“I’m, I’m going to,” started Ricky, helplessly, before the rest came out as a scream and a large amount of semen splattered all over their stomachs and a few drops landed on Jackson’s chest.
Seeing Ricky’s orgasm was the tipping point to push Jackson over the edge, a couple rough thrusts and he came hard, collapsing forwards onto Ricky and biting into his chest to stifle what he thought would be an un-manly scream. They were both panting and covered with sweat, and he lay on top of Ricky for a few minutes longer, his heart and head pounding as he came down from the blissful high that was his orgasm.
“Wow.” said Ricky, when he was finally able to collect himself. “That was one hell of a time.”
“I’m glad, babe,” said Jackson, rolling off Ricky and pulling the smaller man closer to his chest.
“I love you.”
And for the first time, Jackson said “I love you too.” It felt right to say those words now. Every time he had heard them before, he felt like something was off, that he should be saying something back, but he hadn’t been able to and it was driving him crazy. However, now, he could say them truthfully, and it wasn’t just the incredible sex they had just had. It was the fight earlier and their resolution. It was the care and attention that Ricky put into every aspect of their lives together, whether at the office or at home. It was Ricky’s devotion to Samuel, who was the light in his eyes and the reason his world was still spinning after all these years.
And it was no surprise, when a month later, Ricky’s pregnancy test came back positive.
“I’m going to have a brother, I’m going to have a brother,” shouted Samuel, running around the house with a toy airplane in one hand, and the other raised in a celebratory fist.
“I know, Sam, believe me, I know,” said Ricky, waddling over, eight months pregnant. Sam was six, now, and he was overjoyed at the prospect of having a new sibling, which he brought up at every opportunity. Jackson had gone out on a mysterious errand, which left Ricky alone to care for the kid. Not that Ricky minded, usually, but he was exhausted. Still, seeing Samuel’s little smile and his unbridled childhood excitement made it all worth it.
Tonight was the night, Jackson thought, and he smiled to himself, pulling his jacket tighter around him as he stepped out of his car into the winter cold. Jackson had gone out to shop for a ring, some flowers, and some really good ingredients for dinner. He had been secretly trying to learn how to cook by watching YouTube videos, which sounded ridiculous, but Jackson was confident that he could pull it off.
The first stop was the jewelry store. Right as he was about to enter, his phone rang loudly, and he picked it up. It was just a call from work; however, he didn’t need that kind of distraction right now. He turned his phone off. Ricky and Samuel were safe at home, and work could wait. Tonight was all about romance and process, and his cell phone would just be a hindrance.
The doorbell rang as Jackson walked into the store, and a fat old man in a suit and apron bustled over.
“How can I help you, sir?” asked the man, peering up at Jackson with his rosy face.
Jackson sucked in a breath. He was worried about what the man was going to say to his request. After all, while homophobia wasn’t a particularly major problem in their town, specifically, it was more rampant among the older generation.
“I’d like a set of men’s rings, please.”
“I think I have just the things,” said the old man. “Right this way, please,” he said.
That was easy, thought Jackson, breathing a sigh of relief as he followed the man into the back of the shop.
“I used to think that gay weddings were wrong, you know,” he said, “but that was a ridiculous belief, looking back on it. I always want to say that, to remind myself that I was wrong and to apologize to somebody somehow. Does that make sense?”
“I guess so,” said Jackson, “I’m glad you’ve changed your position?”
“I had to,” said the old man chuckling, “when my former wife came out as transgender. Now he and I have two lovely twenty year old daughters, and I can proudly say I’m married to a man. I used to be so horrified by the idea, before that, but when he told me, I couldn’t give a flying fuck anymore. Sure, it took some getting used to, but he was the rock upon which I had built my life.”
“I see.”
“Yeah, anyways, I’m ranting a bit, but these were what I wanted to show you.” he said. The old man picked up a box with two rings that, on first glance, appeared to be very normal, even generic, perhaps, wedding rings. Then he turned one of them around, and Jackson gasped.
Inlaid flush with the metal was a fire opal which had been cut into a curved rectangular shape and inserted into the ring.
“You can wear this facing up, or down,” said the man, “your choice. The fire opal has all of the colors of the rainbow, but it’s not gaudy like some of those rainbow gemstone rings you see around. The company that makes this is trying to make the fire opal the new symbol of gay pride.”
“We’ve never been big pride people, ourselves,” said Jackson, thinking about him and Ricky. Jackson hadn’t been to Pride since he was a teenager, and Ricky had never been at all. Still, he liked the sentiment, and the rings were pretty and unique. He slipped one on his ring finger, and was surprised to feel how well it fit.
“I can always tell a person’s ring size by looking at their hands,” the old man said, smiling, “It’s not just a co-incidence that fit.”
“Ricky’s hands are just a little smaller than mine,” said Jackson, “but not by much. However, he has shorter, but thinner fingers and big knuckles.”
