by Aiden Bates
Ozzy's jaw dropped. "Am I really hearing this from a man of the cloth? From the Unitarian church, no less? Weren't you up there today nattering about forgiveness and not judging other people?"
Gary grimaced and sat back. "I guess you were listening."
"It's osmosis." Ozzy glowered. "We haven't talked about the future, or about the baby, or about money, but considering the fact that his mother has enough money to pay some guy to sit in the driveway while we all have dinner together I'm pretty sure he's not after my health insurance. Thanks for bringing that up, though. Very classy."
Linda smacked the table. "Your father is trying to look out for you, Ozzy."
"Look." Ozzy closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Could he hold his emotions in? "I'm very much aware that the kid isn't mine. He hasn't asked me to do anything or take over, or anything like that. We're two guys who enjoy one another's company. It could go further. It might not. I don't see why that's a problem. If I started seeing someone who had a kid that was a couple of years old, that wouldn't be a problem for you. If I took up with an omega who'd just lost his alpha, it wouldn't be a problem for you. The fact that I've started seeing someone who happens to be pregnant—happens to have been pregnant before I met him—is an issue?"
Zack put his napkin on the table. "Would you stop with the histrionics? Seriously, Ozzy, just shut up. You're making a scene. Mom and Dad are right. Think about it logically for once in your life. Sure, he's probably pretty, but let's face it. You've never been great at thinking in the long term. Just shut up and listen to them." His lip curled. "You're not going to flip your lid and go without speaking to them over a guy you had one date with, are you?"
"You do get that I didn't go off in a sulk, right? I was in Fallujah. I couldn't stay in touch. It's not like I could exactly pop in for Sunday services. Or like I was off at law school jerking off and getting kicked off the Law Review."
Linda smacked the table again. "Do I have to come over there and separate you two? I won't hesitate. Listen. You've said what you have to say, and we've said what we had to say. Maybe we should just calm down and talk about something else until Ozzy's had a chance to think things through rationally."
Ozzy pursed his lips, but he took it. He wasn't going to convince them, and he hadn't even come up with a plan to sell them on the idea of Pete yet. It was early in their relationship to think about how he was going to bring their families together.
He forced himself to smile and play along as they switched the subject to Spring Training. He kept his facade up through the ride back to Harvard and his parents' house, where he made a quick excuse and headed home after liberating his snowboard and helmet from the family SUV.
He knew they would talk about him later. Zack, in particular, would have a lot to say about Pete, and babies, and gold diggers, and whatever else Zack's foul and fertile mind could devise. Zack had always been a weasel, and law school hadn't done him any favors.
He knew, too, that staying to reassure his family that he was handling their censure in an approved way might go a long way toward stilling those tongues. His parents didn't trust him. They didn't trust his judgment. He'd done three tours of duty only to be treated like even more of an adolescent than he'd been when he left. He didn't think he could hold his temper if he stayed, so he left. It wasn't so much about Pete, although the hypocrisy of their censure offended him. It was about him, and their attitude toward him.
He returned to his home in Hudson, and he cleaned up before bed. He hesitated for a moment, and then he sent a quick text to Pete. He worried for a moment about whether or not it was too much, or whether he was being too clingy for this early in the relationship, but he decided to do it anyway. He only had one life to live. He'd learned that the hard way; he might as well enjoy it.
Pete replied about a minute later, not with words but with a very artistic black and white photo of the full moon over some barren trees. Ozzy chuckled. Well, what had he expected? He'd taken up with a photographer.
Thinking of you tonight. He smiled as he typed out the text, relishing the thought of Pete in his house. Then he turned his focus toward what would face him tomorrow. He'd ignored the implications of the note he'd gotten yesterday in favor of time with Pete and with his family. A new week was beginning; he needed to get the job done.
