I added, "I met him at [rainbow] last night, and he must've followed my scent. Or maybe he was watching Fred this whole time when he bought the mansion. Who knows."
Tommy rushed over to me, his brow already turning upwards. "Oh my god, it's happening again? Again? They're..." He looked to Neil. "Oh my god, are you hearing this? They're not going to fucking give up!"
Neil slammed his palms against his table. "Dammit."
Frederick tipped his hat and said, "It was quite frustrating for him to drop by." Then he stood up. "Neil? Scott? Let's talk. I think we can work something out."
I watched the three immediately walk into a back room, while Tommy reached out and squeezed my hand.
"Listen... I think it's time for you to move out of here." As soon as I shook my head, he quickly added, "It's not safe anymore!"
"I can't leave just yet. Not now. I know it's not cool for that jackass to show up and threaten me—"
"You don't understand."
"I genuinely don't." I crossed my legs and rested my elbow on my knee. "So why don't you tell me? What happened between you and that Jonathan Grover? It's been way too long since you even mentioned him to me beyond a passing word here and there. Why don't you say anything?"
He looked sick as he struggled to pull it from his mouth, but I could tell that he was forcing himself to act.
"Because he literally tortured me! He kept me chained in a room in that tower! And he..." He had all but collapsed, and I had to catch him.
Quickly, Neil ran out and also brought him into his arms, reassuring him that it was all okay and that Jonathan was dead and gone.
"Dead?" I said, myself tearing. "I know he died, but how?"
Neil said, "I had to put him down myself. To save Tommy and Makayla. It was the only way."
Frederick stepped out and took off his hat, watching the scene unfold like it was a movie. He looked so stunned that I felt bad for him. All he wanted all this time was to know why he had incurred the ire of my best friend, and this was the way he discovered it. It was so sad, the whole thing.
"So that's why..." He let his hat fall to the floor. "That mansion, then..."
Neil rocked his man back and forth. "Yeah. It was... it was very rough. Jonathan was evil."
Frederick walked to the window and stared out. "If I had known, I never would've picked that one."
Tommy said through his sobs, "No. No, you definitely should have! Never let that man's house go to waste. I hope you and Stuart live long and happy lives together in there, if that's what you're planning. Just to make sure Jonathan doesn't even get the last laugh. Anything!"
I looked at my dearest friend, the beautiful Omega I'd known since childhood, with total and abject shock. It was everything I had never known from him finally displaying in front of me, and it was a display of pure emotion. I could tell that he believed everything he was saying.
I wanted to tell him that Frederick and I weren't a thing just yet. Though I hoped for it to become something more, there was nothing truly between us just yet. We'd only known each other for a day. We needed more time to know.
But seeing that Tommy and Neil went through something so awful and had survived, it gave me my own sense of hope for the future.
OXO
Tommy eventually opened up, telling me everything he had been quiet about for months. This whole time, I felt he had been overly reserved, someone who wasn't telling me something important more for his own sake— and because it was for his sake, I always respected his decision.
But now that Jack had threatened me, we both understood the need to make sure what happened to him never happened to me.
I agreed with his assessment that it wasn't a good idea to stay in Brooks Creek, something which hurt so much because the town was so cute and inviting. Then again, I wasn't going to stay for more than a bit under three weeks anyway.
Did I really want to cut my vacation short? I mean, there were some challenging circumstances, and it made sense that I might not want to stay in a place where my life would be threatened just for a bit more fleeting pleasure.
But it would probably mean I wouldn't be able to stay with Frederick, and on October 20th, I learned that just wouldn't do.
I called him on my cell phone to tell him, "Fred... I'm pregnant."
"Okay." He said it flatly, but you know how sometimes you can 'hear' an aftertaste in a voice? That was there with him. I could tell that he was actually hiding great excitement behind the deadpan flatness. But there was an aftertaste of that aftertaste as well because we both also knew what this meant.
I didn't want to be away from him. He didn't want to be away from me. And yet I was already packing up my bags, ready to move back north and tell my mates there of the craziest vacation in history.
Frederick asked me, "Do you want to meet me at the Steamy Cups? We can talk about something?"
When we got there, he was still in that sexy black suit of his and hiding under a hat. It was so early in the morning that Michael was still sitting at the table, picking at a chocolate chunk cookie.
I asked him, "Whatcha got there?"
He looked at me, showing a bunch of cards.
"What's that, baseball cards?"
His face twisted in the strangest emotion I'd ever seen on a kid. "No. It's Pokémon."
"Ohhh." I didn't know the first thing about the Pokémon fad, other than that it was extraordinarily popular with the kids and I was way too old to get it. I heard of guys and girls my age who had the game, but I never knew they were on cards as well.
Around that time, a woman popped into the shop.
"Hey!" she said.
Neil looked over from a coffee brewer and said, "Yo. It's been a while!"
"Where's Tommy?" she said, and I noticed she was carrying a rucksack over her shoulder. "I've been meaning to refill his Iglesias potion."
"Iglesias?" I asked her.
She looked at me and said, "Oh, is this his friend?"
"Yeah, that's Stuart."
