“That doesn’t have to mean anything. Do you remember the last time we had an actual conversation with him? And I’ve met Calvin like three times outside of work. Does this really have to be such a big deal?”
“Seriously, what is your problem?”
“I don’t want to deal with this shit, right now.” Lee stands up. “I don’t want to deal with any of it.”
“Fine.” Chrys sighs heavily and shakes his head. “You don’t have to deal with it. You don’t have to be involved at all, but I want to do something nice so I’m going to send a gift, even if you don’t agree.”
“Whatever.” Lee storms out of the room.
Chrys groans lightly when Lee walks out of the room. He turns back towards the computer and presses a few buttons, but he can’t really focus on what he’s seeing anymore. He finally gives up a few minutes later and sighs heavily. He runs a hand down his face and gets up - he really should see what’s wrong with Lee. He walks through to the bedroom and leans against the doorframe. He watches Lee, who’s standing by the window, for a few minutes before speaking.
“Do you want to tell me what’s wrong yet?”
Lee turns around to look at Chrys after a minute or so.
“Do you want to tell me why . . .”
“Don’t start that.” Chrys walks over to stand next to Lee. “What’s wrong?”
Lee sighs heavily and looks down.
Chrys puts a hand on Lee’s shoulder.
Lee lifts his head to look at Chrys, but he doesn’t speak for a minute or so.
“It’s not that . . . They should get to have a baby. I don’t think that they don’t deserve it or anything like that, I just . . .”
“Don’t care?”
“No.” Lee shakes his head. “I mean, no - it’s not that. It’s more that I just can’t get involved in any of that.”
“Why not?” Chrys frowns slightly. “I know what you said about George, but it’s obviously not true - I know you care about him - so what’s going on?”
“I . . .” Lee looks up at the ceiling and takes a deep breath. “They have this baby. Desmond has all his kids. Everyone else who . . . They’ve all got something, but I’m . . .” He lowers his head, but finds that he can’t quite look at Chrys so he stares at the floor instead. “I’m just that guy who lost his job because he was stupid. I don’t want to be that guy - I hate that guy - but I don’t have anything else.”
“You’ve got me.”
Lee looks up at Chrys and stays quiet for a few seconds.
“That’s not exactly the same thing. You were here anyway. You saw the worst of me long before anyone else knew. I am so glad that you’re here - I don’t know if I could do this without you - but no one is going to think any differently of me because you are still here. That’s the one thing that’s always been the same. It’s not going to change that people think I’m this . . . this . . . horrible person and I don’t even have anything for myself to make me not care about what they think.”
“Again, you’ve got me.”
“Okay, but what about when you’re away at work and meetings and travelling half the world? I’ll be stuck right here, being this horrible person, not being able to change it and not even having anything to make it a little better for myself.”
“Okay. Stop.” Chrys takes hold of Lee’s hands. “First of all, you are not a horrible person, please stop saying that.”
“But . . .”
“No. You made some bad choices, when you didn’t think you could do anything differently. That does not make you a bad person.”
“But . . .”
“Are you going to keep interrupting me or do you want me to make you feel better?”
Lee opens his mouth to argue further, but soon thinks better of it and closes his mouth again.
“Okay then. So . . . Where was I?” Chrys thinks carefully for a few seconds. “Right. Yeah. Second of all, no - you can’t change it. Everything that you did is in it the past - it’s done and there’s no going back. You know what you can do though? You can try and make things better now. You can go out there and talk about what happened, what you did; tell everyone how and why. You can make sure that Trevor and Jayce and all those guys coming up here and all over the world don’t have to make the choices you did. You can make sure they know how sorry you are, how I know you would do it differently if you could, about how things are different now. You make sure no one has to go through this again. I know you can do that. Thirdly, you’re not missing out on that much - you only got a six month suspension.”
“It’s going to be a lot longer than that. I literally lost my job. Even when I’m able to go back, who’s going to want me?”
“You’ve still got a lot to offer and if no one can see that then they’re stupid.”
“That’s great of you to say, but it doesn’t mean a dam thing. I can have everything I have to offer and more, but no one is ever going to trust me enough again. It’s over, Chrys.”
“It’s . . . You’re an idiot and you’ll see that sometime, but even if you don’t, it doesn’t mean you’re left with nothing. You’ve got time now to go out there and find something else if you want. You could have something, anything, to take your mind off this. You can’t just stand here for six months, or forever, complaining that you don’t have anything if you don’t go out there and find it.”
“What am I supposed to do?” Lee covers his face with his hands. “I don’t . . . I don’t know anymore.”
“Hey.” Chrys wraps his hands around Lee’s wrists. “You’re going to be okay.”
“Really?” Lee takes his hands away from his face and looks at Chrys. “I don’t think I believe that and I don’t know what to do about it.”
“You can do anything now.”
“But the one thing I really want is gone. I know it’s my own fault - I’m not trying to blame anyone else - but it doesn’t make it any easier. I don’t know what else I’m supposed to do.”
“There’s something out there for you, I know it.”
“What?” Lee shrugs lightly. “What could there possibly be? You have to tell me because I have no idea.”