And what a job it was. The note strongly implied that Harbaugh hadn't been some poor, innocent victim of a traffic stop gone wrong. Instead, he'd been involved with something he shouldn't have been, and it had come back around to bite him in the end. Had Harbaugh been a dirty cop?
How much faith could Ozzy really put into an anonymous note scribbled onto a legal pad, and passed not even to him but to his date in a restaurant? The question gave him pause, and the reality sent a chill right up his spine. The guy, remarkable only for his age-spotted hands, had followed Ozzy and Pete to the restaurant, gotten a table, and sat through their date just to deliver that note. And Ozzy hadn't noticed him lurking.
Had he followed Ozzy to Pete's house? Had he just lurked around Pete's house, waiting for Ozzy? Either way, the thought was chilling. This man, who knew enough to know that Ozzy was looking into a cop's murder, knew where Pete lived. Knew who Pete was. Pete hadn't been involved with the Harbaugh murder before, but he was now, even if only on the periphery.
Ozzy gnawed on his knuckle. The absolute last thing he wanted was to put Pete in danger. Should he tell Pete to go ahead and move back in with his mother for his own safety?
He moved away from his desk. He wasn't going to do that. Pete didn't need the disruption, and chances were that he wouldn't have any more real safety at his mother's house than he did at home. Unless his mother had an army of bodyguards that she was going to send out to photo shoots with him, it would just be exchanging one house for another.
No, the best way for Ozzy to keep his omega safe would be to solve the case and put Harbaugh's killer behind bars for good. He hopped into bed and pulled the covers up. Tomorrow he would go into work with a renewed sense of purpose. Now it was personal.
Chapter Five
Pete didn't set an alarm on Friday morning. Last night Resist had played in Worcester, and Pete had been there for work. He wasn't necessarily a huge fan of their style of music, but he liked what they stood for and right now he'd take what jobs he could get. He was seven months along now, and Massachusetts in early March wasn't exactly the most exciting place to be.
He'd snagged the job for the Globe, and he'd even gotten permission to sell some of the pictures he'd taken to the band's management for promotional purposes. That was a good deal for him, and it might even translate into more work down the road. More work, that was, assuming he could get someone to watch his daughter. He had a nanny lined up, and she'd agreed to work odd hours due to his job, but Pete was still anxious about the arrangement and would be until he saw how well it worked in practice.
He stretched in his bed and wallowed in the warmth that the covers provided. They hadn't hit a thaw yet; outside everything was still frozen and nasty. Maybe today he'd just stay inside. There was no real reason for him to leave the house. He had food, the walk was clear, and he didn't have any jobs or appointments going on.
His phone buzzed on the nightstand beside him and he groaned. Real, adult life would intrude itself, no matter what he wanted. He snaked a hand out from underneath the duvet and grabbed it. "Hello?"
"Did I wake you up?" Ozzy's voice was soft and intimate on the other end of the line.
"No, I was just waking up anyway." Pete smiled and burrowed into the shelter of the blankets. It would be better if he could burrow into the shelter of the handsome alpha's arms, of course, but he'd take what he could get. "How's your day going?" At first, Pete had been a little startled when Ozzy started calling him every day. By mid-week, though, he had to admit that he liked it. Ozzy's calls weren't overbearing or excessive. They were just nice, touching little check-ins.
"Must be nice," Ozzy teased. "I hope those rock stars di
dn't keep you out too late. I know that Damian Katsaros is supposed to be pretty hot stuff."
"Mmm. He is very charming. Pretty devoted to Noah Dare, too." Pete sometimes wondered what it would be like to have someone so devoted to him, but he tried not to dwell on it. "How are things going?"
"Meh. You know how it is. We don't get the normal cases, right? That's why they're cold. If they were easy, they'd have been solved right away. Listen, what are you doing tonight?"
Pete considered telling the truth and admitting that he'd just been planning to do some online shopping for the baby, and possibly deep-cleaning the stove. "No real plans," he said instead. "Why?"
