Heaven's Ballroom

by Aiden Bates

  I laughed. “Weird little family sums it up pretty well, yeah.”

  “You’ve got your sisters. They’ll be excited to find out they’re going to be aunts.”

  “If I ever get up the guts to tell them, yeah.” My sisters had always talked about wanting little nieces and nephews running around at Christmas and Easter time—I’d just always assumed they’d been talking about getting them from each other. Not from me. But Foster was right—they’d be thrilled. Worried, too—but happy to welcome a new member to the family either way.

  “And you’ve got your scholarship. Schools are usually willing to make allowances for single parents—”

  My throat seized up suddenly. “Actually…”

  Foster raised an eyebrow. “What?”

  “I lost my scholarship,” I admitted, pulling the letter out of my back pocket and sliding it across his desk. “Found out this morning.”

  “Bad grades? We could’ve given you more time off to study.”

  I shook my head. “My grades were good. My morals, apparently, aren’t quite up to par though. One of our clients…” I shook my head again, like I was trying to shake off the shitty reality of my situation. “Found out I worked here. Turned me into my finance board. Guess all of our fancy donors didn’t want their tax write-offs to go to someone who was dancing to pay for rent.”

  Foster’s lip pulled back in a sneer. “They didn’t want you to work for your rent money, they should’ve given you more to cover it. Can’t stand rich assholes like that.”

  “So…” I looked at Foster’s desktop again, tracing the grain of the wood with my gaze. “I guess I’m just not sure what to do now.”

  Foster took a deep breath, leaning back in his chair. “Well, first off—let me write to your scholarship board. See if I can’t convince them that we’re a classier establishment than they’ve been made to believe. You’re a performer, Damon. Not a whore.”

  I ran my hand over my belly. “Might not be so easy to get them to believe that once they find out about my…condition.”

  “Your condition is perfectly natural. We’re Omegas, Damon. There’s no shame in your body doing what your body’s meant to do.” He said it so definitively, I almost believed it. “As for your rent money—don’t suppose you want to keep dancing?”

  I frowned. “I’m afraid it might be…weird. You know?”

  “I get it.” Foster pulled a sheet of paper out from the various piles on his desk and made a few notes on it. “I’ll adjust your schedule then. You can work the front, if that works for you.”

  I breathed a sigh of relief. “Yeah. Yeah, that would be…that would mean a lot to me, Foster. Thank you.”

  “Don’t thank me. Once an Angel, always an Angel. Now…as for the baby…”

  I pressed my fingers against my abdomen, feeling for something that wasn’t even there yet. The baby inside me couldn’t have been any bigger than a sunflower seed—maybe even smaller than that. But still, I could feel it there. Like a little knot that had been tied up in the strings of my fate.

  “Adoption is always a possibility,” he suggested with a little shrug. “But if you’re intent on keeping it…you should talk to your Alpha, Damon.”

  I grimaced. “I’m not sure if he’s the family type.”

  “Maybe he is. Maybe he isn’t. Might be an asshole about it, might be thrilled. Either way.” Foster tapped his desk with the tip of his fountain pen. “He has a right to know. How he reacts will tell you a lot about where to go next. Right?”

  I bit my lip. It was that part that was making my pulse race and my world feel upside down. Knowing. Learning. Finding out that part of Nathan—the part that would determine whether we actually had any future together or not.

  “You’re right,” I finally said, nodding. “Of course, you’re right. I just—”

  Another knock sounded on the door behind us. I turned to see Carlos poke his head through it. But where I’d expected his eyes to land on Foster—some issue with the alcohol suppliers, maybe, or a problem with the new barback—instead, they landed on me.

  “Sorry, guys. Don’t mean to bother you. Bad time?” Carlos said.

  “Could be better.” Foster capped his pen. “What’s up.”

  “It’s…ah. Damon? When you’re done in here, mind coming outside for a second?”

  My brow furrowed in on itself. “What’s wrong?”

