“I’m very careful in my heats. The first one, I canceled our lessons when it happened. But… If this does go the way I think it’s going, which has been pretty great, by the way, I don’t want my baby daddy to still be taking classes when he knocks me up. We’re taking it slow, but that’s getting harder and harder.”
“Literally.” Robert chuckled.
“Oh, God…” Preston put his hand up to his mouth.
“What?” Robert leaned in and said so seriously I almost answered for Preston. Robert had that way about him. He was also the only Alpha between us.
“I… It can wait. I want to hear about your grad student. Has he finally given in to your charms?” Preston deflected.
Robert chuckled sadly. “No, but yes. Technically, yes, but also no.”
When we both looked at him like he was nuts, he shook his head.
“Working on it. Jaime is Jaime, well, I’m having a harder time of it than I thought I would. After certain events. Anyway. Now you. This is my party, and I’ll go last.” Robert pointed at Preston. “What’s been wrong? Because something has totally been going on with you.”
Preston looked at us with his large eyes, and a tear started to fall.
He told us his story – but that’s his story to share.
Let’s just say I was fucking floored. It was not what I was expecting from Triple P. If anyone had their life together, I would have said it was him. But this… Well, suffice it to say – Preston had the surprise of the day.
10
DARREN
Can you drown in the idea of someone? Thomas has possessed me in a way that fills me with joy and a vigor I didn’t know I could feel. My thoughts are filled with him. My heart beats stronger when I’m around him. My cock is so rock-hard every time I’m near him that it aches. I want to throw him down on my bed and feel his naked body underneath mine more than I’ve ever wanted in my entire life. I’m filled to the brim with his presence even when we’re apart. But when we’re together, I smell him like I’m a fucking dog. His scent reminds me of when my nanny would bake gingerbread cookies. The scent spurs me to breathe him in and hold it close.
I’m fucking sniffing him. Seriously – I might actually be possessed.
My mother actually called me to see how I was doing recently. Thomas and I had been doing this slow dance for too long, but I think she was right – Thomas was right. I was young and stupid whenever I thought about him. My needs were overwhelming in his presence, but I had learned to control them – stifle them – which gave us a chance to really get to know each other.
We talked about everything. His childhood. My childhood. His dreams and the reason he left them behind. My dreams and my fear of pursuing them. We were like a balm to each other’s wounds – real or not. When I was around him, I wasn’t as scared about telling my family the truth about me. I hoped I did the same for him. Nothing and no one would ever cause him any pain ever again. I would always be there to make sure of that.
It was the talk of the future where we seemed to hit a wall.
Something was holding him back from diving into what had to be us. He shut down when I pushed him about it, and so I stopped trying to talk about the future – our future.
‘We should focus on the now,’ he whispered as his eyes misted over when I pressed him. ‘The future isn’t something we can plan. We just have to live in the now and see where it goes.’
I knew where it went. It went to us, never leaving each other’s side. I did want to finish college, and in my heart, I knew that might be a part of the problem. Maybe it was the older Omega and younger Alpha thing that made him uneasy? He had brought up my age enough times that it wasn’t a stupid assumption. But did any of it really matter? I was already so in love with him that I would give up anything and everything that he asked of me – which he would never do.
Finishing college and getting a degree was important to me – but not at the expense of losing the only person that truly mattered. I would walk away now, and we could live on my trust fund for most of our lives. He could continue teaching if he wanted – or not. I could find a job that would help support us. With the connections my family had, a degree wasn’t an obstacle to my success. Only I was.
He would never let me do that, of course.
He felt the same feelings that I did – I knew that. Science knew that. Our connection would never let us leave, so there was only one choice for us. A future. A baby, if destiny was kind. A life together with a wedding that would make my mother happy and hopefully his.
The future was all I wanted to think about.
My classes for the day were over, and it was a beautiful fall day. October was about to fade and give way to November, which was one of my favorite months. Most people loved Halloween and Christmas, and I did too. But it was Thanksgiving that made me smile the most. Mainly, it was the food and the Thanksgiving parade that I watched every year on TV.
It was also Homecoming the next weekend, and that meant my family would be descending from the heavens, and my life was about to change. Mother had asked me to wait until Christmas to talk to Father about meeting Thomas. But I didn’t think I could do that any longer. I had to tell them a lot, and did it really matter if they liked it or not? Whose life was it? It was mine, and it was time for me to start living like it. My choices were no longer mine alone. Now I had someone else that was also a part of my life – that also meant some of my decisions.
What was a dream? A fading image of how you saw yourself. I loved music and being a DJ. I was actually pretty great at it, and the only real training I ever had was self-taught. If I could study it – who knows what I might be able to do. But what if my dream was just that? I now had Thomas. Maybe it was time to live the life my father had always planned. Pre-law wouldn’t kill me, and I could still make music for myself when I had time.
Maybe?
The future was all I could think about, and I had no idea what it was I should do. If Thomas would just talk to me…
