Page 3 of Home for Nathan (Secret Springs)

Chapter

Three

H e was going on a date.

Nathan had texted and asked to actually call on Thursday, and they had set up a date for Fuel for Saturday night. He could just walk downstairs and meet Zion there, so he didn’t need to worry about getting stranded. The restaurant was in the same building as his apartment.

He stared at himself in the mirror. “Is this a mistake?” he asked himself. “What if this is a monumental mistake?” Butterflies filled his stomach, which was blessedly not sour or urpy, but who knew how it would go? There was no fish on the menu at Fuel tonight. He’d called.

He breathed in and out, then nodded at himself. He wore a baggy sweater that still managed to look really polished, and a pair of cargo pants. No belly showing at the moment. Yay. And his hair looked good. So he was going to go and have fun and enjoy himself.

He turned on his heel, marching to the door and grabbing his keys to go out and lock up. He tucked his keys in his pocket, then made his way down the stairs. He always looked for the resident ghost that supposedly lived in the building, but Nathan had yet to see him.

He waited outside Fuel, and he knew he was almost ten minutes early. Maybe fifteen. But this way he got to watch people and smile and nod at folks he knew from the store.

And he could watch Zion as he came up to the restaurant, smiling, looking incredibly hot in dark jeans and a fancy button-down shirt that was black with silver scrollwork down the sleeves. Kind of extreme sport meets cowboy.

It was really hot.

“Hey.” He got a smile that lit him up inside in ways that he couldn’t remember Don ever doing for him. Which made him put his hand on his belly, sad for his baby for that.

Asshole.

Not Zion. Well, at least he hoped not.

“Hi.” Nathan shifted from foot to foot. “How are you?”

“Good. Did you have to work today?”

“Just until four. So I was able to get a shower. What did you do today?”

“I picked up all sorts of stuff at the Crapitorium, bought some more shit, too, pardon my French. Then I worked on the house for a bit.”

“So where is your house?” He turned when Zion gestured, and then Zion held the door open for him.

“Out by the river, not too far from the hotel. I have a nice bit of land, like thirty acres, and a mill house and stuff.”

“Oh! The mill house! There’s pictures of that at the hotel. Wow. That’s so cool.”

“The house is really neat, too. It was built in 1888. And it’s a boxy old farmhouse, but it has an amazing set of stairs and a bunch of built-ins. And there’s a yurt. With an outhouse.”

“Hey, Nathan!” The young lady at the host stand came to the deli twice a week for a turkey melt, but he honestly couldn’t remember her name, darn it.

“Hey. How are you?”

“Good, good. Two for dinner?”

“Yep. This is Zion.”

Zion beamed. “I have a reservation under Zion, in fact.”

“Hi, Zion. I’m Kara. Nice to meet you. Come on. I’ve got your table over here.” She led them to a table, humming a little as she went, which was so cute.

They settled in, water poured, menus in hand, and Zion grinned at him. “Did you remember her name or not?”

“Nope.” He chuckled. “But I can remember her deli order.”

“Hey, sometimes that’s more important. Like, I can totally remember most everyone’s dogs’ names.”

He sipped his water. “Do you have a dog?”

“Not right now, no. I had one for fifteen years. I got him when I was twelve. And I was traveling so much that he stayed with my folks a lot, but I was there when he went, so that was good.”

Nathan’s eyes filled with sudden tears. “I’m so sorry. It must have been awful for you.”

He’d lost custody, so to speak, of Archie when Don had broken up with him. The little dachshund had been Don’s dog, of course, but Nathan had adored the little beast, and it had hurt to walk away from him.

Zion reached over and patted his hand, the big hand warm and solid. “Now don’t cry. This isn’t a crying date. This is a laughing date.”

Zion winked at him, and he sniffled and chuckled at the same time.

“A laughing date?” That was surprisingly charming, but Nathan didn’t know why he ought to be surprised. Zion had forever seemed like a charismatic man on television, always smiling for the interviewers.

“That’s right. Laughing. Having some good food, making new friends, right?”

Nathan nodded, his cheeks heating. “Yes, I think this is a good idea. Hormones, you know? They’re wild things.”

God, he was a dork.

“Oh, tell me. I have omega brothers, so I understand.”

“Do you? I’m an only.” His parents were in northern New Mexico, and they were a weird mixture of excited and disappointed about the baby.

Excited because they were going to love their grandchild, but they knew it was hard to be a single omega to raise a child by himself.