  Carlos tugged at his collar and laughed awkwardly. “Just—there’s an Alpha outside. Wants to talk you.” He opened his mouth like he wanted to say more, then apparently thought better of it. “Maybe you’d best just come down and see for yourself.”

  Foster nodded to me, and I rose, my stomach turning cartwheels so hard I was afraid it’d hurt the little life that was stirring in my womb. An Alpha. Here at the club. To see me. The way I saw it, there were two possibilities, and neither boded well for my nerves.

  Either it was the redheaded jackass from the coffee shop who’d gotten my scholarship pulled, come to gloat about how successful he’d been in fucking up my life…

  Or it was Nathan, finally returned from his little vacation in California, and I’d have to tell him about how I was about to fuck up his life.

  “Let’s just get this over with,” I mumbled as Carlos ushered me out the door and led me downstairs.

  As I went down to face whoever was waiting for me, my head felt floaty and light. Maybe it was the pregnancy hormones—or maybe it was just some kind of divine calm washing over me, readying me to square up to my fears. In a way, I supposed, it couldn’t get any worse. I was already pregnant, without a scholarship I’d been working so hard at keeping, and in all likelihood, I was facing all of it alone.

  That was how the saying went, right? When it rains, it pours—but I’d already been standing outside in the thick of the storm without an umbrella for so long, I felt soaked through. It was hard to keep worrying about a little more rain when you were already dripping wet.

  “You okay, Damon? You’re looking a little…pale.” Carlos pressed his hand against my back gently, concern twisting his brow. “You know I can just tell this guy to fuck off, right?”

  I forced a smile. “No…no, whatever this is, I’ll deal with it. I’m okay. But thanks, Carlos. It means a lot.”

  “Holler if you need help, then.” He opened the front door of the club for me and lingered in the doorway as I exited it.

  But whatever I thought I’d be walking out into…

  It sure as hell wasn’t that.

  Nathan Garnet. He looked as good in the dusky lights of a New York sunset as he had in his apartment the night he’d knocked me up. Only now, he was sporting a little bit of a tan on his cheeks, his normally wrinkleless suit rumpled slightly from his flight.

  “Hey,” he called out from the sidewalk as soon as he saw me.

  “Hey,” I said back softly—and even though I didn’t want to, I couldn’t help but stare.

  It wasn’t just that he looked good—even though, fuck, he did. It wasn’t the tan, or the lines of his suit, or that intense look in the green of his eyes that had me gawking like a tourist at the Empire State Building, either.

  No, it was what he had tucked beneath his arms that did it. Beneath one, Lady, looking grumpy as ever—even though she seemed to light up a little bit when she saw me, sticking her tongue out and panting a smile. And beneath the other—

  “Is that my cat?” I blurted out before I could stop myself.

  “Mreow,” Cleo Catra answered, her squashed, fluffy face looking even pudgier than ever as Nathan held her in the crook of his arm.

  “Yeah,” Nathan answered, looking down at her like he’d nearly forgotten she was there. Maybe because he was staring too—not at the surprise return of a stolen animal, but at me. “Yeah…yeah, it is.”

  “You…you stole…” I began, just as Nathan started to say something as well.

  “Why won’t you just fucking like me?!” The words burst from his mouth like the cork from a bottle
of shaken champagne.

  Then, for a moment, neither of seemed to know what to say.

  “It…seems like we might have a lot to talk about,” I finally replied, rubbing the back of my neck and feeling it turn red. Not with embarrassment, though. For once, I wasn’t blushing. This was a different kind of warmth, spreading through my body like the wash of heat from a warm fire built to see me through the night.

  He snorted as he pressed the cat to my chest, a tinge of indignation to his voice. “Yeah. Seems like we might.”

  19

  Nathan

  “You stole my fucking cat.”

  Out of all of the words that I’d expected to come out of Damon’s mouth, those hadn’t exactly made the list. Nathan, I’ve missed you, maybe, or Nathan, I hate you for leaving, you fucking prick! I would’ve even taken Nathan, how dashing you look now that your sunburn is turning into a tan.