"I thought we might be able to get together. If that's okay, I mean. I like spending time with you, and I seem to make more breakthroughs when we've been around each other than when it's been a while." Ozzy laughed. "It's like you’re a police work muse."
"I wonder who the muse of detectives would be." Pete rubbed a hand over his belly.
"Agatha." Ozzy's voice was dry. "We have an altar set up to her in the corner of the squad room. We light candles and leave offerings when the cops get one, and we shake our fists in her general direction when some little old British lady solves the mystery."
Pete laughed out loud and hauled himself into a sitting position. "It's a date," he promised. "If only to please Agatha."
"Great. I'll stop by at seven. Do you want me to bring takeout or do you want to go out?"
"I can cook, actually." Pete stretched. "I'm feeling up to it, and it's best to cook at home while I still can, you know?"
"You cook too?" Ozzy's tone was awed. "Awesome. I'll see you tonight."
They hung up, and Pete got out of bed. Now that he'd promised to cook, he was going to have to actually get moving.
He straightened up the house, not that it needed much. Most of his effort was spent on stripping the bed and changing the sheets. He didn't expect much, but he could hope, and he'd rather be prepared for something good than up a creek in case of disappointment.
He showered and changed, and then he went shopping. He decided to make a lasagna for dinner. He didn't know if Ozzy liked lasagna; he hoped that Ozzy liked lasagna. Most people liked lasagna, but sometimes people surprised you. He liked to make lasagna because the leftovers could feed him for days, if he wasn't up to cooking, and the scent warmed the entire house.
While the lasagna baked, he managed to cook a few dishes for later. He could eat them later in the week, or he could freeze them for after the baby was born when he wasn't up to cooking. He had that kind of freedom, and it was kind of awesome. He set the table, with a tablecloth and everything, and even got out the slightly nicer plates.
It did occur to Pete that he was going a little overboard, but he decided that he didn't care. This was probably his last chance to go all out like this. He might as well have some fun with it.
Ozzy showed up at seven o'clock exactly, just like he'd said he would. His dark eyes were ringed with dark-purple circles, and his shoulders had a noticeable slump to them. He smiled, though, low and sexy, when he saw Pete's apron. "You really did cook." He sniffed the air and straightened up. "You cooked, and it smells amazing."
"Come on in." Pete took his hand and pulled him into the house. "Dinner's ready. It's not much, just lasagna and salad, but it should be filling anyway." He took Ozzy's coat and led him into the kitchen.
They sat down and Ozzy's eyes lit up at the sight of the dinner laid out in front of him. "You didn't bake the bread, too?"
"No." Pete ducked his head and sipped from his water. "My talents don't carry me that far, I'm afraid. I'd love to be able to, but I'm kind of intimidated."
"Hey, how many people can't even do this much?" Ozzy grinned at him. "Me, for example." He dug into his lasagna and a positively orgasmic expression suffused his handsome face. "Oh my God, Pete, this is divine. Your mother didn't teach you how to cook."
Pete laughed. "No. No, I'm pretty sure my mother's never actually been inside a kitchen. She has people for that. Ah, when I went to college, I was pretty much on my own. It was sink or swim. I wasn't interested in taking more of my parents' money than I had to, you know? I had to learn to cook really fast, and pretty cheap too."
"Huh." Ozzy swallowed his food, letting Pete see his throat working. "I mean that's good, and I'm obviously reaping the benefits, but why wouldn't you make life easier for yourself? I mean, if you could avoid having to do things like cook, or your own laundry, when you were a kid?"
Pete put his fork down and thought about the answer for a long moment. "Well, for starters, I'd have had to live with my mom. That wasn't… that wasn't ideal. She didn't want either one of us training for a career. College was fine if we lived at home and majored in something suitably useless. I could major in art history, but not art. I had every intention of working, of earning a living. And she wasn't entirely on board with me even going to college at all. She had a whole list of alphas from good families, approved families, that she wanted me to choose from."
