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  Huh. Grant knew from experience that Zane’s nipples were hot-wired to his dick. Why else pierce them? But the tug did nothing. He might as well have yanked at an unplugged lamp cord. He tried again, frowning when Zane said nothing, did nothing, just kept staring up at the sky -- scowling at it, as if it’d cast dishonor on his cow and called his father a nasty name.

  “Hey.” Grant pinched the skin beside Zane’s nip first lightly, then firmly. “What’s eating you?”

  A corner of Zane’s mouth flickered. It wasn’t a smile. “You were, a few minutes ago.”

  “Funny man. That’s not what I meant.” Grant sighed and lay down more fully on his side propped on one arm. He kept the other moving lightly over Zane’s chest, drifting down toward his stomach, just to keep him focused. “If the sex was that bad, you’re gonna crush my ego for life. Just so you know.”

  Flicker, flicker. “It was damned good and you know it. You were there.”

  “And funnily, I don’t sound or look like I want to go kick a puppy.” Grant poked Zane just above the navel, frowning again when he winced. A good seeing-to had damped down those rising-heat pheromones for the moment, but did Omegas get tender down there during their cycles? Funny to realize he didn’t know. Never paid that much attention before. He stopped poking and splayed his fingers wide instead, lying them lightly over Zane’s skin. He had a little hair there, at least, a downy trail leading to the satisfying nest of curls around his now-soft dick. “Seriously. Talk to me.”

  Zane only shook his head and said nothing. As far as Grant could tell he planned to maintain that status and make it quo, but Zane always did surprise him. He opened his mouth without warning. “Keep doing that.”

  So he liked it? Okay, fine, whatever worked. Grant obligingly stroked Zane’s lower stomach, harder when Zane grunted and rocked up into his touch. “That feels good?”

  “Feels like…” Zane shook his head. “Did you always not want kids? I mean, before the shop thing?”

  Deja frickin’ vu. “You read minds now?”

  “Huh?”

  “Ix-nay.” Too complicated to explain. Probably. Grant kneaded Zane’s belly, reminding himself of a cat -- or, no, a nursing kitten -- and tried to think. Odd how the skin was just the littlest bit loose there, as if he’d weighed more once upon a time and lost the pounds in a hurry. He prodded curiously. “To be honest, I don’t remember. The shop thing was so early, and Granddad loved that store just about more than me. After he died, it went to his business partner. Then he died, and everything got tied up in his estate. All I could ever think about was getting it back, and that didn’t leave room for anything else.”

  “And now that you’ve got it back, there’s still no room for more than that,” Zane said, quietly, as if to himself. “And there never will be.”

  I didn’t say that, Grant wanted to say, but didn’t. Neither did he say For now, but not forever, nor yet I might not be so sure of that anymore. Frustrated, he dug for words and kneaded harder at Zane’s belly, and --

  And --

  Oh. Oh. Well, shit. He’d seen this kind of loose skin before. The spouses of his Alpha friends, the ones who’d had kids, they had a little jiggle. Sometimes a lot of jiggle. And -- yes, stretch marks -- in the skin. Signs of pregnancies past. He’d never noticed before because he and Zane weren’t much on getting all their clothes all the way off, but now --

  Shit. Grant sat upright, so quickly that he jostled Zane off balance. “You have a kid,” he said, too stunned to be anything but blunt. “You have a kid? Zane!”

  Zane shot him one wild, defiant -- fierce, feral, defiant -- look, and that was all. He didn’t answer, not that he had to, and he didn’t stick around to be asked again. Faster than Grant would have thought possible in the midst of even semi-decent afterglow Zane scrambled to his feet and Grant would swear he was running before he hit the ground, grabbing up his clothes and pelting away as fast as a tall, long-legged drink of water like him could move. He was gone like the wind, leaving nothing but footprints and a staggering sense of what the fuck, Omega? in his wake.

  Grant sagged back on his ass, staring. Zane had a kid, and he’d never said anything. Zane was a father. And he’d never told Grant.

