Omega’s Joy
An MPREG Romance
The pregnancy test was positive.
Jeremiah felt weirdly calm, at first. His heart didn’t start pounding. His skin didn’t prickle with sweat.
His dog Penny was at his feet, watching him. She was very still, like she could sense some weather system about to break overhead.
He tilted the little stick to the side, mostly for form’s sake. Maybe he’d misread it. Hallucinated the blue line or something. That probably happened, intentionally ambiguous instructions, false positives. The executives over at Big Pregnancy Test trying to scam people into buying extra tests.
He gave it a discerning squint. Nope, still positive.
“Yikes,” he said out loud. His voice was flat. “Big yikes.”
There was a pounding at the bathroom door and he jerked, the test jumping from his hand onto the floor, plastic clattering delicately on tile. Penny twitched in surprise. Jeremiah watched her, breathing harder, feeling caught out.
“Carson, get out here, we’re running late.”
Dammit. Fabian was out there. They had a thing, that meeting with the-with those people, his entire mind was a blank. He might have even set this meeting up and he couldn’t recall a single detail about it.
He wasn’t feeling so calm anymore, something dark and suffocating rising like a tide, bubbling up threateningly. He’d watched a documentary once about tsunamis and how tsunamis were never the gigantic wave sweeping over the city like in the movies, they were more like a sudden high tide, sweeping in higher and harder and faster until everything was submerged.
Fabian knocked again. “I’m sorry to rush whatever’s going on in there but we need to go.”
Jeremiah picked up the pregnancy test, wrapped it in toilet paper and threw it in the garbage. He barged out of the bathroom, pushing Fabian aside. Penny followed behind, tail wagging, so close to Jeremiah that her nose kept bumping into the backs of his knees.
“God, would you relax? We’re not even late, it’s fine, we’re fine.” Jeremiah had no idea what time the meeting was supposed to be at. Every fact in his head seemed to have dissolved away to nothing, leaving ‘You’re pregnant you goddamn idiot’ flashing in neon lights the only remaining piece of retrievable information.
“It’s weird that you bring your dog in the bathroom with you,” Fabian said.
Jeremiah rolled his eyes. “Let me live, god.” He bent down to take Penny’s soft face in his hands. “Hold down the fort, okay, buddy? Your dumb uncle and I have to go to a thing.”
“Do you have the notes I left from earlier?”
There was a folder on the key drop table by the front door, which Jeremiah picked up on a hunch. Probably those were the notes. “Of course. Ready to go.”
Fabian was frowning, watching him. “You okay, man?” He waved in the general direction of Jeremiah’s face. “You’re all sweaty.”
“LA is a subtropical climate, read a book, Fabian.” It was amazing how easy it was to be a brat on autopilot even though his ears were ringing. He slipped on his shoes, running a hand over his face. His skin did feel damp and clammy, which was fantastic and definitely a great way to make a good first impression as a media mogul on the rise at whatever the hell this meeting was about.
Fabian looked concerned and unconvinced, but he was at heart a gentle conflict-averse people-pleaser and Jeremiah was ready to exploit that deep evolutionary weakness shamelessly if it meant avoiding addressing being pregnant for a few hours.
“Let’s go,” he said, tossing his keys at Fabian, who caught them effortlessly against his chest. Goddamn jock Fabian Ellison. “You’re driving.”
***
The meeting was a blur. Jeremiah felt shaky and borderline insane the entire time but he compensated by being a little louder and brasher than usual and making the potential advertisers (he thought they were advertisers, maybe they were investors? He really hadn’t been able to focus on anything) and Fabian laugh a lot, which seemed to help move the meeting along.
They got lunch afterward, Fabian chattering happily about how well the meeting went and how it was definitely going to improve the market share of the company one day if they could lock it in (god, what had that meeting been about, seriously, Jeremiah was going to have to look it up when he got home) and suddenly he couldn’t keep it in anymore.
He’d always been terrible with secrets, and this felt so big it wasn’t even a secret, just this huge sucking vacuum that needed to be unleashed on the world.
