by N. J. Lysk
“I don’t mind.” The words were out before he’d thought them through. “I mean, I just... I could not do it, if I wanted.”
“You could,” Carry agreed. “But you’re not indifferent either.” His eyes met Keenan’s, sharp like ice. “You want to please me,” he added. “And that is its own kind of influence, which in a way... I don’t know, I’ve been wondering for months if I’m asking for too much. If... If just by letting you know what I need, I’m manipulating you into doing it.”
“You’re not,” Keenan said at once. Not stepping forward and touching him felt like resisting a hurricane. “You just ask and I give you what I can, it’s not even... it’s not even that much, is it?”
Carry refocused his gaze from the wall behind him to meet his eyes again. “Not that much?” he echoed, frowning. “What else can I ask for that you haven’t given me already?”
“Rights,” Keenan answered, feeling his voice catch. “The right to—”
“You can’t give me rights,” Carry cut in, then exhaled slowly. Like... Like it hurt to interrupt an alpha, just like Keenan had seen it hurt Indra. He’d thought Carry had trained himself out of it... Had he simply been hiding it all this time?
“Did that... Is that painful?” he asked.
Carry shrugged. “Sure, but I want to do it.”
“But... You do it all the time,” he said, feeling a little faint.
This time, Carry’s eyes were tired. “Yes, Keenan, I do it all the time because I want to.”
“Okay,” Keenan said. “I... Okay.”
For a moment, his brain was too frantic with the new information to remember what they’d been talking about. He didn’t want to see Carry in pain, of course, but all this time Carry had been hiding his pain from him. If there was something worse than suffering, it surely had to be to suffer alone. He wouldn’t ask someone he loved to hide their pain for his comfort.
“Keenan?” Carry’s voice recalled him to the present. “I don’t want to argue, can we... can we talk about it? I don’t want you to feel bad when it happens again.” He stood, taking a tentative step to bridge the distance between them. “Just... just keep paying attention, it’s... it’s all I can ask. It’s all anyone can ask. And I... I don’t think I’m very good at it myself, really, so...”
Keenan stepped into him and took hold of his hand, it was like finally being allowed to breath after too long underwater. “You are.”
Carry glanced up, then back at his hand. “I’m what?”
“You are...” He sighed, rubbing at the hand Carry had left in his care. He was completely naked, but it was harder still to bare himself like this. “You’re tough and critical and picky, and that’s... that’s what I need.”
“So being with me is like going to school?” Carry asked, he sounded very neutral and Keenan could feel he’d stiffened a little.
He shook his head, tightening his grip a little desperately. “Being with you is... is like discovering what the point of school is, like... suddenly I like going to maths class and getting told again— No, not again, because I get it now, you make it make sense and it’s not hard anymore, it’s not... It’s not easy, but I want to do it.”
Carry snorted. “Okay, that was the worst declaration of love ever, I’m pretty sure we should write it down and mail it to the World Book of Records’ people.” His words would have had more of a sting if he hadn’t yanked Keenan into a hug by his captive hand—always turning the game on its head, which was precisely what Keenan loved about him.
Just as Keenan parted his lips to give a cutting riposte, Carry nuzzled at his neck, which was, in all honesty, absolutely unfair.
He exhaled the unsaid words, returning the embrace. “You’d make a really hot teacher,” he said, just to hear Carry laugh in his ear, too loud by half and irresistible all the same.
“How would that even work? I’m younger than you.”
Keenan turned them so that it was him walking backwards towards the bed. “Well, you could be like one of those assistant teachers they have at uni, and I could be a mature student because I spent my youth playing hockey.”
“Mmmm... Okay,” Carry said, clearly deciding to indulge him.
“And then you could make me stay behind to...”
“Explain some maths?”
“Yeah, because I’m really hopeless.”
Carry shoved him down into the bed, but since Keenan didn’t have time to let him go and his first and last reflex was to hold on to him, he ended up splayed on top of Keenan.
The way his right leg ended up lodged between Keenan’s own was a tragic accident, of course.
“THIS IS YOUR FRIENDSHIP mandated morning-after call,” Thomas said when Keenan managed to pick up his phone.
“Uh, what?”
Thomas’s took a long moment to answer. “Are you alone?”
“Yeah,” Keenan told him, getting more confused by the moment. “Why?”
“Were you alone last night?”
“What? Do I need an alibi or something?” he joked.
“Keenan,” Thomas almost growled. “I can’t tell you, you idiot. You gotta tell me if something happened.”
“Oh,” he said, finally catching on. “Um, yes. It— He said he told you? Didn’t he?”
He heard a noise that was probably Thomas’s palm hitting his forehead. “He told me before telling you, which is to say, when he didn’t know what would happen. Now can you just fess up and stop talking in circles?”
“Well, I— You know how I feel.”
“Pretty sure there’s some extra-terrestrial life with too much spare time who knows how you feel,” Thomas told him sarcastically. “What actually happened?”
It didn’t matter, he reminded himself. Of course people speculated, but none of them had proof of anything and they wouldn’t find any—Keenan would make sure of that.
“He sent me an email to tell me... how he feels, and then I freaked the fuck out.”