"I see." Ozzy grimaced. "Not for you, huh?"
Pete toyed with his napkin. He needed to be very careful about how he answered this question. "I wasn't exactly opposed to finding an alpha. It was everything that went with it that I didn't like. I wasn't willing to just kind of end my own life, at eighteen, and go hide in some estate somewhere for the rest of my life, you know? That might have flown a hundred years ago, but I had things that I also wanted to do. I wanted to find a modern alpha, one who could acknowledge that his omega had a life and goals and talents." He put his napkin down. "And I mean, I've done okay for myself, you know? I'm an award-winning photographer. I'm respected. I make enough that I don't generally have to rely on the income from my trust fund, although it doesn't hurt."
"Hey—no judgment." Ozzy reached over the table and took his hand. "You don't have to justify anything to me, okay? Neither of us exactly lives a conventional life, and that's okay. I was just curious. I, uh, I'm not a big fan of living at home myself. I used to do it between deployments, way back when, but after I was discharged it just got to be too much."
Pete squeezed his hand. "Can I ask how so?"
Ozzy let go of his hand and looked up at the ceiling for a second, like he was weighing his options. "I left after the guys in my unit were killed," he said after a moment. "My family seems to think that having survived means that I've somehow reverted to a mental age of ten. I swear, for the first couple of months, until I got into the police academy, my mom was cutting my meat for me."
"Aw, geez." Pete made a face. "That's kind of crappy." He turned back to his dinner.
Ozzy chuckled. "Right? I mean, I know they're trying to be supportive. I do. It's just… I'm a grown man, I'm in my thirties, and I'm a pretty well-respected cop, right? I'm a detective. That usually means that your mind's working just fine, but no. Apparently I need grown-ups to do my thinking for me."
Pete raised his water glass. "To avoiding the well-meaning."
"Amen." Ozzy laughed.
They finished their meal, and then Ozzy started cleaning up the dishes. "What are you doing?" Pete asked him, astonished.
"Well, I've noticed that you don't like to have dirty dishes lying around. I figured that I'd clean them for you. You've been on your feet all day." Ozzy carried a stack of dishes over to the sink.
Pete rushed over to the sink. "How about if I wash and you dry?" he offered with a smile.
Ozzy took the offered dishtowel. His fingers brushed Pete's hand, and Pete gasped.
He got the dishes rinsed and loaded into the dishwasher. When he started on the pots and pans, though, he found a pair of strong hands on his hips and a mouth on his neck. "This okay?" Ozzy murmured into his ear.
Pete closed his eyes and relaxed into the alpha's touch. Ozzy wasn't even doing much, just the slightest little caresses and grazes of his teeth, and it was enough to have him hard in seconds. Pete braced himself against the counter. "More than," he said. He took a deep breath, sav
oring Ozzy's popcorn scent.
Ozzy moved a little closer, molding himself to Pete's body. Pete could feel the hard line of his cock pressed up against his ass, and he wanted. Ozzy wasn't pushing, though. He just stood with his hands on Pete's hips, kissing his neck and nibbling along his jawbone.
His teeth slid up the long column of Pete's neck, and Pete tilted his neck to give Ozzy easier access. He'd give him anything he wanted, and he wouldn't be ashamed of it. He let out a little whine when Ozzy took his earlobe in between his teeth. "You like this." Ozzy gave a dark little chuckle and slid his right hand up Pete's torso.
"You know I do." Pete rocked back, just a little. When Ozzy let out a choked-off groan and gripped his hip even harder with his left hand, Pete knew that Ozzy was just as into this as he was.
"Mmm. Why look, your shirt's gotten wet." Ozzy untied Pete's apron and tossed it onto the counter. Then he slowly unbuttoned Pete's shirt, thrusting his hips ever so slightly as he did so. It wasn't much, just enough to tease, but it still brought a flush of arousal to Pete's skin.