by Grey, Aspen
“We’re eating healthy!” he laughed as he grabbed Arnold’s keys.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Arnold said, stepping in between Jace and the door. “Where do you think you’re going, big boy?”
“To the store.”
“No, you are not,” he laughed. “Not with that big ol’ bun in your oven. All I need is some maniac crashing into you and popping you like a balloon. I’ll go pick up all your healthy food. You two stay here and don’t strain yourselves.”
“We can’t let our alpha go grocery shopping for us,” Jace said. “You already provide for us.”
“And you’re going to provide me with two gorgeous sons,” he smiled. “And that’s all that matters now. So you two stay here and I will go stock up on everything you could ever want to eat. Okay?”
Jace looked back at me. I only shrugged and nodded. “He’s right, babe.”
“Okay,” Jace agreed. “You’re right. I’ll just…relax, I guess!”
He grinned, kissed Arnold on the chin and sat himself down on the couch beside me.
“Be right back, angels,” Arnold said before heading out the door.
I let out a sigh and leaned against Jace who threw his arm around me. I smelled his fresh cream scent that was always just as sweet as the day I’d first smelled it. In fact, since we’d allowed ourselves to love each other, his scent had become even more attractive.
“How about Max?” I said.
“Mmmm….” he pondered. “I dunno.”
“Tyson?”
“Sounds like a porn star,” he replied.
“Or a total badass.”
“If we have alphas, maybe.”
“Aiden?”
“Hell no!” he snarled.
“What, why?”
“You don’t remember?” he asked. I looked at him with dumb eyes. “Paiden Aiden? The goofball from Hillcrest that always tried stealing from the other boys?”
“Ohhhhhh!” I laughed, remembering that little tramp who’d disappeared from the scene a few months back. Rumor had it he’d moved to Florida or something. But Jace was right—he was a real cooze, always trying to scam somebody. “Yeah, never mind that. How about Oliver?”
“Oliver,” Jace mused. “Hmm, I like that. As long as people don’t call him Twist.”
“Okay, Oliver’s one,” I said happily. “Now we need one more.”
We both sat there pondering for a moment. There were tons of good names out there, and we’d both been on our phones scrolling through lists, trying to see if anything really spoke to us or had some hidden meaning that we wanted to give to our sons, but in the end all we wanted was something that sounded right.
And then, at that moment, for some reason a name came into my mind that I knew was perfect.
“Liam,” I said, turning to smile at Jace.
“Liam,” he repeated, pondering. “Yes, I like that.”
“I think it works for an alpha, beta or omega,” I told him. “Don’t you?”
“Yes,” he smiled, placing a hand on my knee. “Where’d you come up with that one?”
“I don’t know!”
“Liam Neeson?” he joked, holding up a finger gun and doing his best Taken impression. “I have a very particular set of skills, skills that make me a nightmare for someone like you!”
“Stop!” I laughed, swatting his hand away and collapsing onto his chest with my arms around him. “Liam and Oliver. Oliver and Liam.”
“Sounds like an old English coat maker,” Jace observed.
“Well, if Arnold gets laid off for police corruption and we need a bit of extra money, we can always open a tailor store!”
Jace and I both burst out laughing, and as we did, I felt my water break.
“Oh, shit!” I gasped, getting to my feet and racing to the bathroom.
“What is it?” he asked, but I heard his voice stop short and as I rushed into the shower and began stripping off my pants, I heard his footsteps right behind me.
“Make room for me!” he cried out.
“Bring my cell phone!” I shouted back. “It’s time to call Wendell!”
Chapter Thirty-Three
Jace
“Okay, Wendell is on his way,” I told Sasha as I dialed Arnold’s phone. “He said ten to fifteen minutes.”
“Good, good, good,” Sasha replied, holding a hand over his belly. We’d both felt our first contraction, and if Sasha was anything like me, he was freaking out with a mixture of elation and anxiety.
The babies are coming! It was the most important moment of our lives, but we were both nervous, which I hope was to be expected.
Sasha had already stripped bare and was sitting on the floor of Arnold’s shower, which thankfully was large enough to fit us both comfortably. I set the phone aside, within arm’s reach, stripped the rest of the way and stepped in to join him.
I turned on the water and sat down, letting its warmth spill down over our shoulders as we both entered our first labor together.
This is it, I thought.
“We’re going to be fathers, Sasha,” I told him. “Can you believe it?”
I looked over at my mate to see tears streaming down his eyes. They would have been lost in the rain of the shower if his eyes hadn’t been red. “Oh, baby, are you okay?”
“I’m more than okay,” Sasha said, his voice a laugh and a cry at the same time. “I just can’t believe it, Jace. Think about how far we’ve come!”
“It’s a miracle,” I agreed. “And all because Arnold found us.”
A second contraction hit me, twisting my stomach. It hurt, but not as bad as I’d been led to believe. Sasha groaned.
“It’s not as bad as I thought,” he remarked. “It feels more like I’m one of those pastry cake decorator things that you have to squeeze the icing out of, you know?”
