by Piper Scott
Two solid blue lines.
“No.” Adrian glanced at the bathroom door, then back down at the box. It couldn’t be right. It couldn’t be.
“Adrian?” Gabriel inquired, voice uncertain. “Are you… okay?”
It was a faulty batch of tests. A mix-up. That was all it was. There was no way he was pregnant. It was impossible.
Except for the fact that he’d let Sterling come inside of him. Except for the fact that his heat had failed to manifest this month.
“Adrian?” Gabriel asked again, more frantic this time.
“I’m here.” Adrian slid the test out from inside the box, then returned the empty box to its hiding place above the medicine cabinet. “I, um… I need you to… do something for me.”
Gabriel hesitated before he replied. “Okay? Can I come into the bathroom?”
“Yeah.” Adrian stepped forward and undid the lock, then opened the door. Gabriel, mouth worried and brows knitted together suspiciously, stepped into the room. “It’s just… I need you not to question what I’m asking you to do, okay?”
“Okay…”
“Can you pee on this for me?” Adrian handed the unused pregnancy test to Gabriel. “All you have to do is pull off the plastic cap and pee on the strip.”
If the batch was defective, Gabriel’s test would come up positive, too. The clinic had checked his blood for pregnancy and he’d come back negative, so Adrian knew for certain that he could use Gabriel as a control. If it developed with two lines instead of one, Adrian had nothing to worry about.
“A pregnancy test?” Gabriel turned the test in his fingers. “I’m not… I haven’t been…”
“I know. Just… don’t ask questions, okay? I’m not accusing you of anything. I just need to know.”
The developed test was still on the sink, and on his way out the door, Adrian grabbed it. He didn’t want Gabriel to see. Gabriel’s eyes followed him all the way out of the room. Not even the closed door between them convinced Adrian that he wasn’t still being scrutinized.
He wasn’t pregnant.
Water ran. The toilet flushed. The bathroom door opened. Gabriel stepped out through the door and handed his capped test to Adrian. “I did what you asked.”
“Thank you.”
“It’s going to come up negative.” Gabriel leaned against the doorway on the opposite side from Adrian. “We went to the doctor just the other week and he checked. Do you remember?”
Fear made Adrian want to snap, but he reeled himself back for Gabriel’s sake. They weren’t kids anymore, and Adrian was never going to let his temper push Gabriel away again. “I do remember. I just want to see it.”
Thirty seconds passed. Then sixty. One minute bled into two, yet still the test didn’t develop a second blue line. Adrian tapped his foot nervously against the floor, watching for the first hint of blue to appear, but he saw nothing.
“Is it negative?” Gabriel came to stand by Adrian’s side and peered over his shoulder at the test. “See? One line means negative. I’ve taken these tests before, and—”
“It can’t be right.” Adrian squeezed his eyes shut and let his head fall back against the door frame. “The test needs to have two lines. It’s faulty.”
“…No?” Gabriel touched Adrian’s arm. “Adrian?”
“I know you aren’t pregnant, but I also know the test is faulty. There has to be two lines.”
“Adrian?” Gabriel’s voice rose in pitch, distressed. “What’s happening? Why are you so sad?”
Trembling, Adrian turned his test so the result window faced Gabriel. He said nothing.
“Two lines?” Gabriel’s hand tightened on Adrian’s arm, but Adrian couldn’t bring himself to look at his brother. “You and your boyfriend are…?”
“We only had sex once.” Tears beaded in Adrian’s eyes despite his best attempts. “It was only the one time. I wasn’t even in heat. It’s not right. It can’t be right. I… I don’t want this.”
The mood grew somber. Gabriel ran his hand affectionately down Adrian’s arm, then let their bodies part ways. The distance was only momentary—in the next second, Gabriel pushed himself against Adrian’s side and wrapped his arms around Adrian’s waist. The small gesture of compassion was too much. The first tears slid down Adrian’s cheeks, interrupted by a choked sob that rang through the empty hallway of the right wing.
