Heaven's Ballroom

by Aiden Bates

  By the time my boots hit Wall Street, I knew that it wasn’t my choice to make. If Noah wanted me to disappear, then he could tell me so. Send me away and I’d go. I’d told him that he wouldn’t have to White Fang me, but that was before I knew about my baby growing inside him.

  And if he didn’t…if he wanted me to stay…

  My jaw set in determination. The tightness and heat in my chest roared to life, an inferno driven by loss and fear and need and, when everything else burned away…by love, most of all.

  I loved Noah Layton. Probably had since the day I’d first laid eyes on him. Probably would until the day I closed my eyes for good. And with my baby in his womb, that love only amplified. Multiplied. Seeped into my bones, marrow-deep, and spread out through my nervous system like a wildfire of its very own.

  If he wanted to yell and scream and chase me away, I’d let him. Hell—I’d even hand him the rocks to throw at me while he did it.

  But if he didn’t…

  If he didn’t, then by God, one way or another I was getting my Omega back.

  16

  Noah

  In my experience, word traveled pretty fast in most social circles. When it came to the circles that Omega exotic dancers inhabited, though? Light speed. White lightning. Neither snow nor rain nor gloom of night could have stopped the story of my pregnancy from getting out—just like the goddamn postal service, except we delivered our packages shirtless and in booty shorts.

  By the time Foster and I decided to put an end to it all and just throw an announcement-slash-going-away party for me at the Ballroom, half of Manhattan had heard the saga of Noah Layton and Ace Winston. The intrigue. The seduction. The betrayal. Omega dancers from nearly every club in the city had shown up for it—every club other than the Backdoor, at any rate, which had recently been blacklisted by Omegas city-wide in solidarity for what I was going through.

  There was even a journalist from the Times hanging out at the bar next to the sparkling cider and pacifier-topped cupcakes, his notepad at the ready just in case any drama ensued. When he first showed up, he’d cornered me with a slick, city-boy look of sympathy and a sad little smile.

  “Archibald Free. I’m doing a story on you—could be a big one. Do you miss him, Noah?” he’d asked me, and I’d only laughed.

  “Miss who?” I’d told him—then shoved a cupcake into his hand and bolted.

  “You know, if you played into it, you could probably end up with a book deal or something,” Foster pointed out as I tried not to glare daggers at Archibald Free’s bald spot from across the room.

  “I don’t want a book deal,” I grumbled. “I’m only here at all because it’s good publicity for the club.”

  “Oh, lighten up,” Foster patted me on the back like he was trying to burp me. Practicing, I guessed—he was taking his new self-appointed role as my baby’s future uncle very seriously. “You’re an official legend, you’ve still got your looks—”

  “For now,” I reminded him. I’d finally admitted that I was starting to develop that highly sought-after pregnancy glow, but I knew it wouldn’t stick around once I was up all night with a screaming newborn in my arms.

  “And you’re going to be running the hottest Omega strip club in all of Manhattan before the end of the year,” Foster reminded me. “Plus, boy or girl, at least the baby will be attractive. Say what you want about Ace, but at least he has good genes.”

  I grimaced at the mention of my unknowing baby daddy. Foster was right—Ace was easily the best-looking Alpha I’d ever laid eyes on. But that didn’t mean I wanted to talk about his dark, thick hair or his perfect jawline, how good he smelled or how happy I’d been in his arms. Foster could say whatever he wanted about Ace, but frankly, I didn’t want to hear him spoken about at all.

  “It’s a good party.” I changed the subject expertly. “The gender reveal raffle was a clever idea.”

  “Five bucks a guess and the proceeds will all go to single parent charities,” Foster agreed, glancing across the room at the crowd of Omegas who were putting their guesses into a silken top hat from the Ballroom’s wardrobe department. The first correct guess we pulled out of the hat once I’d had my sixteen-week ultrasound would be the first outsider to learn the gender—boy or girl. “Who would have thought that your love story would wind up becoming such a media circus?”

