Fabian laughed at him. “Oh my god, relax.” He patted Jeremiah on the knee where he was slouched next to him on Fabian’s comfortable couch. “Emily and I are old hands at Carson duty. We’re good. We got this.”
Jeremiah kicked at him, which Fabian affably ignored. He really was good at Carson duty, even Jeremiah had to admit that.
Alex still hovered at Jeremiah’s side, hand clasped on Jeremiah’s shoulder like someone was going to have to peel him away. “Call me for anything, okay? I can step away whenever, it’s not a big deal.”
Now Jeremiah couldn’t help but laugh at him. “Alex, go. You’re going to miss your flight. I’m fine.” His chest felt warm, though, and he covered Alex’s hand with his own, squeezing tight.
Emily came in from the kitchen and stopped at the sight of Alex. “Why are you still here? You’re flight’s in an hour and a half.”
Alex closed his eyes, sighing. “God.” He straightened. “Okay. I’m going.”
It was still another five minutes of fussing and one long, lingering kiss to Jeremiah’s forehead before he finally stepped away.
He paused at the door. “I’ll call you when I land, okay? And if I need to come home, just say the word, okay?” He tugged his dorky baseball hat on his head, eyes tight.
“Go!” Jeremiah, Fabian and Emily cried in unison, all starting to crack up.
Alex threw his hands up. “Fine! I’m going!” He gave Jeremiah one last, haunted look and hurried out, shutting the door behind him.
Jeremiah could feel Fabian and Emily watching him. He ignored their amused, knowing looks, mumbling, “He’s such a stress ball about the baby.”
Fabian snorted. “Yeah. Just the baby.”
Fabian and Emily spent most of the weekend keeping Jeremiah diligently entertained. They let him choose movies, where they ate dinner, smiled indulgently when he complained about the waiter and the couple next to them and the burger he ordered and didn’t like and still ate all of.
By Sunday, though, he was really missing Alex. It was dumb because he’d barely been gone a few days and he texted Jeremiah incessantly, questions and comments and pictures of suburban Massachusetts.
I don’t miss you a lot. He texted him on Sunday. I had no trouble sleeping last night, and I definitely didn’t wake up with a stupid song stuck in my head.
Almost immediately, Alex sent back, Same. Then-Can’t wait to see you. tell the baby not to work too hard.
Jeremiah sighed, wistfully, like a maiden trapped in a tower, and put his chin in his hands where he hunched at the kitchen island. Fabian, eating cereal beside him and also preternaturally able to sense Jeremiah’s distress, poked him in the shoulder.
“Have you settled on a shortlist for names yet?”
“Yeah,” Jeremiah said tiredly. “I’m thinking Nala if it’s a girl, or Stefan if it’s a boy. Alex wants Benjamin or Natalie. Which faction will win? Only time will tell.”
Fabian laughed easily. “Well, Nala is a strong name. But is it regal enough?”
“Also on the list is Brian.”
The truth was, Jeremiah had no idea what they were going to name the kid. He hadn’t even met it yet, how was he supposed to know what kind of person it was going to be?
But he was also distracted because he’d been avoiding asking Fabian to be the godfather all weekend and it was getting down to the wire. He promised Alex he’d talk to him about while he was gone. Jeremiah whined about having to do it alone, but Alex insisted, and Jeremiah wasn’t an idiot so he knew it was partially because Alex could tell Jeremiah still felt skittish around Fabian, even months out from their showdown.
Jeremiah didn’t know why he was still so nervous. Things with Fabian had improved significantly. If Fabian still judged him for keeping it from Alex for as long as he did, he didn’t show it. It was probably more in Jeremiah’s head, now.
Still, it took him a while to work up to it, and finally managed it while Emily was running errands and Penny and Leroy were curled up on Leroy’s bed together like two beautiful baby angels and Jeremiah was watching Fabian make dinner and eating most of a bowl of hummus by himself.
“How well equipped do you feel to take responsibility for a baby’s religious education?” Jeremiah asked casually.
Fabian laughed, automatic, which made Jeremiah suspicious about whether he truly listened to Jeremiah’s jokes before laughing or if it was just rote, then Fabian seemed to take in the words, and turned to Jeremiah.
