by Aiden Bates
I was putting the last of the cups on the drying rack when I was interrupted by a soft sniffling behind me. I turned around just in time to see Teddy duck his head and wipe at his eyes.
“Teddy?” I had no idea what was happening, what I had said to elicit that sort of reaction.
Teddy shook his head. “Sorry,” he said, his voice low and soft. Still, in the quiet of the kitchen, he might as well have been yelling.
It was force of habit. I went to him. I’d never been very good with words, and around Teddy I was even worse. All I could think to do was offer him human comfort. I approached quickly, but then hesitated before finally settling my hand on his shoulder.
“Hey, no. It’s okay. Don’t worry about it.”
“No, it’s stupid.” Teddy wiped his eyes again and I stroked my thumb at the fabric of his shirt.
“I’m sure it isn’t. We just covered that. I’m the stupid one, remember?”
That earned me a wet chuckle. Teddy bit at his plump lower lip, and I had to remember I was here to comfort him, not imagine all the ways in which I could gnaw and tease at that lip.
“It’s just, I haven’t heard anyone say anything like that to me in…god, so long I can’t remember. Other than Jason,” he added. I ignored the crack of his voice over his brother’s name.
I nodded. “He used to talk about you all the time. He was so proud of you. Always. If it wasn’t about Charlie and how many babies they were going to have once he got home, it was ‘My brother Teddy is going to make robots so you and I don’t ever have to come back here and do this shit again’ and stuff like that. He loved you, Teddy.”
Just like I did. Probably better than I did.
I was hoping that would, make him feel better, but just like always, I didn’t quite manage it. Teddy’s shoulders began to shake and he cried in earnest. I stepped closer, dropping my hand from his shoulder and taking up one of his hands instead. “Teddy, please. I’m dying here. Is there anything I can do? Anything?”
I looked down and stared into his eyes, glistening with unshed tears, wide and almost the same honeyed color as the whiskey we’d been drinking. He just stood there, his breaths slowing and his tears finally drying, all while looking at me as if he’d not seen me in years. As if he hadn’t really been seeing me until just now, this moment. Eventually, my eyes drifted down again to his full lips, just for a moment before dragging back up to meet his gaze once more.
He was the first to break the tension.
“Ro,” he whispered before clearing his voice and starting again. “Roman, I should… I should go. It’s late and I really do have to go in early tomorrow, and I’m sure you have to be out before the sun gets up, so—”
I stepped back, and for a fleeting second I could almost convince myself he looked bewildered, saddened, by the distance.
“No. Yeah. Totally. I understand. And you’re right, I do have to get up at the ass-crack of dawn,” I agreed, scrubbing a hand through the back of my hair.
Teddy walked back to the living room and gathered his things. I met him at the door to see him out. He was halfway through the threshold when I couldn’t control myself any more.
“Teddy.”
Teddy turned around and met my eyes expectantly. Shit, how to say this?
“Look, I’m not trying to, you know, start anything. So, don’t take this the wrong way. It’s just that, well, look. Anytime you need someone to talk to, I’m here, okay? No strings attached or anything. I’m not promising I’ll always understand everything, but I’ll be here. I mean it. I can at least sit and be mesmerized.” Shit, too much. That was probably too much. But, whatever. It was out there now. There wasn’t any point in wishing it was different now I’d said it. Besides. It was true.
I expected him to yell at me about not being there when he’d needed me, when he had been counting on me. I’d expected him to slap me or laugh or start crying again. Anything other than what he did.
Instead, he came close, a small smile playing about his mouth. That was all I registered before warm lips were pressed against my cheek, dragging just slightly against my stubble.
“God, I did miss you, Roman. I’m glad you got back safe. I’m glad you’re here.”
With that, he was gone. I shut the door in a daze and as soon as it was closed, leaned up against it, my head back against the wood.