  “The guy from the Times has already stuffed the hat with fifty guesses each,” I groaned. “And don’t call it a love story, Foster…if anything, it’s the opposite, isn’t it?”

  Foster shrugged, sipping at his cider. “You never know. Maybe Ace will show up and surprise you.”

  “Ace was done with me before I even gave him a chance to apologize,” I reminded him. “I just wanted to hear, ‘Hey, sorry for being a prick and going through your phone,’ and all he wanted to say was half a dozen variations on, ‘Goodbye.’ Doesn’t exactly bode well for our future together.”

  Foster shook his head. “Look, Noah, say what you like, but I think you’re still carrying a torch for him—and if the turnout tonight is any indication, I’d be surprised if he hasn’t already found out that you’re carrying his baby besides.”

  “I don’t want him to decide to be with me just because he’s the father of my kid.”

  The charity raffle was in Ace’s honor, sure. I knew how hard things must have been for him growing up without his Omega dad around. I knew that there were plenty of other mothers and fathers—Alphas and Omegas—out there who were facing the same. But that didn’t mean that I was about to prevent myself from becoming a single parent just to avoid a little bit of struggle. I’d been raised with two parents who hadn’t really wanted me around. I’d rather that my baby only had one dad than two who were only sticking together because they felt like they had to.

  “I understand that,” Foster relented. “And I respect your choice. But at the same time…I don’t know. Tell me that you two didn’t have something special, and I’ll let it go, I guess.”

  “No,” I admitted. “No, it was special. I felt it. But just because it was special didn’t mean it was for forever, you know? And how am I even meant to figure out what was real between us, when the whole damn thing was built on lies?”

  Foster sighed. “Shouldn’t have brought it up. Sorry. Look—here comes the daddy squad. That’ll cheer you up, won’t it?”

  Foster nodded in the direction of the crowd as it parted to make way for three of the Ballroom’s former dancers, all with their own kids in tow. It was weird to see kids in the Ballroom at all, considering what usually went down here was anything but kid friendly. But it had been important to me that Riley, Damon and Kieran could show up for the party, so Foster and I had taken precautions to shut the club down for the night. The only Alpha present was Blake, our bouncer, managing the door. There’d be no drinking, no debauchery, and certainly no Alpha bullshit in the Ballroom tonight.

  “Aw,” Riley said softly, grinning and hunched over as he led his twin girls over to see me. “See, ladies? I told you he wouldn’t be showing yet.”

  The girls grinned up at me anyway. At two, most of their teeth were already coming in. Their dark hair was artfully settled atop their heads in ballet buns.

  “Cute kids,” I commented. “Fresh from dance class?”

  “Yeah. You should have seen all the moms and dads at the studio when they heard that I used to work with you.” Riley grinned as his daughters wrapped their arms around his knees, clinging to him as they suddenly turned shy. “You’re legitimately famous—was that really a reporter I saw over at the bar?”

  “Reporters,” Kieran groaned, bouncing his own bright-eyed baby in his arms. She took after her Alpha father as much as Riley’s girls took after theirs—except that, I highly suspected, she’d wind up with Kieran’s auburn hair. “They’re like vultures, aren’t they?”

  “Between the four of us, we’re putting the Ballroom on the map as the best place to get knocked up at,” Damon said with a laugh. His son bab
bled a baby-talk addition to the comment, pointing a chubby finger at the balloons near the stage. “Careful, Foster—you might be next.”

  Foster laughed. “Doubt it. I’ll be taking my birth control pills like clockwork now and checking them twice to boot. It’s not bad publicity though, is it? Heaven’s Ballroom—leave with an Angel and, nine months later, take a cherub home with you too.”

  “Not the only fresh legacy you guys are boasting these days,” Kieran said, his eyebrow arched. “What’s this I’ve heard about you two turning the place into a burlesque club?”

  Foster and I shared a glance and shrugged.