“Wait, really?” His eyes were wide.
“Come on, of course, really. Who else?” Because, truly, who else? No one would be a better godparent than Fabian, and by rights he should probably be everyone’s actual dad, even this baby, but it was too late-this was Jeremiah’s disaster baby, and he was keeping it, no matter what.
Fabian loped over and wrapped him in a hug, laughing. Jeremiah hugged back, a little relieved, but Fabian still hadn’t answered, which was not cool.
“So, yes? Or are you letting me down easy, or-”
Leaning back to take Jeremiah by the shoulders and shake him lightly, Fabian laughed. His eyes were misty. “God, Carson, of course. Of course! I’d be honored.”
“Alright, don’t act so desperate,” Jeremiah said, but he allowed Fabian to hug him again, unwilling to admit he missed being constantly held by someone taller than him with excellent posture while Alex was out of town.
As Fabian let him go, he sighed contentedly. “I’m so excited for you and Alex. And for all of us, really. Your baby is going to be the coolest, I bet.”
“I mean, don’t get ahead of yourself. He’s half-Vane. He brings his guitar to parties sometimes,” Jeremiah said, even as he thought of how he had made Alex promise under pain of violent death that he would never reveal to anyone that sometimes he played endless acoustic medleys in bed to help Jeremiah fall asleep.
“Even so.”
Jeremiah smiled to himself. He rubbed his hands over his belly, which seemed to be outrageously big and benignly in the way most of the time, which he didn’t mind much, surprisingly. It felt good, having the kid so close at hand. So visible.
The baby was wiggling around in there, happy as a little fetus could be.
“Yeah, I guess,” he said. He felt the baby kick at his hand. He smiled wider, nerves and excitement building like they had been for over a month. “I think so.”
***
Jeremiah was asleep when Alex got in, only rousing when he heard the bedroom door creak. He stirred, squinting at Alex’s tall, familiar form in the darkness. “Alex?”
“Shh,” Alex whispered, toeing off his shoes and pulling off his shirt and pants until he was just in his boxers. He crawled into bed, nudging Penny out of the way so he could curl up around Jeremiah. He gave his nearly-nonexistent waist a squeeze. “Go back to sleep.”
“What are you doing here? What time is it?” Jeremiah glared at the darkness outside the window. “You’re not due back until the morning.”
“Got an earlier flight.” Alex pressed a kiss behind his ear. “Go to sleep.”
Jeremiah rolled his eyes. “You are so dramatic. That must have cost a fortune.” But he still snuggled back into Alex’s warmth. Let the satisfied sigh Alex let out lull him back toward sleep.
“Shh,” Alex insisted.
“Stop shushing me.”
He pulled Alex’s wrists in so he was cradling Jeremiah’s chest more securely. Fuck, that felt good. Alex was like a damn duvet, trapping heat like he was made out of down.
“I think I’m coming around to Nala,” Alex muttered, startling a snort out of Jeremiah.
“That’s a real shame because I was starting to like Natalie.”
“Too late. It’s Nala. Nala Vane-Carson.”
Jeremiah snorted again. It was just like Alex to give Jeremiah the premium hyphenate slot without putting up a fight.
He squeezed his hand again, asleep before he realized it was happening.
***
They’d made elaborate pla
ns with Dr. Stevens about the delivery, and then a few contingency plans with Fabian and Emily, and then just Alex, sitting tensely on the bed going through every possible scenario until he was wound up tighter than a spring and Jeremiah groaned and shoved him over and jerked him off until he calmed down.
And still, despite it all, it went spectacularly to shit, because Jeremiah was nothing if not a patented savant at self-sabotage in any and all things.
He wanted it on the record though that, on its face, it had felt like a charmingly thoughtful thing to do.
It was two weeks until his c-section date, and he had the morning to himself, Alex and Fabian off to take a meeting, a rare opportunity for Jeremiah to sit on the couch by himself and fart in peace without having to blame it on Penny when Alex was around. Emily was set to come over in an hour, the only reason Alex had deigned to leave him alone.
Until then, he was blessedly alone and determined to enjoy it.
He ended up just feeling restless. He’d been unable to sit still all morning, and there was nothing good to eat in the whole house and he was probably going to starve to death. His back was hurting and he kept walking laps, trying to soothe it.
