by Aiden Bates
There was just one last potential hurdle. What would Raff think? They’d never discussed having children or even getting married, but Chris was prepared to have a child on his own, perhaps with an alpha sperm donor, if Raff wasn’t ready to commit. But oh, he wanted a baby with Raff!
Chris remembered it well: he decided to take Raff to dinner and just ask him. Would he support Chris’s decision to become an intentional omega? Just as he picked up his phone to call his boyfriend, Raff texted him.
“Dinner tonight? Got Alberto’s reservations at 8.”
Alberto’s was one of the nicer restaurants in Hell’s Kitchen; a tiny Italian place with fantastic pasta diavolo, an impressive wine list and romantic ambiance.
“Are we celebrating something?” Chris texted back.
“Just in the mood for good food,” was Raff’s reply.
When Chris arrived, the restaurant was empty except for Raff and the wait staff. Raff was sitting at their favorite booth in the corner, and he had a bottle of Chris’s favorite petite sirah waiting. Raff didn’t drink, but he loved spoiling Chris with a good bottle on occasion. Warm bread and garlic butter was wrapped up in a basket, filling the area with a wonderful aroma.
“It’s dead in here,” Chris said, after kissing Raff hello and taking a seat. “I know it’s Wednesday, but . . . ”
Raff only responded with a smile. He’d already placed an order for antipasti and a huge family-style bowl of spaghetti. He was his usual relaxed self; one huge arm draped over the back of the booth and a light smile playing across his lips. He was so cool; so handsome.
Once he poured a glass of wine for Chris, Raff patted the seat next to him. “C’mere, darlin’.”
Chris felt himself blush. He loved being the focus of Raff’s attention. No one was around, so he slid over and allowed himself to nestle against Raff’s strong body. His cologne was a manly blend of essential oils, of sandalwood and vetiver. Chris loved the smell of Raff.
“I’ve got something for you,” Raff said, softly. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a black velvet bag then placed it in front of Chris on the table.
Chris smiled at him, puzzled but excited. Raff was on a tight budget. He did what he loved, helping people find and keep sobriety, and that didn’t pay well.
“You shouldn’t be buying me gifts, Raff,” Chris scolded lightly, but he was touched that Raff had thought of him.
Inside was a polished ring, only a few millimeters wide but obviously with some heft. Platinum.
Chris looked up at him. “What?—”
“Christopher Chambers, I want you to be my husband.”
The room was silent except for soft music, though the clinking of dishes could be heard in the back. It quickly became clear that Raff had set this up somehow, to have the restaurant to themselves. Chris was unable to hold in a gasp.
“Oh . . . Raff . . . I—” Chris suddenly didn’t know what to say. He shook his head to clear his racing thoughts. He had to do this right.
Raff’s expression went from loving and excited to worried.
“No, no . . . I want to marry you, Raff, I do. But there’s something I need to tell you.”
Chris held Raff’s hand as he described to him his dream, of having a house full of children that he and his beloved had conceived together. He explained his plan, from the details of the medical procedure to the careful financial planning, all with a heart filled with hope.
“I realize this is a lot. And I’m willing to take full responsibility for the child, if you . . . you know . . . don’t share this dream. But I’m going to have the procedure whether you’re by my side or not.”
“Oh my God, Chris! You don’t know how happy you’ve made me.”
It was rare to see Raff so excited. He almost hopped up onto the table, but instead he grabbed Chris’s face with both hands and kissed him hard.
“Marry me, Chris,” he said, when he came up for air. “Marry me, and let’s have five kids. Ten!” He kissed him again, before sliding the platinum ring on Chris’s right hand. “We’ll move it to the left when we get married. And we’ll get one to match for me.”
The rest of the night was spent cuddled in the booth, feeding each other olives and bread dipped in olive oil and forkfuls of spicy pasta. The owner of the restaurant stuck his head out from the kitchen at one point.
“Everything okay, Raff?” he asked.
“He said yes, man! Get out here!”
It turned out that the owner was an old friend of Raff’s (Chris suspected they might know each other from the rehab center, but of course he didn’t ask). He “owed Raff a favor” and shut down the restaurant just for them. After hearty congratulations and handshakes, he brought out tiramisu and then insisted that the meal was on the house.
It was the best night of Chris’s life up until then, but one thing stood out, then and now: He firmly believed that his life with Raff would get better and better, one “best night ever” after another.
Even in the beginning, it wasn’t all tiramisu and cuddling. The surgery was more painful than Chris anticipated, and he spent three months in bed recuperating, then the pregnancy had complications. He wasn’t even allowed to work from bed. Raff made sure of that, as he waited on Chris hand and foot and with a smile on his face. When the baby was born, there were sleepless nights and colic and the reality of poopy diapers and days without showers.
It was so worth it. Not only did they have that heartbreakingly gorgeous little girl but, whenever Raff called Chris “my omega,” it made him swoon.
Chris sighed. He’d gotten lost in memories and had been staring at his laptop monitor for almost an hour with no progress. The Stellar library, while quiet, was not free of distractions, and he knew he would have to go to the office to make any headway on the case. And that, even though Raff wouldn’t complain, there would be tension. Quiet tension.