There were a million things running through my mind, the history, the promises I’d made Master Sergeant, the conversation Teddy and I had had only days prior, agreeing to be friends, the expression on Teddy’s face when he’d looked up at me moments before in the kitchen. I thought about Jason and the way his eyes would light up when he’d spoken about Teddy, the knowing smile when I’d also talked about him. I thought about the sorrow I’d felt when the letters stopped, when I’d handed Teddy his brother’s dog tags, knowing I’d failed Teddy in every way I’d meant not to. All of it swirling around and around in my head.
But out of all of those thoughts there was one. One that cut through the rest. At first it was quiet, hardly there at all, but with every passing second it grew louder and more insistent. There was no point in denying it. I couldn’t even if I’d wanted to.
I was in love with him. Had been the whole time. So in love. Completely.
Damn.
10
Teddy
“…It’s not even weird. It’s just weird here in the U.S. But lots of other places clearly recognize and support the idea that, if all the workers get a vote, then you don’t get this bullshit, red-tape, decision making that comes top-down without the boots on the ground having any say in what…”
Naomi’s cool and collected exterior had chosen to give way right here, a few drinks in at the Piggy Bank, to an optimistic description of what it must be like to work basically anywhere but SynergyNow, then a dreamy recollection of all the things she’d read about Lovelace, and then finally an impassioned defense of the idea of worker co-operatives writ large.
I mean, I was in total agreeance, and I was enjoying her rant, but more than anything I was grateful for the opportunity to focus my attention on our mutual grievances with the entire system of alpha management. It was bonding. Cathartic, even. And not at all connected to Roman and that best-left-unexplored mélange of emotional confusion.
I rotated in my bar stool to have another sip of my drink as Naomi kept on talking, now itemizing the points she was making by furiously jabbing a perfectly manicured nail into a fingertip each time she began a new argument. Forty-five degrees of rotation away from Naomi brought me face-to-face with Miss Penny, the illustrious owner of the Piggy Bank. She was standing behind the bar and leaning crossed arms on it, and I wondered distantly how long she’d been standing there and how she’d escaped our notice, decked out in all her gold and crimson finery and plumage as she always was. She was watching Naomi and me with pursed lips and pointedly blinking very long, very fake, wiry eyelashes at us.
“Lamb,” she said more at Naomi than to Naomi, who was too consumed in point three to notice her.
“Lamb?”
“…And, regardless, by assuring each employee one vote, the structure itself helps to neutralize the dynamics—”
“Honey lamb!” Miss Penny said, dropping a little into her ‘Mr. Darren King’ octave to pack volume into her voice. This finally caught Naomi’s attention who stopped talking and turned her bar stool to better face Miss Penny. “I watched Selma and Stonewall on my momma’s itty-bitty TV set when I was about this tall, not too long ago.” She gestured to somewhere below the bar. “I was in the front row when Heat Wave pulled out them flamethrowers at ‘Abolish The Alpharchy’ in nineteen seventy-nine, and I will burn a bra with all my sisters as long as I get to keep my waist trainer, but this boy is not listening to you. He don’t wanna fight the power right now. And he needs another drink.” She brought her lashes down to pointedly look at my drink and then to look up at me. “I’ll pour the tequila, sugar, you serve the tea.”
And having
said everything she wanted to say, she promptly turned and glided away.
“Sorry,” Naomi said brushing her hair back. “After hearing about Sweeney and Wilcox and how gross they were, how hard you’d worked on that project just to get taken off over a few days being out, it just brought back up all of this stuff that’s normally just constant, background noise, you know? I didn’t even notice that you weren’t—”
“No, no, no, I was!” I said, dismissing her apology before she’d even finished it. “I really was. Ever since I got moved down with you guys, I’ve really appreciated the stuff you talk about. It makes me feel empathized with. Well, more like understood. But—well, Miss Penny’s right—I’ve got weird personal stuff going on, and I’ve honestly been so focused at work that it’s been a while since I had anything remotely personal to worry about, so, I’m kind of out of practice and…awkward about it.”
“Well, what’s up?” Naomi asked as Miss Penny began pulling bottle after bottle down from her shelf, and then mixing some kind of drink I couldn’t see, presumably for me. “If you want to talk about it, that is.”