“You could learn a language or you could start knitting or we could get married or we could have a baby or . . .”
“What?”
Chrys shrugs lightly.
“Like I said, everyone else we know is doing it.”
“Again, Chrys - no, it is not everyone else we know having babies. It’s . . . Where is this even coming from anyway?”
“You want something else to focus on and why shouldn’t get to have something this special, like everyone else?”
“Because . . . Because . . .” Lee’s head is full of perfectly legitimate concerns - what if they’re too old or what if it’s too stressful and it breaks them or what if they couldn’t find enough time for the baby or what if a thousand other things - but it isn’t any of those that he says. “Children deserve better than what I can give them right now.”
Chrys puts his hands on either side of Lee’s face.
“You are not a bad person.”
“That’s not the point.” Lee pushes Chrys’ hands away and takes a step back. He puts a hand to his forehead, but lets it drop down to his side a few seconds later. “You know, Desmond tells me how hard it is now, how he’ll take the twins, any of the kids, out and if people aren’t actually telling those kids that they’re going to be so screwed up because of who their father is, they’re looking at him like he doesn’t deserve to have any of them. Okay, it’s probably his fault, the same way that it’s George’s fault or Charlie’s fault or Dave’s fault or my fault for making those decisions and having everyone look at us like . . . It’s our fault, I know that, but I am still not going to put a child, our child, through any of that shit so, no, we are not doing that.”
Chrys studies Lee carefully for a minute before nodding slowly. He reaches out and pulls Lee towards him. He kisses the top of Lee’s head.
“It
’s going to be okay.”
Lee mutters some kind of sound - he appreciates the effort, but he’s nowhere near being able to believe Chrys. He’s still not close to believing Chrys when they’re in bed later that night and he can’t sleep.
“Do you really think I’m not a bad person?” Lee swears he hears Chrys laughing then.
Chrys wraps his arms around Lee’s waist.
“I’m pretty sure a couple of hours ago I said I’d marry you, I said I’d have a family with you. Would I do that if you were a bad person?”
“Maybe it just means you’re stupid.”
“Probably,” Chrys mutters and presses a kiss to Lee’s shoulder. “I still think you’re being too hard on yourself. You made some mistakes.”
“But . . .”
“No. No buts. You made some bad choices; you are not a bad person.”
“I let people down.”
“And it’s over now. If you were really a bad person, you wouldn’t care nearly as much as I know you do about making it better - you wouldn’t care at all, but you do care so, please, stop worrying and just go to sleep.”
“Okay,” Lee mutters. He smiles softly - maybe things will get better.
***
“Cal, I need to ask you something.”
Calvin mutters softly and shifts back against George.
“What is it?”
George hesitates for a minute before speaking.
“If it wasn’t for the baby, would you still be here?”
“That depends.” Calvin turns over so that he’s facing George. “Did you ever lie when you told me you loved me?”
“Never.”
“Then, yeah - if it wasn’t for the baby, I’d still be here.” Calvin smiles brightly and then presses his forehead against George’s shoulder.
George lets out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. He closes his eyes and gently rubs Calvin’s back.
“You should probably stop making these big revelations about our lives on social media, though.”
“Why?” Calvin pulls back slightly so that he can look at George. “That’s kind of my thing now.”
“Can’t having this baby just be your thing?”
“Nope. I got to have more than one.” Calvin grins.
“But this? Don’t you think maybe you could have done it in a way that didn’t lead to you having to answer what seemed like a thousand angry phone calls?”
“They weren’t angry. At least mostly, they weren’t. Everyone pretty much just wanted to say congratulations. Brandon cried a little, but I get that - it’s all fine, by the way, and maybe I cried a little too, but it’s my prerogative to be emotional now. Tim even wanted to say thank you for helping him have sex, which would have been weird, but it’s Tim so actually it’s pretty normal. Apart from that, I think it all went well. I haven’t heard anything bad yet. Well, nothing bad that we haven’t heard about ourselves already anyway. I don’t know if it’s that I’m still excited and I’ll start freaking out when the adrenaline has worn off, but I really feel like we can handle this.”
“Really? You think we can handle all of this?”
“I really do.”
“Okay then.” George smiles softly and nods as best he can.
“You believe me?”
“Come on, Cal - you can convince me of anything eventually."
“Oh, then I am definitely going to enjoy the next seven months.”
CHAPTER THREE
Desmond pulls on his jacket and glances towards the door before looking over at Alex.
“Are you sure you're not going to come?”
Alex scowls and shakes his head before pulling the cushion closer to him.
“Alex . . .” Desmond sighs and shakes his head - there is so much that he wants to say right now, but he doesn’t think Alex would even pretend to listen to him so he decides to save it for another time. He walks over and kisses the top of Alex’s head. “We’re going to come back right after so we won’t be too long, but if you need anything then you can call anytime.”
“Apart from during the pitch you mean.” Alex rolls his eyes.
“I don’t care if you call in the middle of it.”
“I do.” Neal stands in the doorway with his arms folded across his chest.
Desmond looks between Neal and Alex for a moment before closing his eyes and counting to five. He opens his eyes again.
