Heaven's Ballroom

by Aiden Bates

  I’d realized it as we’d pulled up behind John Simmons’ BMW to block him in. Me in the passenger seat, the love of my life behind the wheel.

  When the chips were down and the stakes were up, he’d been there for me. Despite all the secrecy, the hiding, the sneaking around and the little white lies—all it had taken was a single call and he’d come racing to my aid like a knight in a shining Mercedes Benz.

  The only thing that had gotten me through it all was him—and tonight, I didn’t want to hide anymore.

  Tonight, all I wanted was to be in his arms.

  “The dancers are amped,” Noah said with a grin that wouldn’t quit, emerging from the backstage door. His tuxedo shirt was cinched in with a post-pregnancy cummerbund that was helping support his after-baby body while it recovered from another successful delivery. “And the crowd’s energy in here is insane—they’re practically foaming at the mouth for that curtain to open.”

  I checked my watch, unable to fight back a grin of my own. “We’ll let them simmer in it for a few more minutes yet. Then…it’s showtime.” I scanned the crowd for Blake, catching his eye in the VIP area as he paced nervously along the stage. There was a look of hunger in those icy blues of his—mixed with just enough worry that I cocked my head to call him over.

  “Turn-out’s looking good,” Blake said, biting his lip as he glanced between Noah and the stage. “How’s Anders doing? You don’t have him in those platform boots, do you?”

  “I tried to warn him against them,” Noah said with a chuckle. “But you know how Anders is.”

  “Stubborn as kickin’ mule,” Blake grumbled.

  “He wanted “Disco Inferno” for the opening number,” I reminded Blake. “We can’t deny him his last chance to be John Travolta for his final night up on stage, can we?”

  “This pregnancy leave couldn’t come soon enough.” Blake’s shoulders slumped with a sigh. “At least this baby has finally given him an excuse to slow down for the first time in his life.”

  “Don’t look so glum, Captain.” I clapped my hand on Blake’s back, my grin turning into a knowing smirk. “You’ve gotta be dying to see how he pulls off that tight costume of his with a six-month baby bump, right?”

  A slow smile raised to Blake’s lips. “Why else do you think I’m here?”

  “Wanna grab a drink to calm your nerves?” Noah offered, craning his neck to catch a glimpse of the other Alphas Blake had been sitting with—Noah’s own husband, Ace, among them.

  “Not sure how well it’d work,” Blake said with a chuckle. “Aren’t we only serving virgins tonight?”

  “The drinks are virgins, sure.” Noah’s smile went wickedly lopsided. “But thankfully, the patrons don’t have to be. Wanna round up the rest of the Alphas? I think a pre-show toast is in order.”

  “Go on without me,” I said, casting a glance back to the dark-haired mystery man at the bar. “I’ll meet you there in a minute or two.”

  I slipped onto the barstool next to him, mirroring that pose I’d seen all those other Alphas post up with time and time again. Chin up, shoulders back. Eyes half closed, sensual—that bedroom gaze that suggested one thing and one thing only. “Hey, stranger. Come here often?”

  “That some kind of innuendo?” he asked, cocking an eyebrow, his voice low and cool. Educated. Elegant. He could’ve done high-end commercial voice-overs with a voice like that.

  “Could be,” I said casually, signaling a bartender for two drinks. A couple of lime mojitos wound up on the bar between us, the most dignified-looking drinks on the menu that night. “How are you enjoying yourself over here in the corner?”

  He raised his eyes to me, bottle green and flecked with gold. They were rimmed by dark lashes, only the faintest sign of his age at their corners. No one would have believed me if I told them, but they weren’t wrinkles—the telltale sign of an Alpha pushing late forties. They were laugh lines.

  “Oh, it’s all right,” he assured me, the hint of a smile tugging at one corner of his mouth. Behind me, I could hear the Noah and the group of Alphas sidling up to the bar, ordering drinks and preparing for a toast to their pregnant, dancing counterparts. His eyes tracked them with interest—especially considering that four of them worked for him these days. “But I was thinking maybe…” His smile broke out like a spotlight in a dark room, revealing his perfectly straight, white teeth. “Maybe it might be nicer to finally join the rest of your retinue.”

  “They’re not my retinue,” I said with a laugh, But then my skin prickled with excitement, raw energy racing through me like lightning as he took my hand in his. Even after all these years, his touch still left my heart pounding like a kettle drum. Flushed my body all the way through. Up until this point, we’d always been so careful about touching in public. Our touches had been reserved for private, always. Never where anyone we knew might see. We were both too high-profile in our respective worlds. Our reputations too dependent on our assumed playboy ways.

  But tonight wasn’t like other nights. After Anders’ kidnapping, it had hit us both too hard to deny.

  Life was too short not to be together—and on this night, with all our closest comrades either gathered at the bar behind me or prepping for performance just behind the curtain on stage, there was no time like the present to let the world know.

