by Emma Knox
“If you held a gun to my head and told me to love you, then I’d have to plead you were right.”
“You really do have a unique introspection on a pregnancy looming.”
“I’m just trying to see another picture that’s not always straightforward for me.”
But my mind was made up! And if Sean wanted to dilly-dally then he’d have to jump on his motorbike and head all the way to California. I just didn’t want Sean to leave! I liked him. More than I could say when he used his hands as a sweep back for his sandy hair and tugged-it-back into a position where he could place a hairband on.
“Should we go back to my place to discuss things further, Sean? I want to get out of the cold. I’m starting to feel goose-bumps on my skin. I understand if you want to—”
“No. I think you should hop on and I’ll take you back. We have plenty to debate about.”
Chapter 8
Sean
To describe how I felt with Robbie who sniffed the back of my neck unintentionally as we rode back was near enough a dead-end. We came to one…which was my fault for not concentrating and ignoring the directions that Robbie gave. I was ignorantly clinging onto my independence. I could say in the same way that the Betas wanted to be treated with respect!
I was making mistakes on the journey back to Robbie’s. And at one point he almost offered to ride the cruiser for me because he wasn’t looking forward to being road kill for the shifters.
“I’m ok.”
“You keep saying that, but your driving suggests otherwise.”
“You sprang onions on me. And you didn’t even give me a heads up that you would be cutting them.”
“Well, those same onions caused me to cry…not you! And concentrate on the road.”
“Mood swings. A definite sign of pregnancy!”
Beep-beep-beep! Beep-beep-beep!
“Hey, my bike is here. And I got a pregnant Omega on board!”
“Aren’t you the one in the wrong?”
“He’s driving blind. I’m behind his mammoth truck!”
“Calm do—”
Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep!
“If you get out that car I’m going to chop-suey your spine!”
The stress was eating at my road conduct which was never grand, but it was never this bad. And everything began to bug me. The smallest error made by a driver was enough for me to honk-honk —and then hope he could see the funny side of my story that he didn’t know. I was lucky that day to not end up with some bruising and missing teeth.
But we reached Robbie’s and I flew off and exhaled forever.
“I’ll make some coffee.”
“Brandy would be cool. Or whiskey. Something that’s going to wake me up from the damp trenches.”
“I’ll see what I have inside.”
“I’ll join you in a-bit. I want to …” I just walked off and let Robbie go in. I didn’t go far with the weather wanting to piss snow down on me. Plus, I was dressed for the beach, and I was too cold to have some alone time successfully. “This isn’t even my ho…” but the hummingbird flew away and left me gawping at a branch. I was going to tell it I’m not even from Juneau. And me and Robbie need to sort this out pronto! It rhymed…so that brought me a light-headedness and eased me back into entering Robbie’s home.
“I don’t have whiskey or brandy. I don’t drink much, so you’ll have to be content with five percent alcohol.”
“How about fermentation?” I sighed.
“You want to make your own brew?”
“Five percent alcohol is fluoride water. I think I’d have a better chance at poisoning myself with the fluoride.”
“The waters are pure around here.”
I got up to observe this five percent bottle of wine. “I’ll stick with nothing. But thank you.”
Robbie placed the wine bottle down onto his small glass and beechwood table. “Let’s get to it then?”
“I think I need to pray firs—”
“Sean, be serious, please!”
“I’m nervous, Robbie! I’m having a hard time here. You must understand that. I avoid the bumps on the road.” I stared at his stomach. “But that one…there’s no avoiding that when it starts to grow. And then there’s the topic of me not even being from this city!”
“I know!” Robbie looked tired when he went to sit down. “You don’t have to treat me like I’m a retard with dunce stuck on my forehead.”
“Why so snappy?”
“You’re irritating me—”
“No offence, but this isn’t even close to how cold I could go!”
Robbie brushed me off — and got back up with his mouth covered.
“Are you feeling sick?”
“Yes!” Robbie ran out the room and left me with the five percent bottle to gawp at.
“That won’t dent the metal.” Fifty percent would be more up my tree bark. When Robbie came back in he was topless and controlling nauseous contractions. “Can I get you anything?”
“Maybe an answer?” Robbie sat down like he was balancing on a tightrope.
“My answer was that I’m going back to Juneau. Ok let me rephrase that because I don’t live in Juneau.” I reached for that bottle. But stopped when I felt Robbie’s gaze penetrating me into jelly. “I’m talking gibberish.”
“Yeah. And I feel like I’ve eaten too much ham and ice cream. I’m having a baby.”
I reached for the wine again.
“And I want to know if you can cope with that?”
I had the bottle in my hand, but never opened it. “Do I look like a father of the year figure?”
“I think you could be one. So yes, why not?”
“The baby…what would I need to do?”
“Be there, Sean. Be its father.”
“I love the road. That’s my first and only love.”
“Well introduce a new addition to your binary pattern. Is it so bad to think of yourself with a child?”
“I guess not?”
“And what are you truthfully losing if you accept the responsibility?”