“Okay, we’re not going to fight right now, mostly because we don’t have the time. Let’s just go, okay, Neal?”
Neal scowls at Alex for another second before nodding and walking out the front door.
Alex frowns after Neal for a few seconds before shrugging and looking away.
Desmond touches a hand to Alex’s cheek and smiles for a second.
“My mom might be back with the twins before we get home, but if it’s too much . . .”
“I can look after our children perfectly well on my own, thank you very much.” Alex scowls at Desmond.
“I know.” Desmond winces. “I just meant that I know things have been tough on you recently so I don’t think my mom would mind sticking around for a little longer.”
“I’ll be fine.” Alex glares at Desmond before looking away. “Don’t you have somewhere to be?”
Desmond curses himself - he should have known better than to say . . . well, anything, but he had to go ahead and do it anyway, didn’t he? He kisses the top of Alex’s head again before heading out of the room. He’s about to step out through the front door when he hears Alex call out.
“Good luck.”
Desmond looks back over his shoulder, but Alex has already turned away again. He smiles and shakes his head before heading out of the door - maybe things won’t be so bad after all.
CHAPTER FOUR
Desmond takes two steps away from the car before he realizes that Neal isn’t following him. He frowns before crossing back over to the car and opening the door again. He leans his head in and looks at Neal.
“You coming?”
Neal wrings his hands together. He chews on his lower lip and looks up at Desmond.
“Are you mad at me?”
Desmond closes his eyes and sighs.
“No, I’m not mad.”
“Which means you are.”
Desmond opens his eyes again and looks at Neal.
“Neal, we don’t have time to fight right now.”
“I don’t want to fight either - I just want to find out how mad you are at me.”
“We can’t do this right now - they’ll be able to tell, right away, if . . .”
“I don’t care what they think.” Neal folds his arms across his chest and scowls at Desmond.
“Look,” Desmond sits back in the car and puts a hand on Neal’s arm, “I love you and I’m glad that you’re being honest, but you don’t have to be so harsh with Alex.”
“You’re mad at him, too, I know you are.”
“I’m not happy, but he’s suffering and I’m kind of more concerned about making him feel better before I get on him about anything else.”
“You think I don’t care about how he feels?”
“I think you just don’t understand and you’re getting angry at him without trying to figure it out.”
“I do care, you know, and I don’t want to fight with him either, but he just won’t talk to me and I think that’s a perfectly legitimate reason to be angry with someone.”
“Yeah.” Desmond moves his hand down to squeeze Neal’s hand. “Let’s just concentrate on getting through the next few hours first, okay?”
“He should be here.”
“Yeah, he should, but even we can’t convince him of something he doesn’t want to do so we’ll have to handle this one by ourselves. Can we please just save the rest of this shit until we get home again?”
“Yes.” Neal offers a brief smile and nods. “I suppose that would be best.”
***
While Desmond is busy talking with one of the di
rectors, he can hear the excited chatter Neal is engaging in with the people around him. He can’t stop himself from smiling and doesn’t imagine he’s going to spend the car journey home yelling at Neal, but then again, Neal hasn’t made the stupid decision leading to that yet.
***
“I’m pregnant.”
Desmond looks down at the pile of papers in front of him and wonders why he bothered making notes at all because of course Neal was going to blurt out the announcement like that. He shakes his head and doesn’t bother trying to hide the fond smile on his face.
“Why am I not surprised?” Desmond reaches over and puts a hand on Neal’s knee.
“I’m just so happy.” Neal leans towards Desmond. “I wanted people to know as soon as possible.”
“It’s okay.” Desmond squeezes Neal’s knee. “I’m just that happy, too.”
***
It’s almost twenty minutes before Neal stops talking long enough for someone to get the chance to ask about the glaring absence.
“And Alex isn’t with you to make the happy announcement?”
Through the corner of his eye, Desmond notices Neal freeze. He watches Neal for a couple of seconds before jumping in to answer the question.
“Yeah, I’m sorry to disappoint you all, but Alex’s not feeling well. Instead of keeping all you good people waiting - god knows, Neal wouldn’t have been able to keep it to himself for any longer - we decided it was best for him to wait at home and you’d just get the news from me and Neal.”
“Yes.” Neal shoots a worried glance at Desmond before turning towards the crowd. “I couldn’t wait any longer - that’s the only reason.”
***
“And I feel like it’s best for me to stop working.”
Desmond puts a hand on the back of Neal’s neck and rubs gentle circles with his thumb.
Neal offers Desmond a small smile before continuing his response.
“I mean, of course I would have to take some time away from work anyway, but this time I don’t feel like I can go back afterwards. My career was the most important thing to me, but not anymore. I have more important things now. I missed so much with Matty and Libby and I cannot go through that again. For me, now, the most important thing is to be at home, raising my children. I do not blame people who choose differently and I expect you will still say things like I am a failure and I give up too easily, but it doesn’t matter anymore. I have made my decision and I do not have regrets.” Neal moves a hand to his stomach without thinking about it. “I just have my babies.”
The Omega's Finest Baby Page 5