  “I didn’t steal your cat,” I pointed out, placing Lady down on the sidewalk and letting her lead the way on her leash.

  “You went into a building that didn’t belong to you and took the cat with you when you left.” Damon was lucky that his mouth was so damn pretty, considering how accusatory the words coming out of it sounded.

  “I stole your cat back,” I corrected him. “That’s…that’s different. Or something.”

  I glanced over at him as we walked through Midtown, enjoying the way he clutched the cat to his chest. She was purring, rubbing her head beneath his chin and looking considerably less ugly now that she had been returned to her rightful owner—and if I read into the way that Damon was gently scratching behind her ears, I was pretty sure he was grateful enough to forgive me for whatever it was he thought I’d done.

  “Where were you, Nathan?”

  Not grateful enough to forgive me without some answers, though. All things considered…it was fair.

  “California,” I told him. “Thought you’d figured out that much from my Instagram.”

  “It’s a state, Nathan. Not an excuse.”

  “You would’ve had your excuses if you had answered your damn phone. I texted, you know. Tried to call.”

  “Oh.” Damon had the good sense to look a little guilty at that. “It broke.”

  I whistled, dipping my hand into my pocket and pulling out my phone. The messages were already pulled up—I’d been planning this moment the whole plane ride back from LA. Passing it to him, I found myself feeling suddenly smug. “Now who’s the one with the excuses?”

  Damon read the messages as quickly as he could while juggling his cat in his arms and my phone between his fingers.

  Then he read them again.

  And again.

  And again.

  “You…you didn’t want to leave.” He sounded so surprised, it would’ve broken my heart if it wasn’t such an idiot way to feel.

  “Fuck, no, I didn’t want to leave! Did you really think I would have invested all that time trying to make you like me just so I could pack up and fuck off to Los Angeles for a week without notice?”

  “You haven’t met my other boyfriends,” he mumbled.

  I laughed. “Not entirely true. I’ve met at least one.” I flashed him my knuckles, which were still bruised from my final dealings in LA. “Andrew, I think his name was? Lovely guy. Weak right hook.”

  Damon blinked, then shook his head like he was trying to rattle the confusion out of it. “I don’t think anyone’s ever called Andrew lovely in his entire life.”

  “Yeah, well. You’re the one who dated him.”

  “And lived to regret it.”

  “You really thought I was going to just take off without saying anything to you?”

  He shrugged. “Andrew did.”

  I whirled around in front of Damon, stopping him in his tracks. “Look. I’m not Andrew. And I’m not Connor or Gibby or What’s-his-nuts or any of the other shit-for-brain Alphas you’ve been with. Not that it fucking matters, because you still refuse to like me for some goddamn reason.”

  Damon’s tongue ran over his lips as I stared him down, daring him to break my gaze.

  He didn’t. But as I stared, I saw something wet and vulnerable and broken in his eyes. I’d expected so much from this encounter—but I hadn’t expected to see that.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked, setting my frustration aside.

  “Just…a lot has happened since you left.” He shouldered past me, leaving Lady yipping and dragging me along beside him as she tugged on her leash.

  “I was gone for a week, Damon. Is it even possible that I missed that much?”

  “I lost my scholarship.” He let the words fall like stars dropping right out of the sky.

  “What? How?”

  “Don’t want to talk about it.” He clutched his cat even tighter to his chest and doubled his pace. Fine by me—I didn’t spend all that time at the gym just to skip leg day. “And Anders’ stalker figured out where we live.”

  “Anders has a stalker?”

  If he walked any faster, I was going to have to pick Lady up and run with her.

  “I told you. You’ve missed a lot.”

  “Missed you most of all,” I said, speeding up even faster. Matching him step for step.

  He scoffed. “Maybe you did. But it doesn’t matter now.”

  “And why the hell not? I didn’t want to leave, you asshole. I texted you as much.”

  “Could’ve called the club.”

