by Aiden Bates
But even better than the sex were all the times when it wasn’t really about that at all. Late night runs to the take-out Chinese place down the road and more streaming TV than was probably healthy. Long, lazy weekends hanging out around the house and talking about everything that crossed our minds, and some weeknights listening to Oliver and Marcos’s laughter as they made an absolute mess of the kitchen.
I loved it, and I never wanted it to end.
However, that wasn’t really my decision. Marcos hadn’t actually said anything about the change in our relationship and whether he wanted to be a part of this family. Whether, after I became pregnant, he would stick around. Sure, he seemed to get that Oliver and I wanted him to, but Marcos hadn’t said he would, and if he didn’t… Well, there wasn’t anything I could actually do about it, and having never been one to dwell in anxiety, I kicked into action, grabbed the pink box with its ridiculously sappy, grinning omega on the front, and went to the bathroom. Oliver and Marcos both stopped their pacing to watch me go.
A few moments later—admittedly after some last-minute panicking and staring into the bathroom mirror for a pep talk—it was done.
“Nothing to do now but wait, I guess,” I announced when I got back into the living room. I revised that statement slightly to set a timer on my phone. It was only then that I realized my hands were shaking. This was…weird. I was never this nervous. Oliver and I, and then Oliver and Marcos and I, had talked this to death. I’d spent weeks looking up all sorts of baby and omega pregnancy websites. With three people involved in this, every step of the way had involved communication. We all knew what we were doing the whole time we were doing it. It shouldn't have been bothering me like this now.
“Hey, you okay?” Marcos asked, concerned.
I nodded, leaning into his broad chest and relaxing as he automatically wrapped his arms around me. I reached for Oliver and he nuzzled in, too.
“Sorry. Yeah, I am. Or, well, I will be. It’s just… It’s really happening. I mean, maybe, anyway. It felt like we talked about it and talked about it, but now it seems real. Like, it could really be happening.” Pregnancy. Getting here had been a lot of fun, a wild sort of ride, but now I was looking down the barrel of nine months? It was a big deal.
I was thankful for both of them and tried as best I could to soak up their comfort. Besides, it wasn’t like they were any less nervous than I was. It was a huge step for all of us. And here we were.
Sixty seconds…
“We’re sure about this. Really, really sure? Right? I just feel like I’m going to be so shitty at this,” I said. Parenting and the skills involved were not really my forte considering my parents had basically deserted me when I was fifteen years old. To be honest, they hadn’t really been the best parents before then, either. They’d left me with my grandmother when they went broke and left the state to go look for work. They’d promised to come and get me as soon as they’d found work. And then weeks and months and years had gone by. It was a weird time to be addressing this insecurity, but the immediacy of the test result had pushed to the surface all the things I’d been too afraid to admit.
Oliver cupped my neck with his palm. “Hey, it’s okay. You’re going to do fine, alright?” I looked over at him and he gave me a warm smile. “And I’ll be there for you every step of the way. No matter what.” He found my hand with his and brushed his thumb over the engagement ring he’d put on my finger all those weeks ago. And I knew down to the marrow of my bones that Oliver meant every word of what he said. I knew that regardless of what the test in my hand said, he would be there. Forever. Oliver had seen me, and despite my past, despite my present at the time, decided he wanted to be my future. He hadn’t been the first client I’d fallen in love with, but he was certainly the first one who wanted me.
Forty seconds…
“Me too,” Marcos said quietly, the words rumbling in his chest. I looked away from Oliver. I’d had my suspicions he’d felt that way, but didn’t know for certain, and I was surprised to hear him say it out loud. My surprise must have shown, and I could see from Marcos’s expression he felt as though he’d said something wrong.