“Everything.” I didn’t shout it out. The calmness of its execution took Robbie onto my next confession. “I love how my life is. And I had no trouble with the way it was churning.”
“I can’t do this alone—”
“I’m not saying you’ll be alone! But we aren’t even a couple! We…we had the best sex of our lives! I think I speak for us both? Those four days was sexier than my cruiser out there. I didn’t even intend to pick up an Omega in the heat. And there you were: more than five percent alcohol. You were a looker. And to top it off, you were older! It was sex appeal galore for me!”
“And then the baby came and ruined it all?”
“No!” With the way Robbie looked, I had to watch my vocabulary. “It put a full stop when there doesn’t need to be one…but…we can work it out.”
“So far, all you’re giving me is you don’t live in Juneau—”
“I don’t!”
“Then what! Do you expect me to get rid of the baby because you don’t live around here?”
My right-hand ran all the way down my scalp and stayed on my nape. “Can you open this bottle for me?”
“If I move from this seat I’ll vomit, Sean. Try being pregnant and you’ll get my point.”
“Maybe we could work a system out where I come back and—”
“You wouldn’t come back.” Robbie’s mind wouldn’t change on that as he peered at me. He made me feel guilty for that being partially true. “Sit down and breathe, Sean.”
I tried the breathing part… “Am I doing it correctly?”
I was trying to make him smile. But Robbie was a pregnant misery.
“I mean…don’t you like the idea of having a family? Something to come home to at the end of the day? Instead of just…riding to wherever with no foundation to work upon?”
That was for me to know. “I—”
“Don’t you want any part in this child’s life?”
“So, you’re keeping it?”
“We discussed that I was back outside the council meeting. My mind is set! You just need to decide what role you want to play.”
Before I could even blink Robbie said, “And don’t joke about the role of the absent father. I’m in not in the mood to find that funny.”
“This is way-way-way-way-way-way-way too much for Sean to play with! What Alpha doesn’t want a family?” I asked myself this. Not Robbie. I had no answer to give myself though.
“It can be a beautiful thing.”
When I opened that wine bottle it was a beautiful pop! And I drank without offering Robbie any. But in his condition, he seemed content to just watch me drink the sweetened water. I only drank enough to overflow my cheeks. And then I placed it down and went to stand in the small foyer while Robbie buried his forehead in his palm on the sofa rest. His elbow kept swaying alongside his head.
I needed to be alone. That was important for me, even if I ended up on his stairs and relaxing until minutes drifted by. Robbie came out: standing before me and looking much better with his skin tone returning from the pale.
“I’ll come back in.” But Robbie refused to move and that kept me in stone. “You look better.”
“I feel it. And I just wanted to see how you were truly doing with all this?”
“Having a child has its perks. That just literally came to me as I see you standing there. You’d be a great Omega to partner up with.”
“And you’d be a great Alpha for the kid to learn from.”
“Yeah…” Robbie actually laughed at my diminished confidence.
“I’m glad you’re laughing.”
“I’m laughing because you truly can’t see yourself being a good dad. You have so many traits to offer: freedom. Spirited. Adventurous.”
“I’ll stop you from continuing and add irresponsible. Care free. And prone to get the jitters if he doesn’t get his way.”
“That can be turned into something positive.”
“I don’t know if I want to tune it out!”
Robbie left me there to contemplate some more on my own. He was hungry, so he wanted to cook something for us both to eat. I walked up and sat on the top stair while facing the white wall. I opted out of sitting in the bathroom that was to my right while I sat there.
It was the perfect brainstorming whiteboard. And what started me off was Robbie’s cooking and how I often came home to a single bed with no Omega cooking a lovely meal. At times I might have company, but usually it was me alone. The idea of a family was on the piles of later…perhaps later? And loneliness did creep in me, even if I couldn’t shake its hands confidently.
The worry about later was what grappled me into a coma. I was afraid of waiting too long. But knew I didn’t mind just a little more…a little more. I’d been saying that for the past year and now I was faced with having to say it one more time and it flew away from me. What if later never comes again after this? We were compatible to a fault! Me and Robbie could produce something amazing! What if that was the truth of it? That what was inside his stomach was a creation of uniqueness?
Robbie called me for food and I dragged my feet down the stairs and into the kitchen that was laid out for me neatly with a knife; fork; and mat. What he cooked was chicken chunks smothered in a thick gravy and I devoured it before my mouth touched it!
I was famished. And we ate in silence as Robbie tucked into a salad with loads of green pickles. And his obsession was a cream that nearly drowned it to death! When my plate was empty, I wanted seconds, but I took a second instead to gaze at the bump that was still in the developing stages.
That creature in there could be the light of my life — as I wiped my mouth and hands and chucked the tissue onto the plate. Robbie cleared it, but he was still acting like he was walking on water with his gaseousness. I couldn’t take my eyes off him. I followed Robbie’s every move in that kitchen and it went unnoticed: which I was grateful for. “I’ll wash up, Robbie.”