  “It’s just an idea we’ve been mulling over,” I admitted. “If we keep losing dancers to pregnancies like this, maybe cutting the lap dances and classing the place up a little will deter future accidents.”

  “Aw, man,” Damon said, pouting. “Don’t say it like that.”

  “You’ll think of it as an accident for now,” Riley added. “But in two more months, three… The second trimester is the sweet spot, I promise. It won’t feel like an accident the first time you feel the baby kick inside you.”

  “Like a stomach full of butterflies,” Damon agreed.

  “Easy for you guys to say,” I reminded them. “You’re all either engaged or married.”

  “Noah is still fighting the idea that he has a love story,” Foster explained, which made me roll my eyes so hard I could feel my stomach rolling right along with them.

  “It’s not one,” I said. “Love stories have happy endings.”

  “Sometimes they do.” Damon shifted his son in his arms, holding out a finger for the chubby toddler to wrap his fist around. “If you’re really lucky, they do, I think.”

  “But happy endings don’t come easy.” Kieran echoed my eye roll with one of his own. “It’s stupid, but you do have to work for it.”

  “Yeah. Forgiveness and understanding and all that shi—crap.” Riley cringed as he nearly swore—apparently, two years wasn’t quite long enough to break a swearing habit. “Have you and Ace talked about it at all? Maybe things have changed now that…”

  “No,” I said firmly, taking a step back. It was all too easy to get sucked into the fantasy that the Omega fathers in front of me were spinning. Happily ever after. Two fathers, one baby—or, in Riley’s case, twins. It was tempting to dream of. Impossible not to want. But I’d already made up my mind on the matter. There was no going back down. “You three, you got your men in the end. But me? No fu—freaking way.” Guess Riley wasn’t the only one still working on his swearing habit. “Ace would have to pull off something pretty impressive to patch things up with me now, and honestly? I don’t think he even cares.”

  A cold knife pressed into the tightness across my stomach, hard and sharp enough that for a second, I was worried that something was wrong with the little life growing there. But no—it was an emotional kind of pain, not a physical one. I’d thought those words a dozen times or more since I’d seen the positive result on my pregnancy test. I’d probably think them a dozen more before the birth. I just hadn’t said them out loud yet. Not so clearly, so definitively, that I could feel it all the way from the tightness of my abs down to the core of me.

  Ace hadn’t cared enough to try to make things work when I’d called him to that Italian place that night. He wouldn’t care enough to show up again now.

  “Give him a chance,” Riley urged. “You never know when—”

  “No,” I said again, feeling the sharp stab of that pain again, only amplified. “I appreciate the words of encouragement, but he’s not that kind of man. Ace Winston is never, ever, in a million God da—gosh dang years—”

  “Hey, uh… Noah?”

  I looked over Kieran and Damon’s shoulders as Blake’s face appeared behind them. His brow was lowered in concern, which immediately replaced the pain of my breakup with Ace with an even deeper stab of worry. Blake was supposed to be manning the door, keeping out any undesirables—drunken Alphas, or worse, more reporters from the Times.

  “Yeah, Blake?” I asked, my brow mirroring his.

  “I don’t want to, ah, interrupt or anything… But, um…”

  “Just say it,” I told him, preparing myself for the worst.

  “Well, it’s just…” Black reached around his neck and rubbed the back of his head, cringing slightly. “Ace Winston is at the door.”

  17

  Ace

  The thought that some fucking bouncer could stand between my Omega and me should have been fucking laughable. We were the same height, sure, and we seemed to have the same build: the perfect excess of muscle to make bad decisions with. I’d pushed guys bigger than the bouncer of Heaven’s Ballroom to the ground just for the hell of it when I was younger. Even now that I was older, less prone to pissing contests and random acts of testosterone, when he told me that I’d have to wait outside, I’d considered laying into him still.

  The way I saw it, if Noah wanted to turn me away, then Noah could come out and do it himself.

  But then the bouncer—he’d introduced himself as Blake—had made a particularly compelling point.

