because your loverboy is downstairs.”

  “Kevin?” I sat up, feeling the bitter taste of fear gather on my tongue.

  “That redheaded stepchild? Not a chance.” Anders whipped off his towel, throwing it over his shoulder as he sauntered back into the bathroom. “If I had to hazard a guess—looks like Max.”

  14

  Max

  The first words out of my mouth when I saw him were, “I know how it looked,” because I did. Ethan’s body pressed against mine like a stamp to an envelope. The words from my mouth, presented in the worst way possible at the worst possible time.

  Riley descended the steps from the doorway like an angel. Soft-faced and broken, the whites of his eyes tinged red with tears that I knew I must have caused.

  “I only ever told you that you were the father,” he said. His voice cracked on that word: father. Like it wasn’t a noun, but a knife against his windpipe. “I never claimed I expected you to act like one.”

  “I didn’t—” I blew out a lungful of air in frustration—not at Riley, but at myself. Pinching the bridge of my nose between my index finger and thumb, I felt every hammer of the headache that had been doing my skull in since I’d gone chasing after him. So many blocks between where I lived and Riley’s apartment. So many of them taken at a run, my hairline was still beaded with sweat.

  “You didn’t what, Max?” Riley crossed his arms over his chest, stopping on the last step. It made him an inch taller than I was for once. He had the high ground. “You didn’t fuck that man I saw you with at your office? You didn’t think that taking me in like you did would come with expectations on my end? Or—Christ. Was it just that you didn’t think you’d get caught?”

  “I didn’t cheat on you, Riley. I’d never cheat on you. You haven’t known me for long, but I thought you at least knew me better than that.”

  Riley stared at me with those scotch-colored eyes of his, bearing down through my skin straight into my soul.

  “I don’t know, Max. I don’t think I really know you at all.”

  “What the fuck do you want me to say, Riley? If you won’t even listen to me, how do you expect me to make this right?”

  That seemed to throw him. He drew back, sucking his lower lip between his teeth as he considered it.

  “Start talking then. I’m listening.”

  “The man you saw me with. Ethan. My ex.” I raked my fingers through my hair, cursing the day I ever met that cheating piece of shit. “The night I met you—remember that?”

  Riley ran his hand over his stomach. “Given the circumstances, I could hardly forget.”

  “Right. Then understand—the only reason I was at the Ballroom that night was because I’d walked in on him with another man’s cock in his mouth. I ended it, then I went out. Found Heaven’s. Found you. You fell into my lap like a fucking—well, like an angel, Riley. Whatever darkness was swirling around in this thick skull of mine that night, you washed it away like a goddamn sunrise.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “How poetic of you.” He didn’t sound impressed.

  “Then that night at the gala—remember that?”

  He nodded slightly. “Your boss seemed to think I was a prostitute. I haven’t forgotten.”

  “Ethan was there that night too. I should’ve told you—should’ve warned you about him then. He threw himself at me, and before I could explain to you that my asshole of an ex was making big plans for getting me back, I saw you there in the hallway with Hayward. Saw you in danger. After that, everything else went right out of my head.”

  He scoffed. “And the days after that? There was no point in time between all the movies and fucking this weekend that you could’ve mentioned your ex was still hanging around you like a black cloud?”

  “I didn’t want to ruin it.” I hung my head, rubbing the back of my neck in frustration. “We were so fucking happy this weekend, Riley. Hell—I didn’t want it to end. To the point that I was headed to the elevator to surprise you over lunch…”

  “At which point, your ex showed up and surprised you instead.” His voice was softening. It gave me hope.

  “What you heard between Ethan and I…it wasn’t a fucking disavowing, Riley. No, I never planned on having a baby. When I met you, I was single and I was stupid and I had no idea that there could be anything more than just one night between you and I…”

  “And then I went and got pregnant and you were stuck with me.”

  “You didn’t go and get pregnant, Riley. We did this together. The both of us. If you think I’d change that for anything, maybe you’re right. You really
don’t know me at all.”

  The air left his chest in a ragged pant. It made my own lungs burn to watch. I’d hurt him. I couldn’t change that. But I would’ve burned the whole damn city to the ground if I thought I could make it better. From Harlem to the Brooklyn Bridge, I’d let it all catch fire until the tourists in the helicopters overhead could read the message in the streets: I’m sorry. I’m an asshole. Forgive me.

  “Max…” He shook his head. “You’re not the only one who got cheated on that night, you know. But I’m not like you. I’m not good at this. I can’t tell the truth from half-truths from lies. What we had—”

  “What we have.”

  “—It’s so new still. All of this is new to me. And it’s not just me that I have to think about anymore.” He ran his hand over his stomach again, fingers curling against his t-shirt like he was searching for that stirring feeling in his womb. Making sure the baby was still even there, growing beneath his skin.

  “I’m not just thinking about myself anymore either,” I pointed out. “Ethan doesn’t occupy a single fucking neuron in my mind, Riley. You, though. Our baby. My hierarchy of concern begins and ends with the two of you. Everything else is just…fuck.”

  “It’s sweet of you to say that.”

  “I’m not just saying it. I mean it.”

  He looked away from me. “Maybe you do. Or maybe it’s just more lies. How the fuck am I supposed to know?”

  I pressed my thumbnail against the knuckle of my index finger, chipping away at the skin there until it burned. “You don’t know. If you want the truth, there it is. You’ll never know for sure.”

  He sighed. “That’s what I’m afraid of.”

  Suddenly, my mouth was bone dry. “Yeah. Me too.”

  “So where do we go from here?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know the answer to that. All I know is that I fucking love you, Riley. Those aren’t just words to me—I love you. Beyond that…it’s just faith, I guess.”

  “I’m not much of an angel in that sense, Max. Faith is one thing I’m running a little short on right now.”