“What size?” asked the man, bemused. “That doesn’t give me much of a picture to work with.”
“A size seven,” said Jackson, smiling.
“That is small,” said the old man, fishing out a size seven ring and handing it to Jackson, who put it in the box with the one that fit him.
“I’ll take these two,” said Jackson, “they’re perfect, thank you.”
As he stepped back out into the snow to finish his errands, smiling to himself. His meeting with the old man gave him more hope for marriage that, no matter what happens, love trumps everything if it is true and pure. His heart was lighter and there was a skip in his step as he headed off to the florists. Today was going to be great.
Back at home, Ricky was having the exact opposite of what anybody would deem to be a great night. In fact, it was downright awful.
Sam and Ricky were sitting in their pajamas watching a kid’s program on television when there came a knock at the door. Thinking it was Jackson, who often needed help getting into the house because he had his hands full, Ricky got up, leaving Sam behind on the couch, and opened the door.
“Who are you?” he asked, looking at the man in front of him. The man was small, blonde, and around his height, and he was dressed in business casual attire. He was carrying a lumpy backpack. He stood shuffling awkwardly on the doorstep, snow accumulating in his curly hair.
“My name is Adam,” he said, “and I want to see my son.”
“No. Why now? You never showed up before.”
“Let me past you,” said Adam, pushing Ricky’s shoulder.
“No. Samuel, be a good kid and grab the phone, okay?”
“What?”
“He’s going to call 911 if you come any closer to us.”
“I’m not a predator, or an attacker, I just want to see my son. As a father, I have the rights to see him.”
“No, you don’t,” said Ricky, “you gave up all rights to him when you left him as a newborn.”
“If not a legal right, a god-given right,” said Adam. “It’s morally wrong to deny a father’s wish to see his only child.”
“I don’t care. Jackson isn’t home, and this is my house as well as his. I have to ask you to leave.”
“No. Samuel, come here, buddy,” said Adam. “It’s your Daddy.”
“Dad says you’re not my daddy,” said Samuel, but he still
came closer and peeked around the corner. “You’re only my father. He says it takes love and care to make a parent, not just birth.”
Ricky looked at Samuel, and back at Adam. They looked so much alike, although Samuel’s grey eyes shone with an odd wisdom that Adam’s eyes didn’t possess. He looked hungry, raw, and almost desperate to see his son. While Ricky understood that he could be this way, he also knew that he would never allow Adam into the house without Jackson there to make the decision.
“You… you look so much like me,” Adam whispered. “Please, Samuel, I haven’t seen you in six years. Every year I celebrated your birthday without even knowing what you looked like; mourning the kid I’d never know. Yes, I was a coward. But I’m back, now.”
“Go away,” said Ricky. “I don’t care about your sob story; you should have been man enough to keep him. Now, get your ass out of here.”
“What’re you going to do about me, anyways?” asked Adam. “You’re hugely pregnant and waddling around like a penguin. I could get past you if I wanted. This isn’t your house, fatso. Jackson and I bought it together and made it our home first. It’ll never be your home. When we divorced, sure, I ran, but that bond that we had was never truly broken. It hurt like a bitch, and I’ve suffered for it every day. I’m not asking for much. I just want to come in and be with my kid for a bit, please.”
“Jackson should be back shortly,” replied Ricky, “and I can discuss all of this with him, but right now, I’m not letting a total stranger into my house with the kid that I’m responsible for. I’d appreciate it if you’d leave instead of standing in the doorway letting all the cold air into my home.”
“Glorified babysitter,” said Adam, and tried to duck sideways. Ricky caught him with a left hook and Adam careened off the doorframe, trying to pummel Ricky with his fists. Dimly through the blood pumping in his head, Ricky could hear Samuel dialing a number on the phone and shouting into it. All Ricky could think in that moment was protecting himself and his children, Samuel, and the little unborn boy who was living in his belly. Adam, realizing that he was beat when confronted with this protective brand of paternal fury, ran from the house, dropping the backpack he carried as he ran.
Jackson arrived back at the house around the same time that the police did, only slightly later. The first thing that he saw were the flashing blue and white lights from two police cars that had been pulled up next to the house, and then his mother’s sedan pulled up next to those. Jackson leapt out of the car, leaving behind the bouquet of flowers in the passenger seat and ran towards the house. A burly policeman stopped him.
“I’m Jackson Carlisle,” he said, “and I’m the owner of this house. My son and boyfriend are in there. Are they okay?”
“Everybody’s going to be just fine,” said the officer. “Seems an oddball by the name of Adam came to the house, claiming to be your kid’s father. When he tried to force his way in, Ricky gave him a good beating. We found him slinking around six blocks away with a bloody nose.”
“And Ricky?”
“He’s got a black eye, but he’ll live,” said the officer. “Begging your pardon, but I’ve never seen a pregnant man before so I was really worried, but my partner told me that it happens all the time, and he’s seen stuff like this before so I didn’t call an ambulance.”