  “You’re going to be a dad, Ace. Don’t be the kind of dad that starts a fist fight at his own kid’s baby shower.”

  And after that, any chance of a fist fight was out the window and lost to the wind. Partially because, well, Blake probably had something there. I didn’t want to be that kind of dad—the kind of dad that mine had been. And it wasn’t like I didn’t fully believe in Noah’s ability to come outside and knock me on my own ass for roughing up his bouncer. I didn’t buy that shit about Omegas being weaker than Alphas for an instant—and I bought it even less when the Omega in question was a veteran Marine.

  Instead, I sulked around the front of the club for a while, stewing in my own anxiety and turning away a couple of confused Alphas in tuxedos who hadn’t gotten the memo that the Ballroom was an event hall that night, not a strip club that they could stumble into to get their rocks off in. I had to hand it to Noah—it was a hell of a place to hold a baby shower in, but without the hordes of billionaire Alphas inside, the Ballroom probably was a gorgeous enough venue to honor any child.

  Especially, most of all, a child that was half mine. Or would be, anyway—if Noah would be kind enough to consider actually letting me be in their lives.

  It took twice as long as I’d hoped before Blake emerged from the club again. Every minute I spent outside was a minute spent stuck in an entire world of worry. I wasn’t just concerned about whether or not I’d actually be allowed to be a father to the only thing in this world I’d ever be able to call mine. I was worried about the whole concept of fatherhood in general—would I be better than my father? Would I even be a good partner to Noah if he would have me?

  By the time Blake finally popped back out from the front door, I’d had plenty of time to make up my mind about it.

  I’d be the best damn father I could be to this kid. The best boyfriend—fiancé—husband, someday, assuming that Noah and fate would be that kind. And most of all, more than anything…

  I’d be damned if I wouldn’t be a better father than either of mine had been.

  But there was just one problem: when Blake did return, he came back alone.

  “He wants me to fuck off, then,” I said, my voice a rasping dry monotone. The realization hit me like a fucking truck. Noah wasn’t coming. I might’ve helped create our child, but I’d never get to carry him or her on my shoulders. No soccer games, PTA meetings, changing diapers or rubbing Noah’s feet when the pregnancy left them too sore.

  It was over. It had to have been.

  But instead of breaking my heart all over again, Blake only gave me a sheepish smile. “Well, he’s not exactly happy that you’re here,” he admitted. “Especially because I’m pretty sure as I told him you’d shown up, he’d just been in the process of explaining how unlikely it was that he’d ever see you again.”

  And just like that, it was like the rainclou
d hanging over my head broke for the sun—in the middle of the night, no less.

  I cracked a grin in response. “He didn’t think I’d come.”

  “Well, to be fair…sounds like you did kind of dump him. Or, he dumped you, maybe.” Blake moved his fingers through his dirty blond hair like the minutiae of the details was making his head ache. Couldn’t blame him there—it was making mine throb as well. “For a story that the Times is going to cover, you two are a pretty fucking confusing pair, man. Even by Almega standards.”

  I quirked an eyebrow. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  He laughed. “Well, let me put it this way. In my time here at the Ballroom, I’ve seen my fair share of fist fights. Messy, drawn-out breakups. Dumb asshole Alphas who didn’t know how good they had it, and dumb asshole Omegas who didn’t think they were half as good as they deserved. But you and Noah…” He shook his head. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen two dumb assholes more desperate to be together while being more simultaneously fucking terrible at it.”

  I blinked, taking that little tidbit of information in. It wasn’t that he was wrong—just, well, shit. He hadn’t needed to come out there and say it.

  “Yeah,” I finally answered, choking out a little laugh. “Well, you know how it is. The dumber we are, the harder we fall.”

  “See, that’s the thing I don’t get.” Blake leaned against the wall next to the door, crossing his arms over his chest. “I don’t know the full story, ‘course, so maybe it’s not my place to say. It’s just, the two of you strike me as two perfectly intelligent, reasonable individuals—not that I’m an expert on intelligence and reason, mind you.”