Christmas with His Omega

by Lorelei M. Hart

  “Nonsense. I’ll get it. You’re busy.”

  Not so much busy as much as sitting on my ass reading through the paper, mostly the Black Friday ads, but also looking for possible employment.

  I was two classes away from my degree. Taking them one or two classes at a time and then skipping a semester to have a baby sort of made the process a lot slower than normal, but I was going to finish. At some point. Until then, I had pretty much zero qualifications, but that hadn’t stopped me before even if I held down the crappiest jobs.

  “Hardly,” I told Grams, trying to hip check her out of the way so I could make said tea only to have it returned full force. Grams was awesome. “I have no job, and my suitcase is already unpacked.” I continued what I knew was going to be a losing battle.

  “You’re growing a human.” She reached down, rubbing my belly before pointing to the table. “Don’t think I don’t remember how hard that is. Sit down, and let me spoil you.”

  “Thanks.” I gave her a quick squeeze before retaking my spot at the table. “And thanks for letting me stay here, and for Thanksgiving, and just thanks.” The way she welcomed me with open arms even given my dilemma wasn’t at all shocking, it was who she was, but that didn’t make me any less appreciative, and I needed her to know that. My father was mine, and I loved him, but he’d never treated his mother with the respect and appreciation she deserved.

  “Nonsense.” She turned off the now-steaming kettle, the whistle broken ever since I could remember. Some things never changed. “That’s what families are for. Where else were you going to get a good Thanksgiving spaghetti and gravy?”

  She wasn’t wrong. There was something special about her Thanksgiving spaghetti and gravy, or, as Rhone used to call it, heavenly spaghetti with meat sauce. She would never let us know what secret thing she did during Thanksgiving and no other time of the year, but I’d put money on it having something to do with magic, it was that good.

  “Nowhere, Grams.” I smiled up at her as she placed my mug in front of me, the tea bag still steeping. “Everyone else eats turkey.”

  The first year I had Thanksgiving at Grams’, that had perplexed me to no end. Turkey was a must, but now that I was older, I cherished the uniqueness to our family traditions, as out of sync with the rest of the world as they might be.

  “Like fools.” She plopped into the seat across from me, dunking her tea bag exactly four times before squeezing it gently and placing it in her tea bag dish for later. Some things never changed. “Cooking a huge bird all day until it’s dry so you can eat it all week.” She shook her head at the ridiculousness of it all. “Spaghetti and gravy is better.”

  “I’m not arguing with you there.” Nor was I upset that it would be both my lunch and dinner for the next couple of days. She’d made enough for a small army, as always. “Thanks for the tea.”

  I took a sip, and let the warmth fill me. Mint was one of the few things I’d been able to tolerate the entire pregnancy, and even now, when my body was demanding I eat all things, there was something soothing about it.

  “Anytime. Am I keeping you here?” she asked, looking down at the baby store ad in front of me. The prices were far higher than I’d expected, especially for a huge sale day. “Did you have Black Friday needs? Maybe things for the baby?”

  “You never were subtle.” Which was one of the many things I loved about her.

  “Nor will I ever be. Let’s go out and get some baby things.” She snagged the flier from in front of me and a pen from the lazy Susan between us and began circling items like a madwoman. “You have only what, a week or so to go before baby pops out?”

  Fair enough. I was ginormous...already.

  “First of all, you of all people should know they don’t ‘pop’ out, although that would be nicer than labor, and second of all, I still have six weeks left. Let’s not rush the baby’s entrance.”

  As much as I wanted to meet my dear sweet baby, there was much to do before I was ready.

  “Your father came three weeks early. Let me take you to get some things.” She took a huge swig of her tea, the cup already almost empty.

  “I need to figure out finances first, Grams. There will be more sales, and who knows, maybe the thrift store will have some of the basics.” Because while I had my surrogacy money, it wasn’t much, the state frowning upon omegas being “paid” to have babies and allowing only the smallest of stipend in order to allow for “the safest possible pregnancies.” At least the couple didn’t deny me the rest of the contracted payments when they decided to breach the contract. I’d have won under law, but that didn’t mean the money wouldn’t be held up in legal proceedings and paperwork bullshit.

  “I saw on TV that babies need new things. It’s safer.”

  By TV she meant the twenty-four-hour-a-day cable news constantly running in the background.

  “You watch too much news, Grams. They only put the bad stuff on there, and you know it.” And fake controversies and bad weather reports. “The rule is brand new car seats and cribs, although I call bologna on the cribs since you can look up a recall and the chances of them having been in a car accident don’t exist. Everything else can be used.”

  It had to be, given the prices in the flier. Who has three hundred dollars for a bassinet that they are going to outgrow in a few months? Or a fifty-dollar bamboo sheet? And how did anyone think those were sale prices.

  “Have you seen that new baby box thing?”

  I had, and it was adorable, and people in the countries where they did it were ones who cared about babies enough to put their money where their mouth was, but here they were novelty accessories for the rich people to be all “look what a good parent I am” by spending almost one hundred dollars on a cardboard box.

