by Aiden Bates
Logan's eyes flattened. "You've got to be joking. You can't do that."
The other customers were staring now. Sam had a hard time gauging their reactions. Were they laughing at Logan? At Sam? At the whole situation? "New policy, just put in today." Silas put out a stiff arm to block Logan as the alpha tried to go around him. "You need to leave."
"I'm allowed to go into a public drinking establishment." Logan scowled. Sam could see the hackles on his ex-lover's neck rising. "I've been drinking here for months."
"That's because my little brother thought you were cute." Silas stepped in front of Logan again as Kaylee hopped off of her bar stool to join her boyfriend. "He's changed his mind."
"The trattoria had a dress code," Kaylee pointed out, standing beside Silas with a smirk and a tilt of her head. "I don't think it's unreasonable for Joe's to have one too."
"Traitor," Logan snarled.
Now Sam came out from behind the bar. "Why are you even here, Logan?" The words didn't even hurt him now. He'd banished his tears last night. All that was left was the cold. "You think we're too dirty to be seen with in public, you hate everything we stand for, you can't get away from anyone in this bar fast enough. That includes your own kid. Go on. Get. No one wants you here."
Logan crumpled. It was like watching someone crush a beer can. "You said you understood!"
"I understand plenty." Sam crossed his arms over his chest. "Go run off to Connecticut. That company can be your family now. You made your choice. You don't get to sit here and pretend that it was somehow noble, or that someone's going to give you a cookie for running out on your kid. Get out. Stick to your side of the property line. Get out or we'll throw you out."
Logan gaped, rooted to the floor. Silas grabbed him by the shoulder and forced him out the door with a rough shove, and the entire bar erupted into cheers.
Sam returned to the bar, cheeks scarlet. He knew, intellectually, that he was being praised. He didn't feel it, though, not deep inside where it counted. He only felt the coldness, and the loss. He hadn't truly had a choice about giving Logan the boot, but it hadn't been fun. "Anyone want a martini? On the house?"
Kaylee took it. Sam figured that without Logan coming around he wouldn't reflexively make martinis anymore, and the glasses would collect dust once again.
The upside of the coldness that settled inside of him was that he was able to power through the long days at work again. The baby still sapped almost all of his energy, because that was what fetuses did, but he could ignore it.
Thanksgiving rolled around. Kaylee made them a delicious Thanksgiving dinner that they wolfed down before a late opening downstairs. Joe's didn't close for holidays, especially not for family holidays. Their customers needed a place to go to escape all of the pressures of family, or to be with their family of choice. Not everyone got to have the traditional spouse and two point five kids, and the Marlowes were living proof.
There was a tiny part of Sam that wondered what Logan was doing for Thanksgiving. The storefront next door remained dark, and no BMW pulled into the alley behind it for the entire weekend. Was Logan back in Connecticut already? Maybe he was visiting the family he'd spurned. Maybe he was considering his options for country clubs.
Sam turned his brain away from those contemplations. They weren't his business. Logan wasn't part of his life anymore. He didn't want Logan to be part of his life anymore. He missed the feeling of his alpha's body stretched out next to his. He missed that warm and safe feeling. He missed the knowledge that he was protected from everything that the world could throw at him. He missed the black tea scent.
All of it had been an illusion, and most of it had been an illusion that Sam had brought on himself. He'd let himself open to a selfish, greedy man because he wasn't strong enough, mentally, to overcome the pull of his hormones. Logan had never promised to keep him safe. He'd never offered any real protection from a damn thing. Sam had protected himself from every threat that had come up since Logan moved to town, just as he had for most of his life.
God, he missed the feeling of having his alpha beside him. He wasn't going to break down, though. He'd learned his lesson the hard way. He never wanted to feel that kind of pain again. No more alphas, no more anything. Yeah, celibacy would suck. It would be physically painful for him, as an omega, but it would be better than the burning agony of Logan's initial rejection. He'd embrace this terrible coldness inside of him and even look for more if it meant that he could avoid that misery.
He didn't need some yuppie to throw money at him. He didn't need some alpha to touch him, or a man of any gene type to pay attention to him. He didn't need anyone's eyes on him. He had his brother. He had his dog. Soon, he'd have a baby. Anyone who needed more than that was grasping and greedy, and Sam had never been either of those things. He was going to put all of his energy into family, and forget the rest of the world.
He couldn't control his dreams. As Thanksgiving stretched out toward Christmas, he found that his dreams included a warm body in the bed beside him more often than not. He dreamed of an apartment that was just him and his alpha, with their baby in another room. He hated those dreams, more than anything else. They were foolish, and they frustrated him. He started to avoid sleep, as the only way to keep them at bay.
A couple of weeks before Christmas, his brother approached him. "Listen, Sam, how are we doing? Financially, I mean?"
Sam scratched his head. "We're doing great. Why?"
Silas tugged at his collar. "I've got a kind of weird idea. Hear me out. What would you think about buying the empty restaurant next door?"
Sam sat down. "Well, I've been fetishizing that marble-topped bar for a while, but neither one of us is a restaurateur."