“So, I’m pregnant.”
It was almost worth the swoop of crushing anxiety in his chest at saying the words out loud to see the near-perfect spit-take Fabian executed.
Fabian choked out a few hacking coughs, sending pretentious in-house brewed soda all over the table, his eyes bulging at Jeremiah.
“Carson. What?” He laughed, weakly. “That’s a-that’s a weird bit, man. Got a few notes for you, if you’re open to them-”
“Not a bit.” Jeremiah closed his eyes, breathing out through his nose. Jesus, it was hot. Why did they sit on the damn patio? His heart was racing hard enough it was rattling against his ribs. “I’m really pregnant.”
Hearing the words in his own voice made it all snap inescapably into the grid of reality, no longer buzzing fitfully around his head, instead locking inescapably into place. This was happening. This was real.
“Oh my god, Jeremiah.” Fabian reached out and grabbed Jeremiah’s hand where it was resting, clenched, on the table, and squeezed. Jeremiah inhaled, surprising himself by how wobbly he sounded. “Oh, my god. Are you okay? How long, I mean. When did you-it-holy shit.”
Jeremiah laughed hollowly. “Pretty much.” He swallowed. “I just figured it out.” He hesitated, before forcing himself to say, “It’s a couple of months along. Maybe three. I need to see a doctor, but. I think that’s about the timeline.”
“Fuck! Three months?”
Fabian was infinitely too well bred to ask Jeremiah how the hell he hadn’t known for three entire months, but his eyes were asking it clear enough. Which was fair, really. Jeremiah had no idea how he’d missed it for so long either. He lifted his shoulder in a weak shrug.
Releasing Jeremiah’s hand with a final press, Fabian ran both hands over his face. He looked deeply shaken. Jeremiah could relate.
“Is it…Adam’s?” he asked, referring to Jeremiah’s terrible ex.
Jeremiah shook his head, lips pressed together.
“Well, that’s good, at least?” Fabian made a little grimace of a smile. “I know things weren’t great for a while, so something like this is probably the last thing you needed.”
“God, fuck your goddamn irrepressible baseline positivity,” Jeremiah snapped. “There’s no upside to this.”
Chastened, Fabian sat back. They ate in silence, Jeremiah mulishly poking at his fries that were now mostly cold but he was still probably going to eat all of, and also steal the rest from Fabian’s plate. Fabian was watching him, visibly freaked out but mostly worried. Briefly, Jeremiah fantasized about what it would be like if this was Fabian’s baby instead. Then he thought of Fabian and Emily cheerfully helping Jeremiah raise his accidental disaster baby and also raising him, probably, a proud semi-gay triad.
But it wasn’t Fabian’s. That would be too easy.
“Then whose is it, Carson?” Fabian asked quietly.
Jeremiah looked away. “I can’t really talk about it, right now.”
Fabian, god bless his gentle soul, didn’t push him on it, at least not right away. “Did you text Alex how the meeting went yet?” he asked instead after a moment.
Jeremiah sighed, rubbing hard at his eyes. “No, I didn’t. You tell him
.”
There was no way in hell he could talk to Alex right now.
He watched Fabian pull out his phone, then hesitate. “Should I tell him about…” He looked meaningfully at Jeremiah’s belly.
“No,” Jeremiah said, shaking his head. “Don’t tell anyone just yet.”
Fabian nodded and carefully typed out a text on his phone, stealing glances at Jeremiah every now and again.
Jeremiah looked over his shoulder at the road, at the cars driving by, at dozens of people living their own lives, surviving their own crises.
They were doing it. He’d do it, too.
***
He went to the doctor at the end of the week, a few days after his lunch with Fabian, who had started hovering so aggressively whenever they were together that Jeremiah had spent most of his time holed up in his house, hiding with Penny.
He’d been hoping for a lady OB, maybe a hip young lesbian or something, someone Jeremiah could relate to, make erudite pop culture references with.