  “You sure about this?” I asked, riding out the last moment of hesitation we’d have before we finally made this official. Before it all became real.

  “Never been more sure about anything in all my life.” He grabbed his drink as I grabbed mine, scoffing at the lack of alcoholic burn in the mojito as it hit his lips. “Might’ve been easier with a real drink in me, though. Since when have you run a dry bar?”

  I smirked, wondering if I should tell him or not. There were a dozen reasons that I could have passed up Baby Bump Burlesque as the appropriate venue for a non-alcoholic bar menu—but at the same time, this was a night for revelations.

  Besides—I’d have to tell him eventually, wouldn’t I?

  “Actually, I haven’t been drinking all month,” I said, keeping my voice coy and light as I moved his hand to my stomach. “Probably won’t be able to for the next eight, as it turns out.”

  “Wait—are you saying you’re preg—”

  “Foster!” Noah called out, catching sight of me and waving me over to the rest of the group at the bar. “Come on—the show’s about to start!”

  “You heard the man. Come on, Don,” I said with a shrug, still beaming as I saw the realization that he was going to be a father finally rise up in a look of astonished joy on Don Sterling’s face. “The show’s about to start.”

  “Foster, you dog. Is this your mystery boyfriend?” Noah asked, winding an arm around his husband as we came up to the group, hand in hand.

  The question left all the other Alphas turning. It was a posse that included Nathan Garnet, Max Griffin, Duncan Rourke—Don’s ace team of money men—and, to my amusement, Alton Palmer, Don’s new CFO, who looked like he’d just been hit in the head with a brick.

  “Boys.” I smiled with a cool confidence that I’d picked up off of Don himself all those years ago, back when we’d agreed that our relationship worked best well out of the way of the public eye. “I’d like you to meet—”

  “Don, you bastard,” Duncan blurted out, running his fingers through his hair in disbelief. “Foster Collins is the Omega you’ve been seeing all this time?”

  “Better part of a decade now, in fact,” Don said, looking down at me like I’d just handed him a winning lotto ticket. “Figured it was high time to make it public—what with the baby on the way and all.”

  I looked up at him, dumbfoundedly amused. Leave it to Don Sterling to turn my pregnancy announcement into a power play.

  I guessed that, among so many other reasons, was part of why he was the love of my life—and now, the father of my child to boot.

  While the Alphas shook Don’s hand, chuckling away at how he’d managed to pull the wo
ol over their eyes, Noah and I shared a smug smile.

  “Guess we’ll be toasting over more than just the successful night, then,” Noah said, raising his glass. “To Don and Foster—and the new baby, first of all.”

  “To Don and Foster,” the other Alpha’s said in chorus.

  “To us,” Don breathed in my ear.

  “And to the Ballroom!” Noah roared, raising his glass even higher. “Where the happy endings are a little happier than most.”

  “To the Ballroom!” we echoed, clinking glasses together—but before we could drink, the stage lights came up.

  And after that, the other Alphas only had eyes for their Omegas up on stage.

  Anders, Eliot. Kieran, Damon. Riley. Back when this all started, they’d been the best dancers in Manhattan. In a way, I supposed they still were. While it had been some time since a few of them had graced the Ballroom’s stage, it obviously hadn’t forgotten them.

  The only difference was, our audience had never seen them like this before.

  Platform boots, slicked-back hair and white jumpsuits split all the way down their bare chests to their hips—those were all staples of the Ballroom’s opening act. The only difference was, they were all visibly pregnant now—bellies swollen from Riley’s three months all the way up to Damon’s seven. Standing front and center was Anders, grinning like a madman, hips gyrating enthusiastically as the opening bars of “Disco Inferno” poured out of the orchestra pit and burst up over the crowd.

  “Oh, fuck me,” Blake breathed, eyes so wide as he watched his husband-to-be work his magic up on stage at the Ballroom for the last time.

  “Think you might be a success, sweetheart,” Don said with a chuckle as he watched his coworkers simultaneous melt at the sight of their husbands working it up on stage, unabashedly pregnant for everyone to see. “Think we might be a success,” I countered, feeling my chest begin to glow with pride. Pride for the place I’d built, where all these Alphas and Omegas had met their matches. Pride for the man I’d become—for the man at my side.

  For the life I knew we were going to build together—and for all the lives we’d touched along the way.

  “Think we might have to get out of here soon,” Don whispered, lowering his lips to my ear. “Do you think you can still dance like that?”

  I rose to Don’s challenge the same way I always did, a grin on my lips and my shoulders pulled back with confidence.

  “Your place or mine, Don?” I asked as the crowd exploded into a raucous roar of wolf-whistles and cheers.

  “Mine,” Don Sterling informed me, pulling me into a kiss that the other Alphas were too distracted to see. Even if they had, I didn’t care—and if the feeling of Don’s tongue pressing between my lips was anything to go off of, neither did he. “Definitely mine.”