“Shh, it’s okay.” Gabriel rested his head on Adrian’s shoulder as Adrian dissolved into tears. Racking, ugly sobs rattled Adrian’s chest, and he clung to Gabriel like if he didn’t, his tears would wash him away. “It’s okay to be sad. It’s scary. It’s always scary. But this is what we were born for, you know? We’re just doing what our bodies want us to do. It isn’t wrong.”
There was so much wrong with what Gabriel had said, but Adrian didn’t have the strength to correct him. Right now, all he could do was be selfish.
How was he supposed to take care of a baby when he couldn’t take care of his own brother? He’d hurt Gabriel so badly that Gabriel had run away. Whatever abuse Gabriel had gone through to make him think that pregnancy was an omega’s lot in life was directly because of Adrian’s actions.
And now he was supposed to bring a baby into the world?
How the hell could he be a good father when he was such a lousy brother?
“You don’t have to be sad.” Gabriel stroked his back, but it gave Adrian little comfort. He was supposed to be the one who was strong, not Gabriel. “Your boyfriend will look after you. You don’t have to do this alone.”
But Gabriel didn’t understand. He couldn’t understand.
Sterling wasn’t going to look after him. The only person who could look after Adrian was himself.
And if the positive test in his hand said anything, it was that he was doing a shitty job of it.
12
Sterling
The tap squeaked as Sterling twisted it shut. The sound was grating to his ear, and he made a mental note to take a look at it tomorrow—he lacked the energy to deal with household maintenance.
The shower door opened with a push of his palm, and Sterling snagged a towel from the nearby rack and brought it to his face. In the fogged mirror, he caught his blurred reflection. A smudge of water-saturated blond. Pale skin. A human figure. Sterling crossed the bathroom on bare feet and ran his towel across the mirror to get a better look.
Tomorrow he’d need to shave. His stubble was nearing the point where it could almost be called a beard. He craned his head from side to side and stretched his neck to get a look at the sides of his jaw and the skin under his chin, but no angle made him feel better about his disheveled state. It was unusual for him to neglect his appearance.
But then again, it was also unusual for him to feel so poorly about himself.
Sterling ran the towel through his hair, then draped it over his shoulders. Water beaded on his skin, and he left it to gather where it would. It wouldn’t be too long before he dried. There was no point in rushing the process.
A small, troubled part of his mind whispered that it didn’t matter, anyway. He didn’t have anywhere to go. The club didn’t need him. Clarissa’s new bartender was top-notch, and she’d taken to the bar and the clients just as quickly as Lucian had. The security detail Sterling worked with to keep The Shepherd safe ran smoothly without his interference. Even the kitchen staff—what little of it there was—had all shown up for duty. And Stephanie, always eager to please, didn’t need help at the front desk.
The only reason Sterling had to be downstairs was to meet with the patrons, but right now, the thought of small talk felt hollow. There was only one person Sterling wanted to see, and if he was interested in seeing Sterling, he already would have sought him out.
A damp body didn’t seem like that big of an issue when Sterling had no drive to leave his penthouse.
Nude, he exited the bathroom to head for the kitchen. The outward-facing windows were all one-way, painted over with a privacy film on the outside tha
t prevented curious eyes from looking in. Sterling grabbed a glass from the cabinet and was on his way to find his tonic water when the click of a door settling back into place disrupted the soothing classical music he streamed through his surround sound system.
No one else lived in the penthouse. Until now, Sterling had been alone.
Sterling wasn’t afraid as he set the glass down on the counter and turned to look through the glass panels dividing the kitchen from the living room. By the sounds of it, the individual had come in through the club-side entrance, and that meant that they wouldn’t be armed—security would have already shut them down if they were. If it was necessary, Sterling was confident he could manage whoever it was.
But as the figure rounded the corner and crossed the living room, Sterling saw that force wasn’t going to be needed.
Adrian wasn’t here to cause trouble.
Sterling had no idea how Adrian had gotten through the locked club-side doors, but the how didn’t bother him half as much as the why. In silence, Adrian came to the open kitchen door and occupied the space, effectively blocking Sterling from leaving the room. Sterling said nothing. All he did was observe.