Instead, he got a white guy in his fifties with stern eyes who kind of reminded him of his dad, which was unexpected and stressful and a general letdown, so it felt pretty on brand for this entire experience so far.
After the nurse did his blood work, the doctor sat him down. He shook Jeremiah’s hand, introducing himself formally.
“I’ll be your obstetrician, Dr. Wilbur Stevens.”
Jeremiah hated referring to other adults by honorifics unless they were politicians, which maybe was an artificial distinction, so he let it slide instead of being a snot about it.
“And I’ll be your accidentally pregnant moron patient, Dr. Jeremiah Carson.” Dr. Stevens frowned, not even a hint of a smile, which felt not great. Jeremiah grimaced. “I’m not really a doctor. That’s just a joke. Not the moron part, though.”
Dr. Stevens gave him a steady look, Jeremiah feeling his neck go red as hell, and got into it.
He went through Jeremiah’s medical history, jotting down details old school on his clipboard and then painstakingly pecked out the information on the computer beside him, so everything took twice as long as it should.
Based on Dr. Stevens’ shoes and haircut alone, Jeremiah was preemptively defensive, anticipating some terrible conservative diatribe about choosing life, psyching himself up to brattily demand to know about his abortion options first and foremost, mostly to be difficult because his head was a total muddle and he really wasn’t sure what he wanted to do anyway.
Before he could open his mouth, though, Dr. Stevens sat back, lacing his fingers together. “You’re nearly twelve weeks, so at this point you can proceed with the pregnancy, you can terminate, or we can discuss options like adoption.”
Jeremiah was caught mid-interruption, his mouth hanging open a little. He closed it, swallowed tightly. “So I have literally two and a half doors to choose from.”
“Unfortunately, from a medical perspective pregnancy is pretty binary.”
“Cool. Cool cool cool.” He ran his hands through his hair, grabbed on with both hands. Considered pulling all of his hair out by the roots and letting loose a primal scream. Also, he was pretty tired, a nap in the middle of this doctor’s office sounded like a good option. He was torn.
Dr. Stevens’ brow furrowed thoughtfully. “How are you doing, Jeremiah?”
God, he really, really reminded Jeremiah of his dad. Out of nowhere, his nose started to prickle threateningly. He gritted his teeth together.
“I’m fine. This was a surprise, but it’s fine. I’m fine.”
“Well, there’s really no right or wrong way to handle this. If you were feeling overwhelmed or anxious, that would make a lot of sense, especially if this wasn’t expected.”
Dr. Stevens was watching him, patient and calm. It made Jeremiah feel messy and out of control in response, and he found himself blurting out, “How in the hell wouldn’t I have known about this? How did I not notice?”
“Looking back, were there any symptoms? Discomfort, nausea or dizziness, fatigue?”
Jeremiah cast his mind back. Sometimes he got sick in the mornings, but he also got sick after taking vitamins half the time. He was sore a lot, but not enough that he’d thought much of it. He was tired, but nothing compared to the bone-deep exhaustion of his life in DC, so it had seemed negligible. Once or twice he’d thought he was coming down with a bug, but mostly he figured he was being dramatic and pushed through.
“The human body also has an amazing ability to deceive us when it comes to something we’re not actively looking for. And male pregnancies are comparatively rare. Did you know you were a carrier for the gene?”
“Yes,” he muttered, grudgingly. He had known, was the worst part, and he’d always been so, so careful as a result, except for one stupid careless night in a two-story walk-up San Francisco efficiency, which was apparently enough to undo years of otherwise spotless precaution.
Dr. Stevens didn’t push him for more, and he didn’t seem disappointed or critical of Jeremiah either. Maybe he didn’t look so much like Jeremiah’s dad after all.
“Well, prenatal vitamins are a good start, if you do decide to move forward. I’ll write you a prescription. Unfortunately, if you do decide to terminate, we’re coming up against a hard deadline pretty soon.”
They talked a bit more about remedies in case Jeremiah did start experiencing symptoms, and Dr. Stevens wrote out a prescription for the vitamins. They talked more about abortion options. They scheduled his next appointment in two weeks.