“No, I do. I just—” What? What did I want to talk about and who did I want to talk about it to? “My friends are… Well, okay. Silas just got married and he had a baby and that’s great. I’m happy for him. Charlie was engaged to my brother Jason before he died, and they were perfect. Like, one of those couples you almost hate because they’re so cloyingly in love with each other. But my brother’s gone, and Charlie took it really hard because they planned to get married and have, like, twenty kids together. He doesn’t have anyone now, but that was what he wanted. Bennet I’ve known since I was a kid, and he’s not married or engaged or pregnant or dating anyone, but he’s always worried about not having those things, like he’s on this internal timeline. And that’s what it boils down to. I can’t tell Dad. I could have told Jason, but… Anyway, I can’t really talk to my friends because I think they’re all on different stages of their omega lives. Does that make sense?”
“But you’re not,” Naomi offered.
“Right. It’s not that I think less of them. It’s just everyone’s really focused on the alpha, and the wedding, and the baby, and that’s never been me. I wanted to be an engineer with my own office and my projects and career. I didn’t want to be that omega, and I don’t really know anyone else who isn’t either already that omega or worried about not becoming that omega—which is fine if that’s what they want, but it’s just not for me.”
“Well, let me tell you, I definitely understand. There are lots of versions of ‘that’ kind of girl I didn’t want to be.”
“Sing it, girl.” Miss Penny came back with a bright blue drink for me and a neon green drink for Naomi. In apparent agreement with Naomi’s statement, Miss Penny clinked her own drink with Naomi’s and then turned to me. “That right there is called an ‘Adios, Motherfucker’ because it sounds like a motherfucker is your trouble right now.”
Right, well. At least I had a sympathetic audience, even if I did need liquid courage before I started on my tale. Naomi was already sipping on her drink when I sipped on mine.
I turned to look at her in amazement, but she was making the same face at Miss Penny.
“Mm. This is fucking delicious!” Naomi said, almost breathlessly. “This is perfect.”
“I know.” Miss Penny shrugged as though compliments were welcome but were so commonplace they hardly merited attention. “Now, go on with yourself.”
I sipped again and obediently began to talk, staring into my drink as I spoke. It seemed it would be an audience of Naomi after all as Miss Penny turned her attention to other customers at the bar.
“So, there’s this alpha. His name is Roman. Silas’s older brother, actually…”
I proceeded to catch her up on where my relationship with Roman had started in high school, providing the context in which to understand my current situation. All the ancient history I recounted was interrupted periodically with Naomi and Miss Penny’s observations.
“The lady at the liquor store flirted with high school students?” Miss Penny asked when I described Roman’s infamous beer-run. “Uh, uh.” She snapped her fingers. “I am not one of your little friends and you can smile all you want. Only smile I wanna see is the one on your state-issued, over twenty-one ID.”
God, Miss Penny heard everything.
Naomi groaned loudly and rolled her eyes at my description of Roman’s failure to respond to my letters, and Jason’s explanation that it was due to being busy. “Yeah. Focusing on school, career, whatever. I’ve heard all that before.”
I nodded. “And then, when he came back from his first tour, acting as if we could pick up right where we’d left off, I just couldn’t. I was angry. I didn’t want to!” I picked up my drink and held it up for both Naomi and me to see before opting out of using the straw altogether and just gulping straight from the rim. “So, well, I said, ‘Adios, motherfucker.’”
“Jesus. Serves him right,” Naomi said, propping her elbows on the bar-top and taking advantage of a break in the story to readjust on her stool.
I described Roman’s re-enlistment, the IED, and the loss of my brother to sympathetic tongue-clicks from both ladies. I described life after Jason including dinner with Dad and the birth of baby Jason. I recounted seeing Roman at Silas’s party, and when I sensed Naomi and Miss Penny knew about as much I did, I threw my hands up in frustration at the utter mess I was describing.
Then I steadied myself enough to address the crux of the situation. “So, how come—now Roman got this job under my dad and is suddenly back in my life—how come I do feel like we’re just picking up from high school?”
