Page 4 of Temporary Omega

Linc grunted but didn’t reply. He wasn’t in the sharing headspace, besides his friends would probably laugh their fool heads off.

“Just peachy,” Linc replied. Although, he didn’t meet Nic’s eye to see if he believed him.

“Right, and I’m the Queen of England,” his friend quipped.

“You did look quite lovely in a dres…” Linc started.

“We never speak of that bet,” Nic cut him off.

“What is this about my husband and a dress? Please, that is a story I need to hear,” Jai, Nickolas’ husband came up to them, clearly having sought Nic out, and curled up to his friend’s side.

The pang in his chest took his breath, as Jai lifted his head for a kiss, and the tenderness his friend showed as he placed a kiss on his husband’s lips, like they were the only two people there.

After the sweet kiss, his friend tucked his husband closer to his body, then they both faced him like the single unit they were. Making Linc feel more like a third wheel than he could ever recall feeling.

Fuck. He needed to get his head right. Jealousy wasn’t an emotion he was familiar with and if this is what it felt like, he wanted no part in it. Especially since he knew that Nic and Jai’s happiness was hard earned.

“Excuse me,” Linc said, “I just remembered I have a phone call I need to make.”

“That’s our Linc, always working,” Nic teased.

“Right, work,” Linc murmured. And fled from his friend and his husband's presence like he was being chased and went outside to get some air.

As he was leaving, Linc heard Jai ask Nickolas, “Do you think he’s ok? That was weird, wasn’t it?”

“Nope, that’s Linc for you. He works hard and plays hard, if you know what I mean,” Nic replied.

If only they knew just how much of a lie the second part was.

2

Luca

“You can’t do this to me, please,” Luca sobbed into the phone. “You said you’d give me time to come up with the money.”

The voice on the other end replied, “Well time’s up, rents up, pay up or you’re out.”

Luca didn’t know what to do. There was no way he could pay until maybe the end of the month, and even then with the increased rent, he would still come up short.

“I just need a little more time, please, I have nowhere else to go, you can’t do this to me,” Luca pleaded. He couldn’t stop the tears that rolled down his cheeks.

What was he supposed to do now? The place he’d been staying, he refused to call it his home, had been the only thing he could afford and it was barely even livable.

The only option Luca had was to go home. But even that wasn’t an option really. His parents had been furious when Luca had run off with Frankie. They’d suspended his access to his trust and told him that he should let them know when he’d come to his senses.

Luca had thought himself in love and had said some really mean things to them about how they were suffocating him and how happy he was to be away. He would never forget the tears in his papa’s eyes at the words coming out of his mouth. How could he go back home now? Not only had he been oh-so-wrong about Frankie, but he was pregnant with no alpha in sight.

Luca didn’t want to see the heartbreak in his papa’s eyes. Or the anger in his daddy’s for making his papa cry. He’d been such an ungrateful child, thinking he’d figured it all out at the grand old age of nineteen. Now two years later, he could freely admit he knew nothing. He could see now what his parents had seen, and it was too late. He didn’t know how to go home.

For the past two months since Frankie had done his disappearing act, Luca had lived in fear of coming home to find his measly belongings piled up outside his door— if he was lucky; on the sidewalk if he wasn’t.

And his fear had been proven. Never had he been more grateful that he kept whatever important items on him in his backpack at all times. Not that he had many things of value. What he had left home with worth anything, Frankie had sold or pawned in the early days. Fuck, he was gullible. He should have run far and fast when things had started going bad. Damn his bull-headed Taurus nature for making him stick it out so long that there was no longer a way out.

You could always have an abortion, the pesky voice in his head reminded him. Luca would be a liar if he didn’t say he had considered that option. He’d even gone as far as booking the appointment and was in the clinic with the gown on when he had run out like he was being chased by the hounds of hell.

It wasn’t his baby’s fault that his alpha sperm donor was a two-time loser. And Luca hadn’t understood how much he could love someone he’d never met until that moment. Or how much he was willing to do to protect his child.

He’d finally understood the lengths his parents had gone, to keep him away from Frankie. If only he could tell them he got it.