“Thanks,” said Jackson, “I’m sure he’s okay. Can I enter?”
“Sure,” said the police man, “but let me tell you something first, something kinda scary. We don’t want the kid to hear about this, so we hadn’t told your boyfriend or your mom yet.”
“Shoot.”
“He dropped a backpack with weapons, drugs, porn magazines… we’ve seen this before, we suspect he was going to plant all this on you and try to get custody of Sam.”
“That’s…”
“I know. It’s really difficult to process, sir. But we’ve got him in at the jail so he’s going to come to justice sooner or later. How about you go check up on your family now, sir?”
The police officer escorted him into the house. Ricky, his face streaked with tears, and one eye black and blue, was sitting on the couch trying to hold an inconsolable Samuel in his arms, although it was difficult with his swollen pregnant belly. His mother was bustling around, trying to clean all the blood off the floor, now that the police officers had all gotten pictures of the scene. Two police officers were standing inside the kitchen, awkwardly, and immediately sprung to attention when Jackson entered. Samuel leapt up and ran to his father, crying. Whatever he was saying was intelligible, but Jackson scooped him up and rubbed his back, repeating “it’s okay, I’m here,” over and over again.
Ricky soon followed suit, and the three of them stood in the middle of the house, just trying to make sense of what happened.
“Excuse me, sir,” said the first police officer, coming in from outside, “What’s this? It fell out of your pocket on the sidewalk.”
He handed a square black box to Jackson, and it was obvious what it was. Ricky widened his eyes in confusion, and then recognition. Jackson muttered something slightly nonsensical and slipped the ring back into his pocket.
“Mom, can you get some stuff out of my car for me please? I think I had two shopping baskets and a bouquet.”
Having finished cleaning the floor, Dottie beetled out to the car and brought everything back in. “Shall I start dinner?” she asked.
“Yes please, Ma,” he said.
Jackson sunk down onto the couch, holding his kid in his arms and wondering how the hell such a horrible thing had almost happened to their family.
“Samuel’s a hero, you know,” said Ricky, shakily, but smiling. “He called 911, and without him, goodness knows what would have happened.”
“We’ll have to throw him a party later,” said Dottie, from the kitchen. “Samuel’s Hero Party.”
“Sounds like a plan, Ma,” said Jackson. “Ricky, I… I can’t believe I wasn’t there for you. I am so, so sorry.”
“You couldn’t have known, love,” said Ricky.
“I… It could have been so much worse, and I— if you’d gotten stuck in the hospital, I couldn’t even have went and seen you and I — Okay. Let me phrase this better. This was not at all the way that I thought tonight would go. I planned this big romantic occasion, but this is how life works, I guess. So. Ricky. I love you, and I can’t live without you, and tonight brings home to me, how lucky I am to have you. You saved my son. You’re as much of a hero as him. Or more…and…” Jackson’s voice trailed off. “I was so terrified to hear what happened. I could have lost you. And I want you forever.”
“Ricky,” asked Jackson, pulling the black box out of his pocket. “Will you marry me?”
“Yes,” he answered, kissing Jackson gently.
“Is he going to be my dad?” asked Samuel, from where he had been being relatively quiet in Jackson’s lap.
“Of course I am,” said Ricky, grinning. “We’re going to have a lot of adventures together, you and I and your new brother.”
“Don’t forget me,” said Jackson, chuckling.
“Or me,” supplied Dottie. “I’m in too.”
Jackson smiled, even as his eyes welled with tears. Here was his family. And they were here to stay.
Once again, Ricky and Jackson called Dottie in the late afternoon to ask her to take Samuel.
“It’s time,” said Ricky, “and Jackson and I are headed to the hospital.” They had been monitoring Jackson’s hormones with a device similar to a diabetic’s blood sugar monitor, and he was at the point where, if he had been a woman, he would be about to go into labor. As an Omega, things were a little more complicated.
“Call me as soon as Jacob is here,” said Dottie, “and Samuel and I will pop right back over.” They had decided on the name Jacob for the baby, because it was the name of Dottie’s late husband, and she was fond of using the name at every possible opportunity.
“Yes, Ma,” said Ricky, smiling faintly. He wasn’t feeling too well,
but he had to put on a brave face for his family. As soon as they left, he clutched onto Jackson’s arm as he made the short walk to the car.
“I’m scared,” he confided to Jackson.
“Me too,” said Jackson, in response. “But we’re going to get through this, you and me. We can do anything.”
“That we can,” said Ricky, forcing a smile. “It’s going to hurt.”
“Come on, you’re not pushing a baby out, you’re getting a cesarean section. I think it should be fine.”
“Easy for you to say,” said Ricky.
“I promise that I’ll do my best to help you through this whole process,” said Jackson, “and I don’t know what it’ll feel like, of course, since I’m not an Omega, and I can’t go through childbirth. But at least we have the technology to allow you to give birth.”
Omega Wanted: Bad Boy Mpreg Romance Page 100