  “I have, and oddly enough it costs more than one would think, given that it is a box made out of cardboard.”

  “I have money, you know.”

  She did, too, but it wasn’t for her to go throwing around. It was to make her life comfortable as she lived out her golden years.

  “And so do I.” It wasn’t completely a lie. I did have some, but it would have to be stretched out to make all things work, especially now that I was no longer working. “I just need to make a plan with it until I go back to work.”

  “School you mean.” And forceful Grams was out. School had always been important to her, my father being a disappointment in that area alone. “You have how many classes left?”

  “Two.” I felt like I was sooooo close, but the last two were going to be nearly impossible to complete given the way my life had recently turned. Not that I would change it. I was going to be someone’s papa.

  “Exactly. You need to finish those.” She stood up grabbing both of our tea cups, mine only half-empty. She cleaned when she got frustrated and that’s, sadly, what I’d done. I’d frustrated her. I sucked.

  “My first responsibility is to my baby, Grams.” It was the way it had to be. I wanted to promise her I’d take classes and ace them, but the reality of that was going to be much more challenging than even I could imagine.

  “And she deserves a papa who didn’t give up on his lifelong dream for two classes.” She placed the mugs in the sink with a clank, before bringing her dishcloth to wipe the table. “Can’t you just do those computer Internet thingies?”

  It took me a full minute to figure out what she was talking about.

  “Online classes?” She nodded before snagging her tea-bag holder and placing it on her lazy Susan for safe keeping. “If I had a computer, I suppose I could. I will look into it after they come.”

  “I thought all you new parents knew if they were a boy or a girl nowadays.” I was happy she’d ignored the computer part of my comment, not wanting to argue over whether or not she should buy me one, but the gender comment, that wasn’t the second-best avenue of discussion because it meant me facing the reality that this baby was mine, but I’d inadvertently missed out on parts of the pregnancy because of how it ca
me to be. Which was all kinds of nuts, given that I was carrying him or her in my womb.

  “They do, but I wasn’t going to be the dad, remember?” I begged the powers that be that she did because that conversation was not an easy one to have once, much less twice.

  “He’s lucky for it.” She reached over, once again patting my belly. “I’m calling it a boy. You are carrying low. Knitting time is upon me if I’m going to get anything done by the time you pop.”

  “No popping, remember?” I sighed, just the thought of popping—just no. “And I think it’s a girl, so maybe skip the boy-themed knits.”

  My gut had said girl from the very beginning. Not that men and women hadn’t been wrong about their baby’s gender just as often as they’d been right.

  “Yellow, it is.”

  “Grams?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m glad I’m here.” And not because I had nowhere else to be, either. Home was exactly where I needed to be, where I wanted to raise my baby. Sure, I dreamed of being mated and having home include an alpha, but Grams was family, and family was the most important thing right now. Why had I not come back sooner? Her doors would never be closed to me. That’s just who she was.

  “Me, too, Pierce, me, too. I’ve missed having family here, and now I get family I didn’t even know about. Speaking of family. You may not know this about me, but I hoard things.” She laughed at her own joke, looking around the kitchen at all the knickknacks anyone had ever given her.

  “No way. How did I miss that?” I bantered back, getting out of my seat to stretch and—pee because that was a huge part of my day now that baby had settled on my bladder for good.

  “Very funny.” She smacked me in the arm playfully. “In the basement closet, there are a couple of coats from your granddad. If any of them fit you, I can wash them up.”

  “Grandad had a foot on me and was built like a Mack truck.”

  “You don’t need to remind me what a lucky woman I was.”

  I so did not want to unpack that one.

  “You have a baby the size of Nebraska growing in you. The extra room will be helpful.”

  “Sorry. I didn’t mean to be ungrateful.” And she wasn’t wrong. Baby might come out full-grown at the rate she was growing.

  “It’s just hormones. Speaking of which, we need to get you to a doctor.”

  “I was thinking of calling Maria and asking her who she uses.” And a thousand other things, but not about Rhone. No. I wasn’t going to ask about him, even if she had brought him up, and even if he was the one I never got over, the one I still dreamt of at night. Nope. Not going to talk about him. Not much, anyway.

  “Maria from the Gas and Go?”

  “Yeah, her. She runs a single parents’ group,” I offered, unsure if it was a secret.

  “She does a lot of amazing things.”

  “I got that impression. Maybe she will have some insight into the used baby things as well.”

  Fingers double crossed on that one.

  “Or you can let me take you to the Value Mart and buy you the basics.” She wasn’t going to let it go. Which, to be fair, was how she always wore everyone in her life down, so, far be it for me to argue with a life-proven strategy, even if it tended to be frustrating.

  “Let me check with her first. She gave me her number with a flier for her support group.”

  “It was so sad when her alpha decided just one more beer and car keys were a good idea. May he rest in peace.” Grams made the sign of the cross, and the entirety of what she just said slammed into me.

  I might not have an alpha, but I never did. Having and losing the alpha of your baby and then accomplishing all she did floored me.

  “She didn’t say.” Not that opening a conversation with my alpha died in a drinking-and-driving incident he caused was considered the best plan.