“No—”
“I want to. Sit down, you cooked for me and that’s the least I could do.”
When I washed up, I caught the eurgh-disease from doing it. I hated that! It came like a package with a family. And that was what I feared: routine checks and exchanges of the household chores. And not to forget that babies are smelly and dirty. My hands stay clean unless I’m mowing an Omega’s lawn. But back to routine… I finished the washing up and tidied the area.
Robbie came behind me with a, “Thank you—”
“No problem. I reckon we should leave the baby talk for a while and just postpone it until we have clearer heads?”
“Yeah. Sure.” It went awkward. “I’ll let commitment have its last walk with you.”
“You’re joking right?”
Robbie shrugged. And then went painfully quiet.
“So, what do we do next then?”
“Introduce some romance back into the game—”
“How?”
“I want to take you on a date.”
Chapter 9
Robbie
The reason why I suggested the date, is because Sean had a face like a slapped teenager when I stood behind him. I knew he observed me, and I let him. I wanted him to get an idea of what he could have: all of it for him and nobody else. I was afraid of Sean, deep down, because his type had to be reined in with a rope strangling them until some sort of surrender made sense.
I felt like the blunt object stabbing the reality into him. And although I suffered from symptoms of pregnancy, Sean still contributed to eighty-percent of the whirlwind within and it drained me entirely.
Offering Sean the option of a date, lightened the load that had me heaving over the opened toilet seat with nothing coming out. We agreed to go tomorrow evening and he could kip on the couch.
It wasn’t easy leaving him on there because a disappearing act could commence. But the next morning, after fighting sleep that came an hour before I saw him, was Robbie lying underneath a blanket with his whole body ready to be buried. He sensed my footsteps and slowly drew them off until his head was the only body part visible.
“Did I wake you from your sleep?”
“I was catching a tan underneath this blanket.”
“You’re already tanned.”
“A white tan.” It was a dead joke.
But Sean was very much alive with a good mood that carried on for the next few hours as I busied myself and he came in and out my home. Nothing was mentioned about the pregnancy. I was cautious on those lines as I observed his movements that showed me he liked to freely move and not be bothered.
What Sean did when he left was not my concern, but when he came back through that door I was happy to know that some part of him configured an idea that he had to come back to the house. And all he’d do is sit in the living room with his feet on the glass table and read a traveller’s magazine or one of my books on success hacks.
And then I’d come back to offer him something, and he’d be gone with the front door closed and an open magazine spread on the sofa. I didn’t see Sean again until it was time for the date, and a knock came as I answered it baffled at where time had gone so quickly. Sean didn’t know either as he stood slouched in a full zip jacket that was the colour of burnt wheat and long sleeved.
Sean’s collar was turned up and he looked suited to be riding his cruiser with a fuck-you attitude. “Where am I taking you?”
“Don’t you mean, where am I taking you, Sean?”
“Either way does it for me.”
“I wanted to go somewhere quiet where we could get to know each other a little more.”
“You’re from around here so I’ll leave that to you.”
“Do you have a sat-nav?”
“You can be my sat-nav, Robbie.”
In an odd way, that was the most romantic expression I’d heard from Sean when I watched him walk to his cruiser. It was the way he said it to me: butter melting on toast. But then he ruin
ed it all by forgetting that he had a passenger waiting at their front door.
I had to call out, “Sean, aren’t you forgetting something?”
He called back, “I don’t see anything.” But he was kidding and came back to offer me a ride on the back. “I would opt to ride carelessly, but they don’t like that much around here.”
“If you want your head to stay attached to your neck then a helmet is wise.”
“Did you calculate that for my sake?”
“It’s common sense. Something that you lack right?”
“I lack plenty of things, and above it, common sense doesn’t rule.”
I chose a place that would be suitable for both me and Sean in Juneau. The restaurant had an outdoor ambiance with no windows and a high canopy. The outdoor seating and tables were beechwood brown with the inside mahogany chocolate: including the separate bar. And they sprinkled indoor plants in every corner they could squeeze and had plaques of silver engraved with the best restaurant award.
Where we sat was outside and closest to the non-smoking area. It was a table for two, and Sean lacked chivalry in offering me a seat. “You not going to be a gentleman?”
“Phwoar …” Sean got up scruffily. “I didn’t know you was into all that?”
“I’m not. But it’s funny to see you get up.” I sat down on my own and he smiled for the first time since being told I was pregnant. “I felt like you wanted to though?”
“I didn’t know if it was your thing or not? I don’t want to make a fool of myself in front of you.”
A waiter came over to hand us each a menu, and then left us with contemplating time.
“I want steak that’s bloody and in a bad mood like me.”
“You in a bad mood, Sean?”
“No.”
I was glad Sean said no. I had picked this restaurant for a reason: it overlooked how lovely Juneau could be in the evening light behind the silver barriers with their printed logo upon white screens that segregated the restaurant from the walking path. It gave a nice visual of the rising mountains that often-looked like a large fruit pudding.