For a long while, there was silence. Adrian folded his arms loosely across his stomach and lowered his head, then sighed. It looked like he was about to be sick.
“Adrian?” Sterling took a hesitant step forward. His nudity didn’t bother him, but Adrian’s expression did. “What’s wrong?”
“We need to talk.” Adrian kept his gaze lowered. The fire in his soul had extinguished, and the storm in his eyes had blown itself out. This wasn’t the young man Sterling had come to know a little more than a month ago—the Adrian who stood before him now was hollow. “Come sit in the living room with me.”
There was nothing else offered. Sterling searched Adrian’s face for meaning, but Adrian refused to look him in the eyes in the brief window of time before he turned and led the way to the living room. At a loss, Sterling followed.
“Do you want to get dressed?” Adrian perched on the arm of the couch like he wasn’t planning on sticking around for long. “I can wait. What I have to say isn’t time sensitive. Not really.”
“No. I’m fine.” Nervous energy prevented Sterling from sitting. He pulled the towel from his shoulders and wrapped it around his waist instead. It didn’t escape him that Adrian had vanished for the past two months, only to return now. Something had to have happened. “Can you tell me what’s going on?”
“Yeah. Um. That was the reason I came here… to tell you what’s going on. You need to know. It wouldn’t be right of me to keep it from you.” Adrian tightened his arms, his shoulders working back and forth in high, tensed movements that made Sterling more nervous than ever. “I’m not going to drag this out, so consider yourself warned.”
Sterling looked Adrian over, trying to discern what was wrong by the expression on his face. “Adrian? What is it?”
Adrian sighed. “…I’m pregnant, and you’re the father.”
The world spun. For a stunned moment, Sterling stared at Adrian as comprehension began to lessen his shock.
Pregnant?
The realization of what that meant for him—for them—hit him in a fraction of a second, but in his head, time had lost meaning.
He was going to be a father. They both were.
Clarissa’s earlier warning roared back to the forefront of his mind, taking on new meaning that Sterling couldn’t brush aside.
You give a lot of love, Sterling, but if you don’t take any in return, you’re going to deplete yourself.
After the accident, he’d been so focused on Clarissa’s wellbeing that he’d never thought to care for his own. As a child, she’d loved him unconditionally, and her laughter and happiness had been enough to feed those starved parts of himself. But now? Clarissa was grown. The three-year-old who’d cried her eyes out when she found out that mommy wasn’t coming home had turned twenty-seven years old, and Sterling was flirting with forty. She didn’t depend on him like she used to, and his starved heart was hungrier than ever before.
But a baby? Another life to raise? Another child who’d smile at him with everything they had, because he was everything they had?
He hadn’t realized how much he wanted it until Adrian blurted out his confession.
And maybe, if the stars aligned in his favor, it wouldn’t only be a baby shaping his life for the better. Adrian, whose words bit like no one else’s, had been on Sterling’s mind since they’d last parted ways. Sterling knew it was insanity to believe that there could be anything between them, but maybe, someday…
No matter what happened, two things were startlingly clear to Sterling. The first was that he was keeping the baby no matter what happened, or what anyone thought.
The second?
The second was that he would do everything in his power to win Adrian over. Clarissa had been right, even though he hadn’t believed it at the time. He needed something more from life, and that something was perched on the arm of the couch before him, uncomfortable and distant.
He would make things right. He would make things right for all of them.
Sterling would not allow himself to be depleted anymore.
13
Adrian
“…I’m pregnant, and you’re the father.”
There was no stopping the confession now that he’d started it. Saliva pooled in Adrian’s mouth, and he swallowed it awkwardly before he continued. “If you want the baby, it’s yours. If you don’t, I’m terminating the pregnancy. I don’t want anything to do with it. I don’t want it. I—”
Sterling stepped forward, and Adrian flinched. The speed with which Sterling moved and the direct path he took made Adrian think Sterling was going to hit him—like he was mad that Adrian had made a stupid mistake and done this to him. But the impact Adrian braced himself for never came. Instead, Sterling swept him up in his arms and pulled him from the arm of the couch. His warm, damp skin radiated heat that soaked through Adrian’s clothes, and his arms held Adrian firmly as if to shelter him from the world.