“No, No. I just mean, well, whatever happens with Pedro, well… I mean, I know this is your and Oliver’s family, but I’m excited. I didn’t think I’d feel that way about it. But I do. And I want to be a part of the baby’s life. Even if he or she doesn’t know I’m the alpha. I just want to be there. Please let me be there.” His voice sounded ragged by the end of it, and it was more than he’d ever said on the subject. It was what both Oliver and I wanted to hear, and I could only guess at Oliver’s reaction to Marcos’s confession. As for me, to have that opportunity to be with both of them…
Twenty seconds…
If I was pregnant, I wanted both of them here with me through every step of it. I wanted both of them to feel the baby kick and to welcome our baby into the world. I pictured a little someone with Oliver’s earnestness and Marcos’s tenderness. That’s what I wanted for all of us.
I felt overwhelmed by it all. As I leaned back to look at them I could see the concern, the care in their eyes. I knew, for maybe the first time in my adult life, I was safe and that no matter what, they’d be here for me. I didn’t know what I’d ever done to even deserve one of these people, let alone both. I felt horribly guilty, tremendously lucky. It was a mixed bag. But deep down, under all of it, I felt a mind-melting happiness, like right here was precisely where I was supposed to be.
So, naturally, I did what anyone who’s so happy they could burst does; and started bawling my fucking eyeballs out.
“Hey, hey. Whoa. Cariño. Whoa. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to—”
“Yeah, babe. It’s okay, it’s alright—” Oliver said over top of him.
“Oh, hush. Both of you. God, you’re idiots. I’m not sad.”
Understandably, the two idiots looked less than convinced.
“I’m not, it’s just, you two are perfect. Fucking perfect. I’m so fucking lucky, and you’re so fucking perfect, and, and—fuck.”
Five…
Someone gently wiped the tears from my face.
Four…
Someone else gently brushed my hair from my forehead.
Three…
I took a deep breath.
Two…
I looked down.
One…
And the world froze. Here we go.
Zero…
“Well, that’s good news, and I’m sure glad y’all feel that way,” I said wetly, breaking into a smile. “Because I’m pregnant.”
15
Oliver
“Because I’m pregnant,”
At hearing those three little words I reflexively pulled my hand back from Mitch’s hair. If I hadn’t pulled it back as quickly as I had, I would have accidentally gripped him uncomfortably hard, and I could never hurt him, intentionally or otherwise. It was just that the weight of those three little words made my stomach sink and my heart race and my throat close up all at once.
Mitch’s head was bent, staring at the test. He seemed unable to tear his eyes away, as though if he did, the test might suddenly show a different result. I bent my head down to meet his eyes, my own eyes feeling impossibly wide.
“What?” I asked, stupidly.
Through tears and red-streaked eyes, Mitch looked up at me for a moment, and then threw his head back, laughing and crying at the same time. Marcos and I briefly shared terrified glances over Mitch’s shoulder.
“He’s—” Marcos said, starting to repeat Mitch’s declaration.
“You’re—” I said, about to repeat it, too, just to be absolutely certain that this—what we’d, what I’d been hoping for since the beginning—wasn’t just an idea or a dream or a wish anymore. This was happening.
Marcos and I exchanged glances once again and held our collective breaths for just a moment.
“Yes! I’m pregnant! Oh my god, I’m pregnant, I’m pregnant, I’m pregnant!” Mitch sai
d, spurring us on to have some reaction, any kind of reaction, really.
That broke whatever spell had Marcos and me staring at each other. Immediately, Marcos pulled his hands back from around Mitch’s waist and started clenching his hands in front of his face like he couldn’t believe it. For my part, I broke into hysterical laughter. I tried to cover my mouth to stop myself from what seemed like an inappropriate reaction, but there was nothing for it. Side-stepping Mitch simultaneously, Marcos and I drew closer. He reached his hand out and I grasped it in the firmest handshake I’d ever given or received. Suddenly, we were both laughing and slapping each other on the shoulder. In retrospect, I imagined it must have looked as if Marcos and I were a two-man Mission Control and we had just managed to land a rocket on the moon.
“Excuse me!” Mitch said, still crying tears of joy. “I said, ‘I’m pregnant.’ As in, I’m pregnant.”