"We've got a chef." Silas waggled his eyebrows at him. "And we know the area. Those dumb-ass suits never understood people around here. I figure that if we can offer food, as well as booze, we can probably just about double our income. It doesn't even have to be the same business. What do you think?"
Sam wanted to scream. That place should stand vacant until the end of time as a monument to Sam's own idiocy. Instead, he just shrugged. "Show me the numbers and we can come up with something to take to the bank."
***
Logan looked around his apartment. He hadn't had a problem finding someone to sublet to. Housing in Portland was at such a premium that most of the rental agents had wait lists. He'd barely spent any time in the place. The kitchen hadn't been used at all; Logan had even bought his coffee on his way to work, or just made it there. He'd basically slept there and that was all.
Well, except that one time, that glorious night when he'd had Sam over. He hadn't stayed the night, but Logan had imagined that he could smell citrus notes in the very walls for weeks past the point when that kind of thing was possible. Now, of course, Logan couldn't even buy cleaners with a citrus scent.
He'd thought that Sam understood. Logan needed to keep his job, needed to stay with New England Restaurants. It was the only way to keep money coming in, and they couldn't raise a kid without money. Sam was the only person to whom Logan had divulged the shameful secret of his family's disasters.
At the end of the day, Sam hadn't understood. Sam only saw Logan as a deadbeat father, running out on his kid. He refused to see reason. No matter how much Logan had explained to him that they needed the money to raise the kid, or that Sam himself wouldn't be happy in Logan's world, Sam still saw Logan as cutting and running. Why couldn't Sam get it through his thick omega head that Logan was doing this for Sam, and for the baby?
Go run off to Connecticut. That company can be your family now. You made your choice. You don't get to sit here and pretend that it was somehow noble, or that someone's going to give you a cookie for running out on your kid.
Sam's words echoed through Logan's brain in the weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Maybe Sam didn't care about money. Maybe he thought that they were going to clothe the kid in cobwebs and old bar towels. One of them had to
be practical. Maybe it hurt a little, but it was for the kid's sake that Logan had to do this.
Logan had spent Thanksgiving at home, drinking martinis made from the booze he'd liberated from the defunct restaurant. He spent the rest of the weekend nursing the hangover. Somehow the martinis he made himself didn't taste quite as good as the ones Sam had made for him, and by the end of the night, he had to admit that he wouldn't ever drink another martini again.
He wasn't sure what he would do for Christmas. He could probably go back to Connecticut, see his father, but he didn't want to. Let the old man rot in his fetid little efficiency. His profligacy had killed Mom, as surely as if he'd pulled the trigger himself. Logan even blamed his father for costing him Sam. If his father hadn't cost them everything, maybe Logan himself wouldn't be so obsessed with getting every dime he could. Maybe he could have had a family of his own.
Maybe Logan still would. Maybe he'd find an omega through a matchmaking service, someone who would fit into the life that Logan was determined to have. He didn't think that he would care for the new omega, not the way he loved Sam, but that would probably be for the best. He'd trusted Sam to understand him, to accept the way that things had to be, and Sam had cast him out with accusations about how he was absconding.
Logan hadn't made much headway on unloading the restaurant's stuff. He hadn't tried all that hard, either. He knew that it would be difficult at this time of year. When the landlord called him a few days before Christmas to tell him that he'd decided to sell the property, Logan couldn't muster up much interest. The buyer made a token offer for the contents of the restaurant, and Logan signed the paperwork that same day.
Hopefully, whoever had bought the place would learn from the mistakes of New England Restaurants and choose a restaurant format that was a little bit more appropriate to the neighborhood.
Now he stood surrounded by boxes. He had nothing left to hold him here. The movers would be here the day after Christmas to move his crap down to Connecticut. They'd put it in storage until he found a place. In the meantime, he'd have to hotel it. Well, there were worse fates. At least someone would be around to wash the sheets and vacuum.
He wished that he could see Sam one last time before he left. He might be showing by now, maybe just a little bit. Maybe not, though. It was killing Logan not to see him, not to know. He'd missed the first sonogram. Was everything okay with their baby? How was Sam coping? Was he coping at all?
A loud buzz interrupted his reverie, making Logan jump. He rushed over to the door and pressed, speak. "Yeah?" He wasn't expecting any visitors, and the place wasn't in good enough condition for there to be a camera. He wasn't in the mood for visitors. It was probably just carolers anyway.
"Let me in or I'm coming in anyway."
Logan knew Silas Marlowe's voice. He heard it in his dreams sometimes, or when his own self-doubt got to be too much. "Go away or I'll call the cops."
"Have it your way."
Logan turned away, his heart thundering in his ribcage. He deserved anything that Silas threw at him, of course. Sam had seemed to understand everything that Logan had told him, but that didn't change the fact that Logan had walked away from Sam and left him pregnant and alone. Silas couldn't be expected to understand anything. He would want blood. Maybe Logan should call the cops anyway.