Still, they’d never lectured him, just started immediately sending little baby clothes and weird random supplies.

Zion laughed again. “I’m one of four. Three omegas and me.”

“That’s a nice big family, huh? That’s cool.”

“It has its moments, yeah. I mean, it’s life, right? So there’s some ups and downs. But you know, we get along. We’re family.”

“Are they into winter sports stuff?” Was it a huge family thing, or was Zion the outlier?

“Two are, yeah. The other one, no.” Zion’s laughter was addictive, and he found himself leaning toward it. “Kai is one of those techy guys who thinks that going outside is the dumbest idea in the history of ideas.”

“Oh, wow.” He didn’t even own a computer. He did business on his phone.

“What about you?”

“What? Oh.” He shrugged a little bit, licked his lips. “I mean, don’t get me wrong. I love to watch. I try to do things, sure. But I’m not like you. I’m more of an outdoor sports for having fun and absolutely no profit.” He was a fan, but his passions lived in different areas.

Right now, in fact, all his passion was involved in growing the small child in his belly.

“Oh, come on. Trust me, ninety-nine percent of people are into winter sports for the fun.” Zion leaned toward him as if he was sharing a secret.

“I’ll be honest. Sometimes, I think that’s the best—to not have to compete and to have a ton of fun.

That’s been amazing for me, just to rediscover my joy. ”

It was so easy to get lost in Zion’s eyes, to simply melt and listen to that deep voice rumble on.

Suddenly the server was standing there, smiling at them, a little electronic tablet in hand. “Hi, I’m Jaymi. Are you all ready to order?”

Nathan blinked and sat back, because he hadn’t even looked at the menu. Like, not at all.

Zion turned that smile on the server. “Oh, we’ve been so busy talking that we didn’t even look. How about we just start with our drinks?”

“Of course.”

She glanced at Nathan, and he managed a grin. “Do you have ginger ale? You do, right?”

“Of course, ginger ale is easy.”

“Ginger ale? That actually sounds perfect. Two of those please.”

“You know, if you want a beer, you won’t hurt my feelings.” There was no reason for Zion to deny himself just because he was knocked up.

Zion shook his head. “I’m good. Thank you though.”

Maybe he wasn’t a drinker. A lot of sports guys were super careful about things like beer, as it really put on the pounds.

“Of course. I’ll be back.”

Zion snorted. “I guess we should look at the menu. Hey, check it out. No tuna.”

“Oh my God, that’s so tough at work. So many people love our tuna salad.” He swallowed hard just thinking about it, even though his stomach was pretty good right now.

“I bet it’s tough. Ginger ale for the win?”

“Yes.” He had to grin. “You’re very kind, you know. About my baby bump.”

“Hey, I don’t judge. Like I said, I have a unique perspective a lot of alphas don’t. My brothers have schooled me.”

“Everyone here has been super decent to me, too. Some days, I feel like it’s all overwhelming, and some days, I just really sort of feel like I’m going to be fine.”

He knew that the farther along he got, the more the fact that the baby was there would be impossible to ignore—especially once the teeny flutters inside him became more pronounced. Right now, he was still able to mostly wear his old pants, if they weren’t too tight.

“Oh, I think this place has an amazing infrastructure. I love the sense of community. It’s one of the reasons I chose Secret Springs.” Zion kept beaming at him, his pretty eyes lit up. “Now, food, huh? No fish.”

“Totally food,” Nathan agreed. “But yeah, no fish.”

Zion looked down at the menu. “I don’t think there’s any fish on tonight. It looks like pot pie with chicken, or steak, or sweet potato and black bean enchiladas, which kind of sounds amazing.”

Nathan chuckled. “I think those would probably be too hot for me. I’m gonna go for the pot pie. You know what I really want, though, is the peach cobbler that’s at the end.”

“Hey, maybe we should get that to come out first. I mean life is short; we should eat dessert before anything else.”

He bounced. “I love that idea! We should do that.” That so went with a laughing date. He could just see it. Peach cobbler and ice cream, and then they would take half of their entree home or whatever.

“I think that’s a grand idea.” Zion’s smile went totally wry.

“I had to stop having dessert for so long, and I have to tell you that when I was a kid, I had the worst sweet tooth. My mom, oh my God, she makes the best pie. Like her pie crust is amazing, and when I would go home to visit like when I was on the circuit, I couldn’t have it. ”

“Oh, that sucks.” Nathan shook his head sorrowfully, maybe teasing a little bit, but not much. “I mean, do you still get along with your folks? You talked about your brothers but not your mom and dad.”