  “And you could’ve called my work, and I could’ve sent a carrier pigeon, and you could’ve hopped a train, and I could’ve quit my job so I could’ve fucking been here for you through all of this.” I jogged ahead of him, wheeling around to cut him off again. “Damon…a lot of things have gone wrong, okay? But none of this is permanent. I’ll pay for your college. I’ll get you a new apartment. All of this has an easy fix.”

  When his eyes met mine again though, his gaze struck right though me like a hot pair of knives. “I’m pregnant, Nathan. Is that an easy fix for you?”

  And for once, I didn’t have a damn thing to say back to him.

  “P-pregnant?” I’d never stuttered once in my life, but as I forced the word out of my mouth, I stuttered then. “You’re…but you were going to…”

  I blinked several times, and in the darkness behind my eyelids all the little vignettes of that night we spent together flickered like scenes on a movie screen. The taste of his sweat on my tongue. The low crescents of his fingernails digging into my skin, marking me as his. The way we’d lain together after, my cock still inside him, balls freshly emptied and already begging to fill so I could fill him up all over again.

  He said that word, pregnant, like it was a curse, and for him, maybe it was.

  “Morning-after pill didn’t work then, I take it,” I finished lamely.

  “Forgot to take it. Things got…messy. Slipped my mind.” The cat in Damon’s arms wiggled against the hold he had on it, trying to climb up onto his shoulder as he struggled to stop it. “Guess that makes it my fault.”

  “It doesn’t…this isn’t anyone’s fault. Or it’s both of ours. Or…I don’t know. But it’s not your fault.”

  “Feels like it’s my fault.” He gave up on the cat with a sigh, allowing it to scramble up onto his shoulder and hunching as it wound itself around his neck. It would’ve been comical if we’d been having any other conversation in that moment.

  Actually—

  I laughed, reaching up to disentangle the orange ball of fluff from where it was resting across Damon’s shoulder blades.

  Actually, trying to herd a fucking cat while Damon explained to me that he was having my baby was the funniest thing that had happened to me in a while.

  Unfortunately, Damon didn’t see it that way.

  “Glad you can laugh about it.” He took the cat back from me, only to for it to start struggling its way back to its perch on his shoulder all over again.

  “I’m not laughing about it,” I pointed out. “I’m laughing at the fact that your ugl
y-ass cat has chosen this particular moment in time to take up a new life as a necktie.”

  Damon groaned as Cleo clawed her way up toward his shoulder once again. “Can we do this somewhere else?” We both looked around, seeing the way the tourists and street performers, businessmen and Macy’s perfume counter girls were all staring at us as they walked by. “Literally…literally anywhere else, Nathan.”

  I smiled, nodding as I struck my hand out toward the street to hail a cab. “As you like, Mr. Bishop. Whatever you like.”

  Back at my place, I found myself making tea. Maybe it wasn’t the best use of my time, seeing as the Omega who was carrying my baby was sitting on my couch ruminating on the way his whole world was falling apart around him while I boiled water, but it made me feel useful at least. It’s what our housekeeper had always done when I was younger. Bruised knee? Cup of tea. Bad grade on a test? Cup of tea.

  Knocked up the man who very well might’ve been the love of my life? Cup of tea—extra strong. With the conversation we needed to have now, I felt like we were going to need it.

  “Drink,” I instructed him, our fingertips brushing as I passed the mug into his hands. Compared to the heat of the cup, his hands were freezing cold. Didn’t sit right with me—the man carrying my child shouldn’t have been cold. “You want me to turn the heater up?”

  “No…no, it’s fine.” He took a sip, Cleo swatting at the tag on the tea bag as she stared up at Damon from her place on his lap. “That’s…actually really good.”

  “Helping?” I placed myself on the couch next to him. Close enough he could touch me if he wanted—and god, I wanted him to want to—but still far enough away that I could pretend I was giving him space.

  “Yeah. A little. Thanks.” He leaned forward to place the mug onto the coffee table. Instinctively, I reached out to catch his hand in mine once the cup was settled.

  “Damon…” I ran my thumb over his knuckles, tracing each little rise and fall. “I know you said I don’t have an easy fix for this. And, fuck. Maybe I don’t.”