We shook hands and hugged. "Oh, your friend is so beautiful and strong," she said. "And he likes using this face-changing potion that gives him Enrique Iglesias's face."
"Ah, I see. Yeah, I can see that." She passed the clear vial towards me, sliding it across the table. I saw the transparent, frothy liquid inside slosh around and thought it looked a bit like Crystal Pepsi. "He was into that guy before he even released in English."
"That's what I noticed too," Neil said. "Never even heard of Iglesias until he changed his face."
"Where is Tommy?" the woman repeated.
Neil replied, "He's at some school meeting right now. A club."
Then, from the rucksack, she pulled out a book. I saw that it had a dark cover with several characters, but I couldn't make out who they were. "And this one is for Michael! I heard..." She slid it across his table, and he grabbed it like he had just gotten a Christmas present. "... that he was the one who read that book I gave Tommy last year."
"Yeah, Tom wasn't the biggest fan, I guess."
"It's too bad! None of you have any sense of magic anymore."
"I'm a Unicorn, sweetheart. I'm magic incarnate."
The way Neil swaggered around brought my mind back to Frederick more than anything, and it definitely rubbed off on the woman.
Michael said, "Where did you get this?"
She turned to him and said, "Got it imported from across the pond. It's much purer than the Scholastic version your lot gets in school." She was putting on a faux-British accent, and I didn't think I liked it.
I noticed that she looked relatively young, about as young as I was, but she was wearing very thick-rimmed glasses like a grandparent.
Finally, she turned to me and said, "You're from Vancouver, right? You've ever been to that coven that's up there?"
I held up my hands and said, "Sorry, I don't get into all that."
"That's fine." She twirled towards the counter and slapped it, and I heard something harder than flesh hi
t the surface. "I've got some good dollar coins for you."
"You're just obsessed with those things, aren't you?" Neil picked one up, and I saw it was a golden Susan B. Anthony dollar. I had held a few of them in my life, but it was always so rare that I couldn't help but be fascinated. It and half-dollars were always a joy to see.
"What's your name?" I asked.
She twisted herself and said, "Artemis, the Book Master."
"Ohhh, not another one of those silly nicknames."
I looked out the window and saw the Bugatti pull in, and quickly my heart started fluttering. Even though we agreed to be here, Frederick's appearance still excited me.
A big yellow bus also turned a corner. Michael looked towards it, grabbed his stuff, and ran off. However, I noticed he had left one of the cards behind.
He went out as Frederick came in.
Artemis grabbed herself a cup of pumpkin spice latte. "It's not the same as when Tommy makes it," she said. "It's missing that last bit of magic."
Neil waved a paper towel at her.
Scott backed out of a door and said, "Artemis! It's been a while! Uh, Neil— you've seen the receipts roll?"
"Yeah, it's under the counter. By the way—" he looked at me. "Stu, can you hand me that potion?"
I brought it over and got to see the pastries up close yet again. Just as deliciously, I stood next to Frederick. And since Artemis was still there, I got to feel her presence, and it definitely felt odd. She was no shifter, that much I could tell, but she had a very magical vibe herself.
Frederick ran his hand across my back and said, "So, it's true?"
I ran my hand across his back. "Yep."
"Well then, would you like to talk over coffee?"
Frederick
Artemis, an old friend of the family, was in the shop when I came in, and she sat at the far end of the place while I talked to Stuart about a new arrangement. She looked as if she was actively trying to cover her ears in some token attempt at keeping our privacy, but I didn't much care who heard us. It was 8:30 AM, and the morning rush had thankfully slowed to a crawl.
Outside, it was cool and breezy, as if the world itself was whispering and gossiping about our lives and this endless drama.
Stuart and I sat across from each other next to the brick wall, and I said, "So I have an idea." I had straight black, and he had a mocha.
"Shoot."
There was a moment of pause as we looked into each other’s eyes. It wasn’t a loving look. At least, it wasn’t at first. This, I knew, was pure business. We were two parties conducting a meeting over a hot beverage, and that’s all this was supposed to be.
Yet that’s not all it remained. "How would you like to live with me? Complete with the safety of several more Unicorns to act as protection. In this case, we will be able to raise our child in a safer environment, even if Jack were to come back."
Stuart
I looked right at him and thought about what he was saying. He meant well. I didn't doubt that. But the thought of staying in Brooks Creek was too much for me. Tommy was already so traumatized. How could I risk having the same thing happen to me? It would've been insanity.
But then again, it would be with Frederick. He was a secure guy, and I would be very well protected. Plus, I'd be living the life. It took me long enough to save up for this vacation and have enough money to have a good time in this fling and swing capital. What would it be like to have damn-near unlimited funds? I didn't know what I was getting myself into, really, other than that it was scary to contemplate. I looked over to Tommy, but he wasn't even there, so I had no one else to back me up on my suspicions. And I knew that Neil and Scott would've wanted me to be with Frederick if it meant I could stay safe.
So I said to him, "I gotta lay it out to you. It's weird. I don't want to be in the same town as someone who wants to kill me."
"I don't either."
I looked up at him, and we caught each other's gazes.
"I'm willing to move out again if it means we can live together."