“Oh, shit,” Marcos said, quickly releasing my hand as though he’d been caught doing something he shouldn’t have. “Are you okay? I mean, what do you feel like? Do you want me to bring you food? Do you need—”
“Holy shit, holy shit,” I said, on the verge of hyperventilating. “Holy shit, there’s so much stuff babies need. We’re going to need a crib. We’re going to need a baby carrier, and a car seat, and a nursery. We’re going to need—”
“Wow,” Mitch said, suddenly much calmer and more deadpan than either Marcos or me. “Wow. Okay. I’m fine. I don’t feel anything. It’s way, way too early for cravings, and we do need things, but the beautiful thing about babies is that they take months to make, so…you know…we have time, folks.”
Once again, Marcos and I traded glances. This time, Marcos hunched his shoulders and looked as sheepish as I felt at our brief moment of shared insanity. Mitch was right, of course. We had time. We could be rational. We could be cool, calm, and collected about this. I nodded at Marcos once, straightened my spine, and breathed in deeply.
“Great,” Mitch said, smirking at the two of us. “First things first. I think we definitely need to talk about what this is going to look like going forward. If everyone is ready to talk, that is. If you all need another round of applause for each other, that’s fine, too.”
“No, no!” Marcos said hurriedly. “No, we’re good. We’re good, right? Let’s talk. Let’s talk right now. Um, what are we talking about?”
Marcos was talking faster than I’d ever heard him. He was tripping all over himself to do whatever Mitch said he wanted done in the moment. I knew because I also constantly tripped all over myself to do whatever Mitch said he wanted done in the moment, so I could sort of guess what it looked like.
“Well…” Mitch said, looking me squarely in the eyes. “Go on. Tell him what you told me.”
Marcos turned to me with that look he always wore, like something terrible was about to happen at any given moment.
“No, it’s nothing bad,” I said, ready to launch into an exact recounting of what Mitch and I had danced around, hinted at, and finally, openly discussed whenever Marcos was absent. Right as I was about to explain though, I realized what I was going to propose and began losing my nerve.
“What?” Marcos asked, prompting me to finish my statement, seemingly not entirely convinced that whatever “it” was, wasn’t a bad thing.
Caught between that old, familiar “Mitch says to do it, so do it” feeling and my reluctance to be this open with my own feelings, I shrugged at Marcos.
“You want space,” Marcos said. “That’s cool. I can come back—”
“No!” I shouted, horrified he was interpreting the exact opposite of what I meant. “No. It’s not that. It’s… Alright, Mitch and I have been talking, and the truth is that when I asked Mitch to marry me, when I got this house, this is exactly what I was picturing. I mean, not exactly, I couldn’t have been picturing you. But!” I held up a hand to stop Marcos from jumping to the wrong sort of conclusion.
“But you are here. And, you are part of the picture now. I wanted a baby. I wanted to start a family with Mitch. But I don’t want you to feel like your part in this is over. What I was trying to say over breakfast the other day is that you’re a good person. I want the baby to know you and I want to give you the chance to know the baby.”
“But not just know the baby,” Mitch said, sort of impatiently.
“Yeah. I mean, I want you… We want you to be the baby’s father. In every sense of the word. You deserve to be a part of the baby’s life, and frankly, the baby deserves to have a dad like you.”
I sort of guessed Marcos had started taking the hint at breakfast that this is what Mitch and I wanted. He didn’t seem overly shocked at the suggestion itself, just shocked to hear it said so bluntly. He stayed quiet for a few moments, and then swallowed hard.
“I…I…” Marcos began to fight back tears. “Yeah. I want that, too. I didn’t think it was going to be like this. I didn’t think it was going to be this…emotional, you know? But now it’s real, I think… Yeah… I think I kind of want it all to be real. I want to take the kid to soccer practice, and I do want them to meet Pedro. I…want to be there for all of you. For this family we’re making together.”
Mitch nodded slowly, acknowledging Marcos’s acceptance. He then turned to me once again, staring hard in expectation of what I would do next. I would do it, too, whatever it was. I just didn’t know exactly what Mitch thought I was supposed to do next.
“And?” Mitch prompted.
And? I tried to ask wordlessly.