As if, for that one, small moment, Adrian had nothing to fear.
“I can’t keep it,” Adrian whispered. His fingers curled against Sterling’s chest. “I can’t be a father. Everything about my life is toxic. I’m a bad person, Sterling. I’m—”
“No, you’re not.” Sterling pulled back, and he fixed Adrian with a hard stare that broke through the chaotic panic in Adrian’s head. For the first time since he’d arrived at the penthouse, Adrian met Sterling’s eyes. There was no anger there, no malice, and no spite. A spark burned there instead, too hopeful to be negative.
Sterling was excited for the news.
He wanted to be a father.
“You’re not a bad person—you’re a victim of bad circumstances.” Sterling wrapped a hand around the back of Adrian’s head, and Adrian couldn’t help the way his eyelids fluttered. He pushed back against Sterling’s hand, wanting more. After a long month spent caring for Gabriel every waking moment of the day, it felt good to be cared for. “The choices you make aren’t always in your best interest, but that doesn’t mean that you’re innately bad. You’re not.”
“It doesn’t feel that way.”
“And it’s not going to feel that way if you keep clinging to your negative self-image.” Sterling’s fingers, thick and strong, worked in slow circles against Adrian’s scalp. Adrian’s knees almost gave out. He melted into Sterling’s arms.
It had to be the pregnancy hormones. It wasn’t as though he liked Sterling.
“I just…” Adrian gathered himself enough that he remembered the purpose of his visit. “I just need to know if you want the baby, or if I should—ahh…”
Sterling’s fingers found a place near the nape of his neck that felt so good, Adrian had to close his eyes. He slumped against Sterling’s chest, weakened, and allowed Sterling to take control.
“Do you trust me?” Sterling asked. His voice regist
ered at barely more than a whisper, but it was full in Adrian’s ear. The affection in it rounded his words, and deep, underlying strength gave that roundness structure.
Adrian knew the answer as soon as Sterling asked it, and he didn’t hesitate to reply. “Yes.”
“Then let me take care of you.” Sterling guided Adrian’s head back, and Adrian followed his lead helplessly. He couldn’t even find the strength to open his eyes. Hours ago he’d been so worked up about the pregnancy that he couldn’t sit still, but now? Now that Sterling had him, his worries didn’t matter so much anymore.
There was freedom in the disconnect between his body and his mind—a type of freedom Adrian had never known before. Since Gabriel had disappeared, he’d tried to drown his guilt by lashing out. A hardened exterior meant that nothing could get to him, good or bad. Total dominion and selfishness in the bedroom allowed him to work out his frustrations and take what he thought he needed.
But in Sterling’s arms, lost in infinity, Adrian came to the realization that all this time, he’d been searching for the wrong thing. What he needed wasn’t a way to manifest his guilt and pain—it was to have that guilt stripped from his soul, cast aside until he was free of it.
The first gentle touch of Sterling’s lips teased a whimper from Adrian’s throat. The second curled his toes and brought his arms to tighten around Sterling’s neck. The third saw them both falling onto the couch together, Sterling beneath him to break his fall. Adrian barely noticed the descent until his knees met leather.
By the fourth kiss, Adrian knew that he wasn’t going to be leaving Sterling’s penthouse anytime soon.
Sterling’s tongue invaded his mouth. Adrian whimpered and pushed his tongue against it, eager for more. He was frightened, and pregnant, and disappointed in himself, but despite it all, Sterling still wanted him.
Everything was going to be okay.
Sterling’s hands found their way to the bottom of Adrian’s shirt, and Adrian lifted himself up to allow Sterling to pull it up and take it off. Adrian didn’t bother to look where it landed—he heard the shirt crumple to the floor as Sterling resumed the kiss, and from that point forward, Adrian wasn’t so focused on clothing anymore.