This lifted my heart.
Yet seeing the mansion had filled me with a kind of longing for it as well. It just looked so good. So nice. And he had already moved into it, didn't he? He dropped a lot of money into it, I bet.
"Well... how about we stay here for a while? See how it works out? I'll move in with you. And we'll work it out from there."
He smiled and nodded. "Sounds good."
Artemis peeked from behind us and also smiled. "If it were me, I'd get out of here. It's a fun town, yes, but you find its limits pretty quickly."
Neil said over the counter, "Then why don't you move away?"
She shrugged. "I’d love to, but A: I don’t have anywhere to go other than where I’ve been, and B: I’m too lazy. I’ll wait until the taxman evicts me from my shop."
I looked back and forth between them and sipped my mocha. "We're taking this so fast, though... Why don't we slow down a bit? And enjoy the scenery... Don't worry about Jack or any of the Grovers until they try coming after us, and then we can deal with them as they do."
"Wait a second. You're talking about Jackie Grover?" Artemis asked, moving the chair so hard that it made a loud and aggravating sound against the floor. "Ha! He already moved out of town yesterday."
I blinked. "How do you know?"
"He stopped by my bookstore, trying to look for a potion for something— nefarious purposes probably— and dropped a mention that he was going to Chicago for several months." With her finger on her chin and her eyes towards the ceiling, she said, “It was a scent-cleaner potion. He was being a big cry-baby, talking about betrayal without telling me who betrayed him. And that was that. He got on the 84 and that was that last I saw of that SUV.”
I looked back at Neil. He nodded.
There was no reason to distrust her, even though I was still hesitant about it.
Frederick
If Artemis was lying, then the truth was just as convenient— I told Stuart to move in with me, while my Beta brothers would stick around and keep a lookout on the town for Jack and his goddamn frosted-tip mullet ass. The Alphas like Neil and Scott also did what they could for me, and Artemis also worked as a bit of a spy for us too.
It took a while for Stuart to muster up the courage to believe that he was really moving in, and he wanted to stay at his hotel for a while longer. I told him to take however long he needed, that we'll take it as slow as necessary.
But on the fifth day, he checked out and brought all his stuff over to me.
"I'll call over a friend to help me get my stuff from Vancouver," he said.
I said, "I'll get Eric and Jay to do it, don't worry. You can just stay here and make yourself at home— and if you need anything, anything at all, you just tell me, and I'll bring it to you."
That was October. By November, he had fully gotten himself comfortable, and we were both often spooning on the couch in the living room, watching a massive TV— a new "plasma screen" that you could only otherwise find at tech conventions. We would go out every night to Blockbuster to rent movies. It was my treat, but no matter how hard I tried telling him to choose his own selection, he kept telling me to choose. In truth, I didn't even need to rent a movie. I could've bought every tape in the store if I wanted. But we both decided not to be so totally over-indulgent, just so that we would start setting precedents for our child to come.
Stuart became obsessed with the prospect of being a father. It was November 1st when he started talking about the design of the baby's room. By November 4th, he was obsessing himself over the strangest thing: making himself relatable to his future child.
He explained it to me that he had talked a bit with Scott and Jasper's son, Michael, and how he felt a complete disconnect with the youth.
And to prove it, he flashed a card to me— it was for that 'Pokémon' fad that the kids were obsessed with, and all I saw was a strange creature with a punny name, but he was worried that if he didn't know what was on these car
ds:
"I'll be the uncool dad, and that's not okay."
"What's wrong with being uncool?" I asked. I showed off my suit and fedora hat. "This became uncool 50 years ago, and I still have Malcolm’s hand-me-down pet rock, but I don't give a damn about what others think."
He paced around, saying, "It's the principle of it. I want to relate to my kids, and that can't happen if I don't know what they're talking about."
I became pensive and told him, "If that's the case, then why not use the computer to look up on pop culture? You can keep up that way instead of trying to watch entertainment programs or playing Game Boys."
He perked up and said, "Where is it, again? Gosh, I'm sorry, I haven't even been there since the first day I came here."
"Yeah, remember that? You dropped by and immediate sex. Crazy."
I brought him up to the computer room, showing him the basics.
While he set himself up, I caught a glance of his creamy legs squished together in the chair and found myself staring at his body for longer than necessary. He was wearing gym shorts and a basic t-shirt, but a baby bump had already appeared. It was small and could be confused with basic fat, but it was definitely there.
The Windows 98 jingle played, and I directed him to an icon on the desktop, to the Internet.
"You know," I said to him while he loaded up Yahoo!, "one day, this is probably gonna be a good place to start selling books. You could tell that to Artemis next time you see her."
"What? What do you mean?"
I shuffled a tobacco pipe in my mouth and said, "Well, I've been writing some words. Getting a manuscript ready. And I've been wondering about the prospect of publishing it online only."
"Ehhh, that'll never work. People'll want to read physical books."
I shrugged. "You never know."
His pop cultural studies were like Tommy's education in a way, especially considering the way he would religiously look up any new happenings in the world, and especially anything that was popular with the age just below his, the Gen Y kids still in school.
A New Millennium's Omega Page 6