Tell him, Mitch mouthed back.
“It’s not exactly normal,” I said to no one in particular.
“What part of this is normal, otherwise?” Mitch asked.
“Right…” I took a deep breath. It was time to be completely open about this, to leave no room for misinterpretation, and to make things clear for Marcos once and for all.
“We’re not talking about you just being here for support. We mean that—if you feel the same way we do—we want you to be part of us. Maybe this isn’t what anybody pictured, but I don’t think any of us come from a completely conventional family life. So, it shouldn’t matter what’s normal or what people commonly picture. We want you, Marcos. We want to do this. We want to be together. The three of us.”
Marcos reared back for a moment and the “happiness” part of his expression of shocked happiness started draining away, leaving only stock-still surprise. For a long time he said nothing, barely moved, barely even breathed. I was beginning to think of ways to back-pedal, to explain we were just caught up in the moment, that if we were coming on too strong or asking him to violate some kind of ethical principle, then we would understand. But I noticed that Marcos was looking to Mitch for some kind of explanation or maybe for reassurance or guidance. And suddenly I knew exactly what to do.
“Kiss him,” I blurted out to Marcos.
“What?”
“It’s okay,” I explained very seriously and very carefully. “I see how you look at him, and I guess it must be what I look like, too. If I’m right and you feel like I feel, you’ve been wanting to since he told us just now. That’s alright. You can kiss him.”
Mitch began moving slowly toward Marcos as though afraid of frightening him with any sudden movements. Marcos allowed him to get close enough to softly cup his hands around Marcos’s neck. He side-eyed me once more to make sure this really was alright, and then whatever had been holding Marcos broke. He leaned down to catch Mitch up in his arms and kiss him deeply.
After a few moments, still locked in Marcos’s arms, Mitch reached for me. In a fluid motion, he gently disentangled himself from Marcos while pulling me forward. This time, Marcos’s eyes went to Mitch, found the encouragement needed, and then tentatively pulled me in for a kiss.
“You’re sure?” Marcos asked when we finally had to come up for air.
“Oh, yeah,” Mitch said breathlessly from somewhere behind me. “We’re sure.”
“Okay,” Marcos said, looking first at Mitch an
d then looking down at me.
“Okay,” he repeated, whispering the word as he bent down to kiss me again.
16
Marcos
As soon as I’d made sure that they were okay with this, I nodded my head to show I was okay with this, too. As soon as I did that, Mitch and Oliver immediately turned to look at each other and then looked back at me. It was kind of eerie in a way, the way they turned to me with an excited, slightly evil twinkle in their eyes. As though they had pre-planned this somehow, they both started putting their hands somewhere on my body; Oliver on my shirt buttons and Mitch on my belt. Pretty soon I was out of my shirt, and my jeans were unbuttoned and pooled around my ankles on the floor.
Mitch pushed me back with one palm, not hard enough to actually move me, but hard enough to communicate that I was supposed to sit down. I let myself fall back onto the couch cushion directly behind me and smirked up at Mitch.
“Ow?” I said, teasingly, but Mitch and Oliver just exchanged glances again before Oliver rolled his eyes and Mitch smirked down at me in a mirror of the expression I was making.
“If that hurt you, I think I can make it better,” Mitch said before he started slipping out of his own clothes. It wasn’t long before Oliver started helping him out of his jeans and undershirt until Mitch was completely naked, I was half-naked, and Oliver stood completely clothed.
As Oliver started stripping, Mitch bent over to put one hand on each of my shoulders. He used the position to balance himself as he slid one knee forward onto the couch, and then the other. Once he stopped wriggling so enticingly, Mitch was straddling me on the couch. The only barrier between his skin and mine were my boxers, which my cock was currently straining against, so Mitch lifted himself on his knees a little to start tugging my underwear down over my erection.
It was a complicated maneuver, but one we executed pretty well for not communicating it out loud. I twisted my hips up, Mitch went up on his knees a little further and when he’d pulled my boxers down to where he could push them down more, Oliver reached between Mitch’s legs and pulled the boxers off of me completely.