They hadn’t had a “best night ever” in so long.
Something had to change.
Chapter Two
Raff was singing.
He knew he had a terrible voice, and he wouldn’t be caught dead in a karaoke bar, but there was something about having kids that made you feel like a rock star. As he made Elizabeth her afternoon snack, he sang “Every Rose Has Its Thorn” in his most soulful, quivery tenor, and she looked up at him with eyes full of awe and love.
“You like that, Bizzy?” he asked, setting down a cup of cottage cheese and sliced cherries in front of her. “You like how Papa sings?”
She giggled and nodded and then plunged into her food with abandon. His next tune was a slowed down version of “Rock and Roll All Night” by KISS, and she bobbed her little head along as he crooned.
Every moment with his little girl was precious. Raff felt like his heart would overflow on a daily basis. She had Chris’s beautiful green eyes and fair skin, and Raff’s black curls and long lashes. People would often say, “You’re going to have to lock her up when she turns sixteen.” But Raff scoffed. This little girl already had the strong will of Chris and a mind of her own just like Raff. There would be no locking up . . . and no need to.
He did need a break now and then. During the summers in Stellar, Elizabeth went to work with him at the rehab center. The administrative staff loved her, and she was a hit with the clients too. Raff often wore her in a carrier on his back, and she was happy as could be. But two mornings a week, she stayed with Denise, one of the residents of Stellar Landing who had three sons and babysat other children in the building. Denise loved having a little girl around. It gave Raff a chance to run errands, read, or work on his bike.
He wiped down the kitchen as Elizabeth ate, and continued singing. So when his sneaky omega tapped on his shoulder, Raff jumped with a shout of surprise.
If her uncontrollable giggle was any indication, Elizabeth was in on the surprise and thought it was the funniest thing ever.
“Shit, you scared the hell out of me.”
“Hey, watch your mouth, mister,” Chris
said, leaning in for a kiss.
Raff planted a casual peck on his omega’s lips, but inside his heart fluttered. They hadn’t been very affectionate with each other lately, and he clung to every touch and kiss like a starved man. He hoped for a second kiss but, when Chris pulled back without noticing, Raff said nothing.
“Did you make it to the office today?” Raff asked him.
“No, I tried to work in the library. Kept getting interrupted though.”
“Everyone wants a piece of Chris Chambers, Esquire. Let me guess. People looking for free legal advice?”
Chris laughed. “Not today, thank God. But Gladys caught me and made me promise to do some stuff for the Fourth of July party. I don’t even remember what it was. I think we are making potato salad and buying those popper things for all the kids. She’s supposed to send me a list.”
Raff bristled inside but hid it well. One more thing that took Chris away from him and Elizabeth. Considering that they would all be at the party, he knew he was being irrational.
Chris continued, “I do need to go in tomorrow though. And it’s probably going to be a late night. Need to get caught up before the Fourth. You guys should go ahead and eat without me.”
“Mmhm. Well, we’ll just have to enjoy your presence tonight then, won’t we?” Raff didn’t mean to sound terse, but he heard it in his own voice.
If Chris’s silence was any indication, so did he.
“You want to make dinner tonight, or do you want me to?” Chris finally said.
We used to do it together, thought Raff. “I’ll do it. Carnitas tacos okay? I’ve got homemade guacamole.”
“Delicious,” Chris replied, but he sounded pissed. “I’m going to play with Bizzy then; give you some space.”
“Wonderful,” Raff said, and he sounded pissed too. They both had things to say, but couldn’t say them. The passive aggression was thick tonight.
When he was alone, he put in earbuds and listened to classic rock as he worked. It was music he’d grown up with, and not a song played that didn’t bring up some kind of memory, good and bad. Fleetwood Mac reminded him of a first grade teacher who whistled “Landslide” in class. “Freebird” reminded him of his first foreman on the construction site who blasted the radio when the contractors weren’t around.
Raff never knew his fathers. They were young when they got together; an alpha and an omega who probably could have used some parental supervision. The omega was only fifteen when he got pregnant; sixteen when he gave birth. Raff was objectively glad that they gave him up for adoption. Surely two kids could not raise another child. He hoped that the boys had been able to finish high school, gone on to college and eventually started their real families. He sometimes thought of how old they were now—only forty-eight, still very young—and whether they still kept in touch with each other. He wondered if they thought of him. Perhaps they called each other, once a year on his birthdate, and let each other know that they still thought about it.
They certainly couldn’t have known that it would be hard for the foster care system to find a home for an alpha boy. Many people were frightened by what they didn’t understand. There weren’t that many alphas and omegas out there, and society was much more ignorant about it back in the eighties.
Moving from home to home wasn’t so bad. Raff learned to be quiet and sweet, hoping to extend his stays, and to keep his backpack packed. As he got older and bigger, he would be given up again and again because he ate too much or had accidentally broke a “real” child’s toy, and then eventually he couldn’t get placed because he was so big. Families with babies and little girls were afraid he was violent, even though Raff had never laid a hand on anyone. Raff loved his caseworker because she felt so bad for the boy that, whenever she had to take him from one home and bring him to another, she took him to McDonald’s for a Happy Meal.