I burst out laughing. “No, I don’t know.”
“They’re like these paper plastic thingies,” he elaborated. “And you fill them with icing and then twist the tops and then squeeze them and it comes out the other end. You decorate c-cakes with them.”
“Well, I sure hope Liam and Oliver don’t come out like pastry icing!” I joked.
We sat there together for a few minutes until I heard the front door open.
“Wendell?” I shouted.
“Both of us!” Arnold replied as the two of them came stomping up the stairs. “Ran into him outside. He was pulling up at the same time as me.”
“Perfect,” Sasha replied as the two of them came into the bathroom. Arnold instantly stripped out of his clothes and stepped into the shower, taking a seat in front of us. Wendell opened a bag he’d brought and started organizing things.
Among them, I saw an IV bag with a couple of needles and tubes, latex gloves, two thermometers and some clothes and other things I didn’t recognize.
“How are you both feeling?” he asked. “Anything strange?”
He reached out and felt my pulse in my neck, nodded, then moved to Sasha and did the same thing.
“I feel surprisingly all right,” Sasha told him.
“Yeah, me, too.”
“That’s good,” Arnold said. He had a hand on each of our feet in a comforting way, his eyes intent, ready to do whatever was necessary if it was required. “It’s because all this is meant to happen, my angels. Everything’s going to be fine.”
It’s happening, I thought as I stared into Arnold’s strong blue eyes. My alpha. My beautiful protector. He’d given both Sasha and me so much, and now it was time for us to give something to him.
Another contraction rippled through me. It was stronger than the previous ones, but the pain was still bearable. If anything, it was simply uncomfortable and it felt strange to have my body moving on its own in that way. Sasha groaned and squeezed my hand.
“Are you okay, babe?” I asked him. He nodded and grimaced.
“Tell me if you feel any strange pains,” Wendell told us.
“Strange pains?” I laughed. “We’v
e never done this before—”
My voice cut off as another contraction seized my body, the strongest of them all. Arnold inched closer to us, bathing us in his scent. It was so comforting that I couldn’t imagine a scenario in which simply smelling him wouldn’t calm me down, and it was exactly what we needed.
“I—I think it’s coming now,” Sasha exclaimed.
“Me too!” I cried out as my stomach twisted again and my entire body flexed.
“Okay, you need to start pushing,” Wendell coached us. “Breathe in all the way, then out, then in again and when you breathe out, push. Got it?”
“Got it, coach,” I said sarcastically. But I did as he said. I closed my eyes as I inhaled, then opened them as I exhaled. I looked at Sasha, then back to Arnold as I took another deep breath and prepared myself to push.
“You’ve got this, my angels,” Arnold assured us. I knew he was right. There was simply one final step to take and our journey towards togetherness would be complete. I summoned up all my strength and pushed.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Arnold
I can’t believe it, I thought for the millionth time. I’m a father.
I was standing downstairs at the front door watching Wendell get his shoes on, but I wasn’t really watching. My mind was elsewhere—upstairs with my mates who were together in my bed, nursing our baby boys that had just been brought into the world.
“I’m not far if you need me,” Wendell told me as he opened the door. “But you’ve got two strong, healthy baby boys there, Arnold, and I don’t think you’ll need anything.”
“Thanks for all your help,” I told him as I shook his hand.
“I barely did anything,” he smiled. “Those are some tough mates you’ve got.”
“I know,” I smiled. “Good night, Wendell.”
“Good night, pops.”
The hippie doctor smiled and stepped outside, closing the door behind him. I locked it and immediately made my way up the stairs and into my bedroom where my mates were lying on the bed, each of them nursing their brand new cub.
The lights were dim and a few candles flickered on the nightstands, giving a homey, cave-like feeling to the room. Sasha and Jace were both worn out from going through what they’d gone through, but I didn’t suspect they’d sleep any time soon.
Liam and Oliver were both healthy and strong. Oliver, Sasha’s boy, was an omega, and Jace had given birth to the alpha. It seemed fitting based on their personalities. It was hard to tell who they’d look more like right now, and they both had gray eyes that had yet to gain their color. Wendell told us it could take weeks or maybe months before they changed. Sometimes they’d even stay that way. Only time would tell.
Both of my omegas looked up as I came in, smiling like the angels they were, both of them still covered in post-birth afterglow. I crawled up to them from the foot of the bed and they both made room between them for me. I adjusted the pillows and lay back, looking back and forth between my two sons in awe.
“They’re perfect,” I said.
“Yes,” Sasha agreed.
“And hungry,” Jace joked. “This is a new experience.”
“It feels kind of funny,” Sasha agreed. “But I like it.”
“You both seem so natural with them already,” I remarked, my heart swollen with glee.
“It’s like they come with an instruction manual,” Jace replied, stroking the skin of Liam’s shoulders where he wasn’t covered with the blanket. I touched him with the back of my fingers. I couldn’t believe just how warm and smooth he was—just like his brother.
“They say you just know how to be a parent,” Sasha added. “And they’re so right.”