He had a sudden unbelievable craving for the fresh cherries Fabian had brought him once from a farm on the outskirts of the city. God, they’re been so delicious, tart and sweet all at once. His mouth was watering just thinking about them.
Alex had loved those cherries. Inspiration struck. Jeremiah should get him those cherries, and then he would also get to eat them and get credit for being a thoughtful-what were they now, boyfriends? Was Alex still just a baby daddy? He needed to figure that out.
Seerfield wasn’t that far, right? Like, twenty minutes, probably? He’d pop out, get some fresh produce, have it all displayed charmingly for when Alex and Fabian got home, probably get Alex to fuck him good in gratitude. Genius.
It had been a few months since he’d driven. He felt wobbly and out of practice.
Fuck, the farm was farther than he’d thought. His phone kept rerouting him until he’d been driving for forty minutes and he thought there was a chance he was almost out of the state.
He was distracted trying to figure out why his maps was being so troublesome, and he’d feel horribly guilty for driving with his eyes on his phone, a top Alex Vane Pet Peeve, except he was super in the middle of nowhere, somehow. He kept passing fields, then a few houses, then longer stretches of fields.
Maybe the cherries were out in the country. That made sense.
The car gave a whine, jerking his attention away from the phone.
He felt his eyebrows climb up high, unable to believe what he was seeing, and relatedly, unable to believe he was a grown adult who ostensibly supported himself and a dog and had the finances to support a baby and had still managed to run out of gas in the middle of nowhere. He was the dumbest boy in school, apparently, and he was lost and out of gas.
He could only watch as the car slowed down, gradually then suddenly barely moving, rolling to a stop with barely enough time for Jeremiah to guide it to the curb. It shuddered to a halt, and not seeing what option he had, Jeremiah threw it into park.
The radio was still playing off the battery, whispering some annoying Drake song at him so he took the keys out of the ignition. He could hear his increasingly anxious breaths in the quiet of the car.
“Okay,” he said to himself and the baby. He patted his belly, focused on the sharp bump of the baby kicking or elbowing back at him. It was so active these days. Jeremiah couldn’t wait to meet it, finally. “Okay. This is fine. It’s fine.”
God, Alex would probably make fun of this until they were both dead-after he got done yelling at him for the rest of eternity for being stupid enough to forget to check the gas tank. It was quite a life together Jeremiah had to look forward to.
Damn pregnancy brain. Maybe he could find some other way to blame it on the baby. He’d probably have to workshop it for a bit, but there had to be a way.
Should he call someone? He messed with his phone, trying to figure out where the hell he was, but Google maps kept searching, and searching, and then giving him the no data message. “Fuck you,” he told it.
He was about to get out of his car to see if he could walk somewhere with a human and figure out where he’d managed to get stalled, door open, when his water broke.
He knew what it was immediately. It got all over the car. He stared at the growing pool in the foot well, frowning.
“What the hell?” He looked accusingly at his belly. “Come on, that’s so unfair.”
He bobbled the phone as he slid it unlocked, nearly dropping it, swearing.
He finally dialed as guilt prickled his skin, and fear too.
“Hey, Jeremiah,” Alex said, answering on the first ring. He sounded like he was smiling, even through the shitty reception. “What’s up?”
Jeremiah gulped, hearing Alex in his ear making everything a thousand times more real. “Alex.” His voice was high and shaking. “Um, it’s happening.”
He could barely make Alex out as he replied, instantly worried, “Jeremiah? What’s happening? Where are you?”
A sharp cramp hit Jeremiah in the side before he could answer-contraction, it was an actual contraction-traveling quickly and sharply across his entire abdomen. It was like being squeezed from the inside. He hunched over the steering column, riding it out, panting miserably.
Finally, he huffed out, “I’m in labor, I think.”
“Are you kidding me?” Alex burst out furiously. Jeremiah must have made some kind of sound because Alex immediately quieted. “Oh god, I’m sorry. It’s okay. You’re okay. I’m-I’m leaving now, I’m getting in my car. Where are you?”
It was difficult to speak. Jeremiah’s lips felt numb. “Um. I don’t know for sure.”