  “She doesn’t like pity. That girl is a spitfire. You call her, and I will go find you a coat.”

  “Yes, Grams.” I sighed like my teenage self always had when being told what to do.

  “Brat.”

  “Your brat.”

  “Always.” She smiled brightly. “I’m so glad you’re back.”

  “Me, too, Grams. Me, too.”

  And with that, I ran to the bathroom because...baby.

  Rhone

  That single-parent group Maria ran would be a great place to spend Christmas, and some of my other lonely nights, as well. Not as a parent. Odds were I’d never achieve that status, since the only guy I’d ever wanted to have a family with hadn’t been an option for too many years. But when I’d showed up to help out Thanksgiving night, it lifted a little of the heaviness from my heart to see those kids running around the place, shrieking and laughing while their parents lingered over coffee and the best pumpkin pie I’d ever tasted. Reminded me of one I’d had long ago—but was determined not to think too much about.

  The group wasn’t only for people who didn’t have money, although a lot of them didn’t. Single parents tended not to have as much spending green as families with two incomes. Or those who didn’t have to pay for full-time child care so they could earn one income.

  But despite the lack of designer duds on the kiddies, the place held more warmth than anywhere I’d been in a long time. And gave me a chance to help out so they could kick back and enjoy themselves.

  Suppressing my wish to really belong, instead I turned my thoughts to what I could do to make their lives a little better. A special Christmas gift for the dozen or so kids who, from what I’d overheard, spent a lot of time at this little building left to them by one of the group’s grandmothers, with not a whole heck of a lot to do while their folks worked, networked, and took advantage of the various resources the group brought in from time to time. The place was a little better than a shack, with a dirt yard in front—where they planned to have an edible garden come spring—and a big dirt yard in back. Lots of room, outside at least.

  That very night, after serving turkey dinners to single parents, their kids, and anyone else who needed a meal because the group was generous like that and turned nobody away. I sat down at my computer-assisted drafting setup and got to work. Final assembly would have to wait until the snow melted, but with four weeks between now and Christmas, I’d have all the rest done.

  But even good works could only do so much, and while my waking mind was occupied with design and all the bits and pieces and lumber I’d need to buy, my dreams continued to be haunted by the same face as always. Considering we never officially broke up, or had an actual relationship, the sense of guilt and loss should have abated by now. But, lying in bed, alone, I remembered.

  No, we’d never broken up. But my heart broke just as if we had.

  Pierce had always been around, one of the guys who watched football practice and hung at the fringes of my crowd. Senior year, shortly after we’d both turned eighteen, I’d finally realized that the kid had matured into more than that. We had some long talks, hung out in the library, and once happened to meet up at the diner. The differences between us were less important than they had been when we’d first entered the Mapleville High scene. And when I’d attended the school production of The King and I and seen that cutie in the Yule Brenner role, i.e. shirtless and tanned under the spotlight, well, let’s just say I did more than applaud.

  It was his first time, that night, and I was not much more experienced, and, anyway, those experiences had done nothing to prepare me for the earth-shattering, fireworks-exploding, dick-hardening moment when our lips slammed together in the back seat of my old Mustang in the school parking lot.

  I peeled open the white button-down he’d donned after the show, wanting to taste every inch of smooth skin I revealed. Unlike me, he didn’t have a lot of body hair. I’d already had a fair idea of that from the play...and the shower in gym. But I’d tried not to ogle him there; it was hard enough to be a naked teenager in a roomful of self-conscious naked teens without having someone stare at you. At least, I
thought so. Ever since I’d started to grow chest hair and the first beard in our class, I’d been the object of curiosity among some of the guys.

  But, the night of the play, all bets were off. The parking lot had emptied around us, so the light high on a pole only illuminated my car with us jammed in the back, getting naked and discovering what a soul mate looked, felt, and tasted like for the first time.

  Pierce had not an ounce of fat on him, probably was a little skinny still from the several inches he’d grown over the summer, but his skin was warm under my palms even though the outside temperature was autumn chilly. As if Pierce still held the summer within him. Pushing the shirt off his shoulders, I followed its descent with my fingers and mouth, engraving a sensory memory that still held precedence in my brain.

  He’d danced and sung for nearly two hours, so I tasted his sweat, salty and strong, while still inhaling a lingering scent of the soap from his shower beforehand. Odd that the athletes all had access to the school showers after their performance, but the drama kids didn’t.

  Not that I minded. The scent of Pierce was one I remembered to this day. Sometimes, in a crowd, I’d catch a hint that reminded me, close but never right. And not one of the men I’d passed a night with compared to the young man I’d recognized as my other half, my omega, too late.

  I fumbled with the buttons on his slacks and tugged the zipper down, desperate to get hold of the thick bulge under his boxers. He grabbed at my shirt, but I batted his hands away, muttering something like, “Later, my turn first.” Funny...turn usually referred to the guy receiving, but I wanted to give. And over his protests, I did, closing a fist around his cock, thicker and longer than a skinny guy should have—although I have no idea why I’d thought that—and wrestled us around that tiny back seat until I could get my mouth close enough to do some good.