“At least this part,” Jace laughed quietly. “Just wait until they’re teenagers with boy fever!”
“Can we not start that now?” Sasha replied. “And just enjoy this moment before we start stressing about actually raising them?”
Jace and I both chuckled, and I leaned over and kissed Sasha on his cheek, then kissed both of my beautiful children on the tops of their soft little heads.
“Yes,” I agreed. “Let’s just enjoy this moment.”
Epilogue
Sasha
Two months later…
Loved.
Happy.
Virtuous.
Homemaker.
Your life is beautiful. Your life is perfect and it’s only going to get better.
It had taken me five years to forgive myself for what I did to Jedrik, and six more months to fully understand the bliss of the life I now shared with Jace and Arnold, and every single day that I woke up, I took a moment to remind myself of just how far I’d come.
From street boy to stay-at-home father. From someone who hated himself to someone who was learning to love himself again, with help from his mates and his brand new baby boys.
They were gifts from God as far as I was concerned. The universe had brought us together—fate had led Arnold to me, and Liam and Oliver were the direct result of that. It was like a golden highway lay ahead of us and we were cruising down it in a convertible with the top down and the sun high in the sky and a perfect warm breeze in our hair.
“How much onion do you guys want?” I called upstairs from the kitchen. Arnold called back with his response, but as usual, I couldn’t hear him.
When will they learn to raise their voices when they reply?
I made the executive decision, diced the entire half of the onion as finely as I could, using the same method I’d seen Marco Pierre White use in a YouTube video, and added it to the three avocados I’d already spooned into a bowl. Then, I added salt and garlic and used a fork to mash it all together. Grabbing a bag of tortilla chips, I headed upstairs to join the rest of my family.
I was surprised to see Liam and Oliver both in panther form when I came up, crawling around at the foot of the couch with Sasha. They’d only started shifting a few days ago. It had actually scared Liam the first time he’d done it, and he’d immediately shifted back and started crying. I’d told him it was okay and showed him how daddy did it, but that had just made things worse.
Jace had taken him and let him feed until he calmed down. But after that, he accepted his ability pretty quickly and giggled each time he shifted back.
Oliver, on the other hand, simply watched his brother and copied him. As he knew he’d be all right after shifting, it never really scared him. We were all so proud of them and had shifted ourselves and lay there together as a pack until the boys fell asleep.
“Look at you guys!” I said happily as I handed the bowl of guacamole and the bag of chips to Arnold, who was sitting on the couch watching like the proudest father in the world. “You guys are getting so good on four legs!”
Liam let out a happy little squeal and tried to race forward towards Oliver but his front legs gave out from under him and he collapsed onto the rug. Instantly, he shifted back and began to cry.
“Gonna have to toughen this boy up,” Arnold mused as I scooped him up in my arms. “He’s gonna be a big bad alpha one day.”
“Well, when that day comes he can be a tough guy,” Jace replied. “Until then, he’s daddy’s little boy. Let me take him, Sasha.”
I handed him over, but not before kissing him on the cheek and wiping away his tears. “It’s okay, babe.”
“Don’t cry, baby,” Jace told him sweetly. “Here—do you want some of daddy Sasha’s guacamole?”
The boys absolutely adored the stuff, and as it was easy for them to eat, I’d been making fresh batches every day. Between our family alone, I figured we were subsidizing the entire Mexican avocado industry!
Liam sniffed again but his eyes lit up as Arnold showed him the bowl I’d brought up from downstairs.
“You want some?” I asked him. He looked up at me and nodded. “I thought so.”
Arnold scooped up a bit on his finger and fed him while his brother played on the floor with Sasha.
“Let me take the little g
uy,” Arnold told me. I passed Liam to him and lay out on the couch, watching my family as Oliver worked on walking and Liam ate avocado off his father’s finger.
I glanced into the spare room that had been converted into the boys’ nursery and smiled at the bright red crib Jedrik had delivered to us. It was even more beautiful than I’d imagined it would be, but it had barely gotten any use early on. We simply hadn’t been able to let our newborns out of our sight, and had slept with them on our chests every night for at least the first week. Arnold had bought some bolsters as well but the bed was beyond crowded with all of us packed in there, so when we could bear it, we put them both in their crib.
My home, I thought, thinking back to our crappy apartment back in Mission Beach. We’d gone back for our things and to tell the landlord that we wouldn’t be living there anymore. That life felt so far away to me now, as though I’d died and been reborn as someone new.
I’d taken up drawing as a bit of a hobby that I could do while Oliver or Liam nursed, and Jace was going through Stephen King novels at an unprecedented rate. The bookshelf in our bedroom was filling up and I joked that he’d have to start giving some away before the whole place turned into a library.
I loved my life. Some days I still felt as though I didn’t completely deserve it, but those thoughts were simply tiny grains of sand amidst the glowing beautiful beaches in my mind, and I knew that it was only a matter of time before they were gone completely and I would be at peace. And my family and children were the reason why.
Who would have thought that my life could end up like this? Beautiful. Just beautiful.
The end
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