“Carson, what do you mean you don’t know?” Alex had his unreasonably patient voice going on, but frustration was already fraying the edges.
“I’m in the car, and the car broke down.” Jeremiah winced. “Well, it didn’t really break down, it ran out of gas.”
He could hear Alex exhale sharply through his teeth. “Jeremiah.”
Jeremiah really didn’t need that tone of judgment right now. “I know, okay? I know!”
“Okay, calm down, just-use maps and drop a pin and I’ll come get you.”
“It’s not-it’s not working, I can’t get the thing to load, my data is all over the place out here.” He couldn’t regulate the pitch of his voice and he was crying now, softly.
Alex murmured, “It’s okay, you’re okay.” There was shuffling in the back, jangling of keys, Jeremiah thought he heard Penny whining. “You’re okay, I’m coming to get you.”
“My hero,” Jeremiah said, laughing wetly.
“You’re damn right I am,” Alex said, not joking, sincere as a heart attack, god, Jeremiah just wanted to slug him sometimes, he just wanted Alex to be here so he was close enough to punch.
He felt the baby shifting restlessly in his stomach. He tried not to think that it was panicking, trapped, nowhere to go. He rubbed at the taut skin, trying to transmit calm energy or some shit. He didn’t want his baby to be scared.
“Fuck, Alex,” he choked out. “I’m in the middle of nowhere, there’s just, like a big empty field and old empty building, it’s completely haunted or filled with murderers, I mean, or maybe murderous ghosts, who knows-” He cut himself off, another cramp that wasn’t quite a contraction still uncomfortable as all hell rolling through him like an aftershock, leaving him breathless. When it finally let him go he was breathing hard. “Alex. This is really bad, I think.”
Alex gritted something out, maybe it was a swear, Jeremiah wasn’t sure, because Jeremiah couldn’t focus. He felt like he needed to get his affairs in order. It felt like that kind of time.
“I know I don’t say it enough, but I really love you,” Jeremiah whispered.
“Shut up, Carson,” Alex snapped. He sounded like he was in the car
now. In the distant background, Jeremiah could hear Fabian. He was glad Fabian was with Alex. Fabian could help Alex. He could help him deal with this. “We’re coming for you now. Just shut up and don’t talk like that.”
Jeremiah tried to smile, lip wobbling. “Love it when you yell at me.”
“I’m not yelling at you,” Alex shot back, always reflexively argumentative when he was stressed. Then, voice lower, “Just try and calm down, okay? Try the breathing. The panting thing, remember?”
“Not really,” Jeremiah admitted wearily. He hadn’t really been paying attention during the last class. He didn’t see how it mattered since he was supposedly getting a c-section anyway, and besides, he knew Alex was taking it all in. Organizing it into columns in his brain. Probably adding it to a master childbirth spreadsheet he had squirreled away at home.
“I really do, though,” he whispered. “Love you.”
“God, stop it.” There was the sound of Alex arguing with Fabian about something. The phone was muffled, like he was pressing it to his chest. Strained, he said, “Carson. I love you too. Just, talk to Fabian for a minute, okay?”
And then Jeremiah was talking to Fabian. “Hey buddy,” Fabian said gently. “How’s it going?”
“I’ll level with you, I’ve been better, Ellison,” Jeremiah muttered. “Been a lot better.”
Fabian laughed shakily. “Not surprised to hear you say that, buddy. Now listen, we’re trying to find you, but you need to help us, okay?”
“I got lost,” Jeremiah admitted. “I don’t know where I am.”
“Where were you trying to go, though?” Fabian’s soft, lispy voice was soothing, even as he probed for intel. Jeremiah didn’t call him on it,though. “Do you remember?”
“I was-cherries. I was getting cherries.”
“Carson.” Fabian sounded like he was having a hard time holding it together, calm façade fracturing. “Are you in near the farm?”
In the background, Jeremiah could hear Alex squawk, repeating “farm?” in outraged disbelief.
Jeremiah sputtered, feeling very ganged up on in a way he didn’t appreciate when he was in labor. “That’s where the best cherry stand is, Fabian! What do you want me to do, get bad cherries?”
Omega's Joy: An MPREG Romance Page 9