Thomas snorted. “I bet.”
“Yeah, so I called my Cousin and he told me to stop being stupid and just tell Carry.” He swallowed, the name echoing in his head.
“And?” Thomas insisted. If he’d noticed the slip, he didn’t seem to find it significant. But why would he? They’d both know who they were talking about from the start.
“And he... he explained how... how some things work for him, and I said okay.”
“Of course you did.” Thomas sounded like he was rolling his eyes.
“Yeah, well, he’s worth it,” Keenan replied, a little testily. “And then he came to my house. And this is when we fade to black,” he added before Thomas could get any ideas.
“Like I’d want to know!”
“You don’t?” Keenan asked, pretending to be hurt. “Because of me? Because you looked like you’d have told Carry yes if he actually offered to blow you.”
Thomas’s laughter in response was loud enough Keenan had to move his mobile away from his ear until it receded. “Is that the way to talk about the love of your life?”
His right-winger was joking and Keenan knew it, but the words still made his heart skip. “I don’t know about life,” he said quietly.
“What?”
“I... He doesn’t want to bond,” he explained.
“So?” Thomas demanded. “What’s that go to with anything?”
“It’s just— I always thought when I found an omega it’d be forever, I guess it’s—”
“And a woman.”
“What?”
“You thought the omega would be a woman, didn’t you?” Thomas pointed out.
“Yeah.”
“So it seems to me reality hasn’t really turned out how you expected, but you’re not badly off, either. Are you?”
Keenan sighed, unable to hold back his smile. “No, I’m not. I’m pretty lucky.”
“You better know it!” Thomas’s attempt at scolding fell flat. “Not everyone has friends who do morning-after duty.”
�
��I know,” Keenan told him. “We should all do lunch, maybe we can finally meet Uri.”
“Now you’re talking!” Thomas almost crowed. “Wait, is this just an excuse to tell him about all the shit I’ve done after getting drunk or high?”
It hadn’t even occurred to Keenan, but he had to laugh anyway. “Guess you’ll have to find out.”
“HEY!” TZEERA PEEKED into the kitchen as soon as Keenan walked in from the street. He looked at her from where he was waiting for his mum to have her hands free to hug him. “Finally!” his little sister said, like she wasn’t twenty-one and more than capable of patience. “What’s with all the ceremony? Are you gonna get married or what?”
Something in Keenan’s scent must have given away his alarm because his mother stopped puttering around the kitchen at once, turning to look at him. She was smiling a little, her own cardamom and green tea scent growing more intense. “Keenan?”
“Ugh,” he sighed. Tzeera always did this to him, read him like she could actually read his mind and then announced it for all the world to hear. “Where’s dad?”
“Toilet,” his sister told him, sounding inappropriately excited about it. She went back into the corridor and shouted for their father to hurry.
“Tzeera,” Keenan said when she walked back in, waiting for her to look at him. “This is a secret.”
Her eyes widened slightly—of course he’d only managed to add to the suspense with that. Even so, he knew he could rely on her to be sensible when other people were around, and especially when other people’s lives were at stake.
His mum had gone back to setting up teacups and biscuits, cream and jam—like they were having afternoon tea instead of... Well, Keenan guessed they could have afternoon tea and a family meeting. He poured some milk into his cup before dropping a teabag inside, his mum poured it for him without asking.
“What’s all this fuss?” their dad asked, rolling himself in and accepting the liquid disinfectant his wife passed him as soon as he reached his place at the table without seeming to notice—Keenan had never seen him use it when his mum wasn’t around. Those were the small compromises of marriage, he supposed.
“Keenan’s getting married,” Tzeera told him.
“Tzeera,” their mother intervened before Keenan could. “Tone it down, this is an important moment for your brother and he’s sharing it with us.”
Tzeera signed an apology and occupied herself with her own drink.
Keenan took a sip of his tea, then put it down again. He didn’t want to spoil the experience. He just had to say it and then it’d be out, and they could... chat about it. That was all that would happen. His family loved and supported him no matter what, and his parents weren’t even that traditional to begin with.
“I have started dating someone,” he said. It didn’t feel like a good description of what he and Carry were doing, but how to explain to someone who hadn’t lived it that it had taken them almost a year to go from hating each other to... to what they had now. Whatever it was, dating didn’t seem to cover it, but...
[I knew it!] Tzeera signed, which they all promptly ignored.
“Is it an omega?” his dad asked, and from him, Keenan could take the question.
He nodded.
“Do we know her?” his dad continued. Keenan wasn’t sure why his mum was so quiet, but he didn’t want to look up quite yet.
He had to take another sip after all, just so he could get the word out. “Him.”
“You mean—” Tzeera cut herself off by covering her own mouth, but she must have been able to see the answer on his face because she removed it at once and leaned over the table to give him a hard pat on the shoulder. “You lucky bastard!”
“Keenan?” his mum cut in. “Can you catch us up on this man of yours?”
Keenan was tempted to let his sister tell them, since she looked so eager to and he was having trouble finding the words. But he wasn’t going to start his relationship by being ashamed of either Carry, himself or them together. “It’s Carry, um, Cartwright Johnson.”