“Fuck me sideways six ways ’til Sunday and don’t call me on Monday!” Miss Penny yelled from the empty show-stage behind us, her arms crossed and complete incredulity in her gold eyeshadowed eyes.
Seriously, how in the hell did she do that?
She was apparently preparing for an epic diatribe as she uncrossed her arms and pointed a red painted fingernail at me, ready to begin scolding. “Boy, are you really trying to tell me—”
“I know! I know! I know I’m supposed to still be mad, any self-respecting person would be. But on the other hand, how long are you supposed to hold a grudge? I mean, can people change? Is it weakness if I…”
“What?” Naomi asked, evidently anticipating the disclosure of some juicy detail. “If you do what?”
“Kind of, maybe, tentatively, depending on whether he really has changed or not, still feel for Roman?” As I spoke, I involuntarily raised my shoulders further and further up my neck in apology for what I was saying aloud. “That’s weakness, isn’t it? That’s being that omega. It’s weak.”
“I mean…” Naomi tilted her side to side as though considering her answer. Miss Penny had evidently given up on her intention to scold, and Naomi and I were alone. Seemingly alone, anyway. “Well, in general, I would say that forgiveness doesn’t denote weakness to me. On the contrary, it denotes being the bigger person. Strength. So, if you have forgiven him—”
“That’s the thing!” I finally exclaimed. “I haven’t forgiven him. I’m furious with him. I just still want him.”
“Oh,” Naomi said simply and suddenly monotonously. She must have been looking for Miss Penny to back her up, since she turned in her stool and searched about for something or someone. Finding nothing or at least nothing I saw her find, she spun back around toward me. “Oh. Well, I don’t know about the rest. I mean, you’re in an unenviable position in general, but specifically about you wanting him? I’ve been there. That part’s the most easily resolved. If that’s what you want, why not just…you know…do it?”
“No, I can’t! I…” I tried to think of the reason why I couldn’t, clearly more obviously than I meant to now I was several, several drinks in. Naomi’s smile was broadening and broadening as she watched me. Why couldn’t I? Because Dad had told me not to? That hadn’t stopped me when I was fifteen. The
stakes were more serious now, of course, but why should it stop me? Dad couldn’t tell me what to do and I didn’t necessarily have to abide by it. So, what was stopping me from doing exactly as I intended?
“Everyone knows that angry sex is good. That’s why ex sex is the best. Who are you ever angrier or more frustrated with than with an old flame? Not that Lucy ever needs to hear that.” She caught herself quickly. “I wouldn’t. But there’s no reason you couldn’t. What’s the harm in having a little fun? Women have always been my primary wheelhouse, so I’m clearly biased. But having the occasional bit of fun is about all the use I’ve ever had for alphas.”
“I know that’s right. Sister, say amen,” Miss Penny called from the end of the bar where she seemed engaged in small talk with a lonely patron.
I shrugged. I couldn’t bring myself to think so dismissively of Roman. So, maybe it wasn’t literally the only use for alphas. But as scandalized as it seemed, I had no real defense against acting on my wants.
Hmm.
I tipped my glass toward Naomi a little in a show of gratitude and acknowledgement.
“Thanks. Maybe I’ve been too eager to listen to the little angel on my shoulder and not enough to the little devil.”
“Sounds like a vacancy I could definitely qualify for.” Naomi smirked and tipped her glass against mine to clink them. “To alphas?”
“Can’t live with them,” I added in rote recitation.
“Can definitely live without them,” she quipped before we drained our drinks.
11
Roman
Holy shit, it had been a week.
I was still trying to get used to the changes in my schedule as a drill sergeant, and it was grueling. Up at three in the morning to make it to base in full uniform by four, with recruits from five to three in the afternoon, and with Master Sarge wrapping up and preparing for the next day until five. That was a normal day. Today, I had the extra special privilege of staying until eight o’clock for a series of oversight reviews. My eyes felt glued, gummy, and I knew if I shut them for more than a second, I was going to pass out in my truck before I’d even managed to get home.