“Well, you know, I’m from Steamboat Springs, and Mom and Dad are a little… Let’s just say they were kind of sad that I didn’t go rodeo rather than snowboard, but they’re really good about everything else. They’re just waiting for me to have grandbabies now.”

“Do they care what kind of omega you might hook up with?” He knew some folks did have very certain preferences.

“No, they really don’t, which kind of surprised me because in some more conservative areas they still frown on anything but male and female, no matter which one is the alpha. But my folks, they don’t care.”

“That’s fantastic. I’m so glad to hear it.” His own parents just wanted him to be happy.

The server came back to their table and kind of held up her tablet expectantly. “Are we ready?”

They grinned at each other, then at her. “We so are. We’re going to have two peach cobblers with ice cream to start,” Zion said.

Her eyebrows flew up, but she never really even blinked otherwise, she just nodded. “Sure. And then was there gonna be anything else?”

“Yeah, I think we’re both going to have the pot pie.” Zion said, giving him a thumbs-up.

Nathan nodded. “Absolutely, and I think I would like a side of the coleslaw.” That sounded better than the enchiladas suddenly.

“Of course, did you want a side of anything, sir?” she asked Zion.

“I didn’t even think to look at that.” Zion checked out the side dishes on the menu. “I think I’ll go with the green chili mac and cheese. That way if it’s too much carb load, I can just take it home and have it for lunch tomorrow.”

The server chuckled. “That’s what a lot of people say. It’s one of our best dishes.”

“Cool, thanks.” Zion took his menu from him and handed them both over to the server.

“So are you carb watching for real, or would you guys like the artisan bread basket?”

“Bring it on,” Nathan said. He could totally carb load. He was pregnant after all, and sometimes food was the enemy. But bread was good.

Zion laughed a little bit. “I’ll try it, but I have to admit with cobbler and pot pie and mac and cheese, I probably won’t partake too much.”

“How about I bring a half a basket then; is that good?”

“That is probably the safest thing,” Nathan said. “Otherwise, I’ll just sit here and eat bread.”

“Good deal. I’ll get that out as soon as I can.”

“Thanks!” Zion was super kind to the server, and his smile never faded. Nathan’s dad had always said that you could tell a lot about people from how they treated servers, and God knew that had borne out when he was a waiter, working with Saul.

They chatted about food for a while as they waited for the actual meal to come out, things like what kind of ice cream do you like the most or what’s your favorite kind of taco.

Nathan found out that Zion had incredibly particular views about tacos.

“No really, I was on tour for years with this guy from California, and he taught me all about street tacos.” Zion told him.

“They have all this crazy stuff. Shrimp tacos. Fish with jalapeno slaw. Asian fusion. And you know tacos el pastor have pineapple in them. So, you know, it goes way beyond the green chili chicken or ground beef tacos I grew up with in Colorado, right?”

Zion could really wax enthusiastic about tacos.

But that was okay, because Nathan had real feelings about breakfast cereal, and he explained those to Zion at length.

It was so amazing to just sit and talk with somebody who didn’t seem to have an agenda, who just wanted to be friends.

Maybe he wanted it to be more than friends with Zion, but it was probably early in the day to figure that out.

Their cobbler came, and it looked stunning. It was perfectly golden brown on the top crust, the peaches were firm but still cooked well, and the ice cream had little flecks of vanilla bean in it, which told him it was hand churned. Well, homemade. Housemade. Whatever they called it now.

“Oh my God, look at that.” Zion actually licked his lips, which made Nathan stare in that way that was probably a little too intimate. He couldn’t help it; Zion’s mouth was so pretty.

“It looks wow, doesn’t it?” He figured amazing or delicious wasn’t good enough. Wow perfectly expressed how bad Nathan wanted to dig his spoon into that cobbler and take a bite.

“It truly does.” Zion gave him this wild grin that he had seen on the man’s face more than once on TV, right before he dropped into the half pipe.

How fucking sexy was it that Zion felt the same way about eating cobbler that he did about snowboarding?

Nathan would bet he had the same smile when he was having sex, but he really didn’t need to think about that right now or he’d end up embarrassing himself somehow.

So he grabbed his spoon and dug into his cobbler, and he moaned because the ice cream was cold, and the cobbler was warm, and the combination of the two was the most perfect bite he could remember having in a long time. And there was no tuna fish in sight.

Which was just about the best thing he could ask for, so he was simply going to relax and really enjoy the night.