“Your teammate?” his dad sounded wary, and with good reason—dating at work was always fraught with tensions.
“I know,” Keenan told him. “But...” He exhaled. “We’re a one true pair.”
He wasn’t sure who the gasp belonged to, although he was pretty sure the muffled exclamation was Tzeera’s.
“Are you sure?” his dad asked after a couple of beats.
To Keenan’s surprise, it was his mum who answered, “Ladan!”
His dad tensed, although Keenan didn’t think there had been any alpha will in his mother’s voice. “I apologize,” he said formally. “I suppose you’d know, and... you wouldn’t be dating a man otherwise.”
“That part...” His mum started, stopping for the apparently difficult task of dipping her biscuit into her tea. “Dating? Not courting?”
And it was here that lay the true challenge. He’d expected them to be surprised that he was involved with another man, but in the end, why should they care? They might have believed him when he’d explained he was only interested in women, but in the end, bisexuality was the expectation they had all grown up with.
This, though...
“Dating,” he said, as firmly as he could manage. “We don’t want to bond.”
He’d closed his shields for this because although it was technically true—he did not want to do it when it would so obviously make Carry unhappy—he still wasn’t sure his scent wouldn’t give away some of his longing.
“Guess now we know who taught you to control your scent,” his dad commented.
Keenan met his eyes. “He taught me for hockey,” he explained as calmly as he could manage. His dad didn’t mean to sound so sharp, he was sure, and his own scent was the same as always—crushed flowers and eggnog. “The... the connection is too strong, one time I fell down because of it.”
“Is that why you don’t want to bond?” his mother asked. “Are you afraid it’ll be overwhelming? Because it—”
“No,” Keenan cut in. He didn’t want to hear about how brilliant being bonded was. He... He wanted it enough still, he could admit that. It was just that he wanted it with Carry. Giving him up for a bond would be like selling your shoes to buy laces. “I... I don’t want to talk about that. Not right now,” he added, meeting her eyes. “I... I’m happy, but it’s difficult because I can’t tell anyone. So I wanted you to know.”
He could perceive enough of his parents’ emotions to know the conversation wasn’t over, but Tzeera was not constrained by such things, so she got up and came to give him a hug. “Congrats,” she said sincerely, then added, “Your boyfriend’s a doll.”
Keenan snorted, meeting her laughing eyes as she straightened. “I want to see you say that to his face.”
Her smirk only grew wider. “Is that a challenge?”
“Sure,” he told her. “Either you won’t dare or the look on his face when you do will be worth it.”
“I’m assuming this is why you said it was a secret,” his father said from behind Tzeera. “Because your teammate’s reputation would be ruined if it became known he was dating an alpha.”
He sighed. “Yes,” he admitted. “It’s...”
“Madness,” his dad said, scent turning dark and bitter.
Tzeera stepped back towards him, and their mum had turned to him at once, reaching out a hand to offer comfort. But their father shook his head at her and she didn’t try again. Tzeera didn’t try at all, taking her seat next to him like she was afraid of startling him.
“I’m sorry, Keenan,” he said, and it took him a moment to understand his father regretted not Keenan’s own actions but the circumstances that had made those actions, a choice like any other, something he had to hide.
He was glad for the support, but it wasn’t— He didn’t want to resign himself to a life where he had to hide the person he loved for fear of ruining that person’s life.
“It won’t always be like this,�
�� he said. “I’m... We’re working on it, so...”
“‘We’ as in you and Carry or ‘We’ as in you and those rebels?” Tzeera asked because asking the difficult questions was her job and she was too bloody good at it.
Keenan sighed. “I told you, we’re not rebels.” He checked on his mum, with whom he hadn’t really discussed his subversive activities, but she was just listening. “They... We want to raise awareness, to make people think about their choices, about the choices they give others.”
“So we won’t be having to pay your bail any time soon?” his mum actually joked.
Keenan snorted. “No bail, I promise.”
She nodded, then exchanged a silent look with his dad before offering. “You could invite Carry over sometime.”
Keenan tried to imagine Carry, who was still skittish around him, sitting down with his parents and his sister. Especially Tzeera, who would probably try to interrogate him, just like... It wasn’t a good idea, but at the same time, he wanted to. Carry wasn’t his and he wasn’t Carry’s, not in the sense his parents belonged to each other, but they were part of each other’s lives, by choice.
Keenan wanted the man he loved to meet his parents, not even Carry could object to that, could he?
“I’ll ask,” he told his mum, even though he wasn’t sure he’d dare.
Chapter 71: Cartwright
Seeing Thomas’s name on his phone screen sent a twinge of uneasy guilt through him. “You could have called, you know,” his friend said, not bothering with a greeting.
“I... Yeah.” That much he could admit.
Thomas sighed and got right to the point. “Are you happy, Carry?”
“Yes.” It was easy, just letting the truth out. Just where it belonged and so rarely was allowed. He thought of waking up in Keenan’s bed again that morning, nose pressed against the skin of Keenan’s back as if he couldn’t get enough of his scent, leg tangled between his lover’s, arm holding him close.
For a moment, he hadn’t been quite sure he was awake.