It was with great relief that he was finally place in a group home. He was only twelve, which was young—they usually only took high-schoolers. But a roof was a roof, and the caseworkers hoped that Raff’s big build would protect him. Raff loved it. There was very little supervision, except that of a bored, undertrained and underpaid adult that made sure there were three hot meals and that everyone was in bed at 10pm. The boys he met were wild and loud, but mostly easy to get along with. They became his family. Even the ones who aged-out of the home would come back to visit on occasion, like big brothers do, dropping off little gifts and telling stories about life in “the real world”.
For four years, Raff lived in the home, racking up the number of “brothers” in his life. He had his first drink at thirteen—his “brothers” thought twelve was too young but bought the younger boys cheap beer for their thirteenth birthdays. Raff loved the fuzzy comfort of drunkenness. Jokes were funnier, music was better and the future didn’t seem so bleak. Sometimes, when older “brothers” visited, they brought little bottles of the hard stuff; treats that were passed around after the lights went out and the caretaker was snoring in his own bunk. By the time Raff was sixteen, he was an alcoholic. He never got crazy, never got mean, but he relied on alcohol to get him through every night. His “brothers” did too.
He managed to get emancipated at sixteen, then he saved up and bought a shitty motorcycle. It was the cheapest way to get from point A to point B; to get from his crummy little efficiency apartment to his buddies’ homes or to the employment office. His friends had bikes too, and soon they were sort of a gang.
It was the closest thing Raff had ever had to family, and he would have done anything for those guys.
Now, as he chopped onions and celery and seared the roast in a clean kitchen of a nice home, he knew what a real family was. There was very little of the pain that he knew in his younger years. Elizabeth and Chris were the ones he would do anything for.
Dinner was quiet; peaceful this time instead of tense. They were able to “just drop it” for the sake of their daughter. The two men talked lightly about meaningless things; the baby being the focus of their attention. Raff missed the deeper conversations of their past, but this was good too, wasn’t it? Families had their ups and downs. This was real.
When the food was gone, Chris reached over and grabbed Raff’s hand. It surprised him, especially when Chris squeezed. Raff looked at him, and Chris met his eyes and opened his mouth, but then shut it with a little shake of his head. He changed his mind. Raff smiled, squeezed back, and said he would clean up.
“You get Bizzy ready for bed. I’ll finish up in here.” Raff knew that Chris valued the nighttime rituals with their daughter since he was often gone all day.
Raff really couldn’t complain about Chris’s work schedule. His job had provided many things for their family. Having grown up poor, Raff was ecstatic to be able to buy pretty clothes for their daughter and books for her shelf and to put money into her college fund. In fact, without Chris’s job and his financial sense, they wouldn’t have their little girl. Some alphas wanted to be the breadwinner of the family. Raff was thrilled to be a stay-at-home dad, and he found Chris’s ambitiousness sexy. Secretly, he even liked being the rough-and-tumble arm candy at company events.
Raff and Chris met on-the-job, so to speak. Raff was twenty-three and still riding around with his “brothers” in the motorcycle gang. He’d stopped drinking a few years earlier, which kept him out of some trouble, but somebody was always getting into a fight or getting arrested for something minor. A few of the guys were getting into heavier crimes. Raff tried to keep his nose clean, but if you lie down with dogs . . .
Raff found himself behind bars and charged with grand larceny. He knew nothing about the crime, in all honesty. He found out the details from the public defender that was assigned to him: an oil painting by Merelda Mercier had been stolen while being transferred from a gallery to its new owner. Members of Raff’s biker gang were arrested with the painting in their possession, and someone had named him as an accomplice.
“Who the fuck is Miranda Mercenary?” Raff a
sked the attorney. He heard the panic in his own voice.
The public defender had bags under her eyes, smelled like cigarettes and coffee, and spoke very fast. She didn’t sound like she believed Raff’s proclamations of innocence. She told him a plea bargain would be the safest thing.
“It’s worth $800,000, but you might only get five years with good behavior. You don’t have a record and you were in foster care. Judges are sympathetic to that. You can be rehabilitated.”
“There’s just one thing. I didn’t do it!” He said it again and again.
Three days later, right before his arraignment, he was pulled out of his cell and brought to the visiting area. Two smartly dressed attorneys said they wanted to represent him, for free. Raff figured they had to be better than the public defender and accepted.
As instructed, in his arraignment, Raff pled “not guilty”.
His first glimpse of Chris was at the trial. Raff was too stressed and tired to notice how cute Chris was. It was hard to sleep in jail. It wasn’t until weeks later, out on the steps of the courthouse, when Chris stepped up to light Raff’s cigarette, that he noticed the slender, impeccably dressed young lawyer. He had fair hair, fair skin and green eyes that caught the light like shimmering emeralds. He also had a cocky, confident demeanor. A good quality in a lawyer.
When Raff heard the jury say “not guilty”, it was like a dream that he was scared to wake up from. He’d never had any luck in his life. Surely he misheard. But as his attorneys reached for him, shook his hand, pounded him on the back and even hugged him, he believed. He sat down in the heavy wooden chair and wept with relief.