Jeremiah was feeling pretty numb by the end of it.
“It might seem soon, but male pregnancies are an inherently higher risk, so we want to be on the safe side. Of course, if you make a decision before that, give me a call and I can schedule you in for a procedure as well.” He set down his pen. “You can also give me a call if you need to reschedule your next appointment. In case you need to make sure your partner is available, or you want a friend or family member to come with.”
It took a lot of effort not to look down at his stomach, or touch it, keenly aware of it as a body part in a way he had never before.
Jeremiah shook his head. “Um, no. It’s just me. I’m alone.”
He laughed tonelessly to himself. He didn’t touch his stomach but still thought to himself, Well, not quite alone.
***
He spent the weekend mulling it over, avoiding everyone, especially Fabian, and ignoring text messages.
“I think I’m going to keep it,” he told Penny on Sunday.
It was insane. It was absolutely a stupid decision.
But he had some decent development money left, he was working through the process of putting together a business with Fabian and Alex, he had a place to live, he had a career, and most of all this he had this horrible niggling voice taunting him that this was probably his only shot at this. At a kid. He couldn’t imagine ever being this careless with birth control again, and the chance of him managing to trap someone into marrying him felt so remote it was a fantasy.
Plus, he realized, he really wanted to keep it.He was so sure, was the thing. It was incredible. He never felt that sure about anything.
Penny panted at him from her spot on the couch, rolling onto her back, feet still puppyish and slightly too big for her frame wagging in the air above her.
“What do you think? Ready to be a big sister?” He sank his hand into the soft fur on her side, rubbing. “I’m good with you, right?”
He was, too. He was a great pet owner. That seemed to surprise people, sometimes, like Fabian or his parents or some of the LA types he’d made tenuous friends with during the short-lived college days. A lot of people thought because he was loud and bold and shameless that he was also too frivolous and immature to care more for someone else than he did for himself. He suspected his own parents thought that (they hadn’t thought he was ready to get a dog, even, in his thirties). Adam definitely had, toward the end.
Maybe they were wrong, though. He’d always thought he w
as more than that. That he could give all of himself to someone, if he had the chance. That he’d just been waiting for the opportunity.
He’d always figured it would be with some gorgeous, withholding, emotionally unavailable man. He’d never thought it would be a baby, but he could be flexible.
He sighed heavily. He couldn’t even imagine what his parents would say about this.
His phone chimed and when he picked it up he saw a text from Alex.
I saw that intern you always hated working at an Urban Outfitters the other day out by me. I guess karma isn’t dead.
He knew immediately who Alex was talking about, some asshole named David who used to make fun of the way Jeremiah talked behind his back, even though Jeremiah was a staffer and David was an asshole lax bro intern. Jeremiah thought it probably had something to do with some unrequited homoerotic tendencies on David’s part but it didn’t change how much Jeremiah deeply, deeply hated him.
What the hell were you doing in an Urban Outfitters? What a hip young teen you’ve become. Your move has changed you.
Fuck you. Besides, I needed a birthday present.
It felt like the perfect overture. You know who else loved presents? Kids. You know who was about to have a kid? Jeremiah Carson.
He tried to ease into it, going for the gentle tease at first.
Buy me anything good?
Scented candles and a tennis bracelet.
That’s a weird gift for me. I hate candles. I’ll keep the bracelet though.
Noted.
Jeremiah smiled to himself, watching the dot-dot-dot as Alex typed. Then—
Nah, I’d get you something better than candles. It was for Anna’s mom.
Jeremiah stared at the phone in his hand, suddenly dry-mouthed.
It didn’t make sense for it to hit him in the chest so hard. As far as he knew, Alex and Anna were still together. He made it a priority not to be too in the know about it, though. He knew that they’d only been on a break in the first place when Jeremiah had been up to visit Alex in May. None of this was news, and Jeremiah was an idiot for letting it upset him now.
He set the phone on the couch and let his head fall back on the couch.
Omega's Joy: An MPREG Romance Page 1