The door swung open, and Silas walked into the apartment. "Wow. Nice. Nothing holding you back, huh? Nice to know that fatherhood means so very, very much to you." His lip curled.
Logan snarled and stepped right into Silas' space. "Sam's not here. He's not a factor anymore. I don't have to be nice to you."
Silas moved faster than Logan's eye could see. He grabbed Logan by the neck and lifted him off his feet, pinning him to the wall. "That goes both ways, punk. And Sam will always be a factor. He will for anyone that cares about him, anyway." He dropped Logan to the floor. "I guess he's right, and that's only me."
Logan jumped to his feet. "How dare you? I am doing this for him!"
"Uh-huh. That's why he's out of pocket for that ultrasound, right? And why you've been so goddamn generous with the way you've been helping out with food and the mortgage since you found out you were leaving him and the kid behind for bigger and better things down in Connecticut." Silas patted his cheek.
Logan opened his mouth, and then he shut it again. "Well, it's not like you two will let me into the bar."
"True. I mean if you decided you could live with the dress code you could have tried again, but nah. You're too good for jeans and boots, am I right?" Silas shook his head. "I honestly regret coming here."
"Why did you come here?" Logan rubbed at his neck. He was going to have bruises. "Did you come to give me a hard time about Sam? Because nothing's changed. It's not like he's called me."
Silas' face went red, and Logan wondered if he was going to die. "It's not on Sam to call the guy who walked out on him."
"He kicked me out!"
"After you told him that you were leaving him pregnant and alone, you bloated sack of bones!" Silas bit down on the inside of his cheek and took a deep breath. When he spoke again, his voice was much quieter. "He's changed since you dumped him."
"You think that I wanted to leave?" Logan turned away. "You think that babies get raised on air and rainbows? It takes money, actual cash."
Silas scoffed. "You're an idiot. You already know that we own the bar. You already know that we own the building with the bar in it. We rent out the apartments. We told you that."
Logan froze. "What?"
Silas circled around him, moving slowly like a tiger moving in for the kill. "We don't need your filthy money to raise this kid. It'll be nice, don't get me wrong. We're going to take it, and I'm already talking to one of our customers who works in family law to make goddamn sure that you pay through the nose for child support."
"You don't need to take me to court for child support." Logan clenched his fists. "I was always going to pay. That's why I'm leaving, for crying out loud."
"You haven't paid a dime yet. I don't trust you. The thing is, though, Sam doesn't care. He just wants you gone. Like I said, he's changed. He hasn't smiled, hasn't laughed, hasn't joked. He barely talks to me or Kaylee. The rest of the time he works or he hangs out with the dog. His friends are calling me up. They're worried. They're saying he's depressed."
"He'll get over it when the baby's born." Logan sat down, back against the wall. "I mean, look, I get that he's pissed. He'd convinced himself that things were going to change, but how am I supposed to provide for a family around here, huh? I'm not going to be my dad. I'm not."
"You're not going to be anyone's dad. Not around here, anyway. What you do in Connecticut is your own business. Now, you can try to take us to court, and that's your right, but we'll fight you every step of the way. And the fact that you cut and run after the first time you heard the kid's heart beating, well, that's not going to look good for you. I don't care that you told yourself that you were doing it for the kid. You haven't tried to help Sam out once. You made it real clear to him that you didn't want him to be a part of your life, and he's taken that to heart.
"I don't like that, Logan. That hurt him, and I'll let you think long and hard about what I do to people who hurt my brother." Silas punctuated that with a wicked grin.
"Sam wouldn't be happy down there, in Connecticut. He never offered to come with me." Logan shook his head.
"Did you ask, or did you tell him things like, I'm not going to bring you to the country club crap?" Silas loomed over him, his brother's avenging angel. "He won't talk about you at all. Nothing good, nothing bad, just nothing. And that's probably for the best, because I don't think I could handle hearing either one."
Logan stood up. "What is it that you want from me here, Silas? I'm done here. All of my crap is packed. The movers are coming the day after Christmas. I'm heading out. I have a job. You're taking me to court for child support, but I can't pay that child support if I don't leave!"
Silas shook
his head. "So I bought a new place. Used to be some kind of fancy-pants Italian joint, too snooty for the neighborhood. They had to close down, which is a damn shame because they had this amazing chef. I'm figuring that I can keep Joe's running where it is. The new place will serve mostly pizza and bar food, you know? Stuff that people around there would want to eat at a price they can afford. They'd also make pizza and wings and crap for Joe's."
Logan closed his eyes. He could see it all. He could see a hopping little pizza joint, just upscale enough to give Kaylee some creativity but not so much that expenses went through the roof. He could see the tables filled, and the customers smiling and laughing. "Where would you get the money for something like that?"
"Already bought it, dumbass." Silas crossed his arms across his chest. "Look. I don't like you. I think you're too much like our dad for your own good. I think we can do just fine without you. Sam is smart, and he's good, and he's got his priorities in order. He doesn't need some prissy alpha from Connecticut to come in and rescue him from being working class, all right? We do just fine.