  What. Even. Grant couldn’t have said, afterward, how long he sat and stared dumbly at where Zane had been, and where he’d gone. When he raised a hand to his face to rub at his mouth, his lips had gone dry, which was no mean feat sitting by a river’s edge on a humid night.

  But that little bit of movement helped. His brain chugged slowly into action again, long habit bringing his thoughts back into focus.

  Fact one. Zane had a kid. No telling how long ago, but that didn’t matter because point two: Zane had kept that kid. He wouldn’t have given Grant the kind of look that might as well have dared him to say anything about it and threatened to rip his nuts off if he did, if he didn’t love that kid as fiercely as a tiger loved its cubs. And then there was point three, which was that Zane had to be a single dad. Grant had never smelled any kind of Alpha mark on him besides his own.

  So, taken all together: Zane had a kid, and he’d never said anything to Grant. Aside from… aw, shit. Grant flopped onto his back in the dirt. The first time kids had ever come up, he’d said he didn’t want any, and Zane had dropped the topic like it was hot. Like it’d burned him. Hurt him. And… he’d looked at Grant a little differently, afterward. Gotten even more ferocious with his libido, sure, but kind of like a starving man would go after a buffet. All you can eat, but not forever.

  Damn. Damn, and damn again. Grant sat back up and narrowed his eyes at the path Zane had taken. Thinking, and thinking hard.

  Would it be the worst thing ever if he had a kid? Zane had asked him once. Grant couldn’t even remember what he’d answered, it’d been tossed out so casually, but he could make an educated guess. Whatever it was, though, it’d been wrong.

  Hell no, it wouldn’t be the worst thing ever. No. This was Zane. It would be the best. It already is, Grant, you dumbass. He just hadn’t seen it yet.

  Had he let the situation go too long to be fixed?

  Nah. That wasn’t how Grant worked. He stood, batting river mud and old leaves off himself, his thoughts flying thick and fast. So he’d come to his senses. Now he had to do something about it, and fast, before Zane packed up and headed either up to Canada or down to Mexico to salve his sense of protectiveness and his wounded pride.

  After all, he of anyone out there could understand pride and what it cost to maintain. And what it took to break through those walls, too.

  Grant set his chin, gave a determined nod, and took off at a dead sprint. He’d have to move fast, if he wanted to beat Zane home.

  * * *

  Zane could put the pedal to the metal when he wanted to, and in a mood like his at the moment he didn’t care if that metaphor didn’t make sense because he and Grant had walked to the river instead of driving. He threw his clothes back on more or less in the right order, held his head high, set his shoulders wide, and stalked back home taking huge, road-eating strides.

  He went the wrong way for fifteen minutes because his head was fucked to hell and had to turn around and walk back, but fuck it.

  His head still whirred as he ate up the road underfoot. He’d have to quit his job. No doubt about that. Though could you call it a job? Grant paid him, an envelope of cash once a week laid carelessly where he could find it and slip it in his pocket -- did that make him a whore? No, don’t go there. He’d worked hard for his pay packets. Blood, sweat, tears, the whole nine.

  Just like labor. Like he’d brought his son into the world, by honest toil.

  Zane shook his head hard and kept walking, moving fast, the next best thing to a jog. He’d have to quit his job. Just in case that didn’t make his point clear, he’d end things properly with Grant the way he should have weeks ago, when Grant told him he didn’t ever want children. What had he been thinking? That he could change Grant’s mind?

  As if
. Grant was the stubbornest Alpha that Zane had ever met, and Zane had met more than a few.

  End things properly. How? With a letter? No, that was too old-fashioned… but wait, maybe that would be a good thing. Hard to doubt or question or argue with a printed sheet of paper laying out the facts in black and white.

  Not that Grant wouldn’t try. Or would he? No. Maybe? Zane growled as his head whirled, shoved all but certainty out of his mind, and kept walking.

  He knew he’d been going fast and that he’d ache for it the next day, but still it surprised Zane how quickly he arrived on his apartment steps. He threw the door open, not giving a damn if it banged or rattled, and marched himself up the flights to the place he called home, half wondering if maybe he should pack up and move just to make things extra-clear, only he didn’t have enough money saved for that and his son would miss Eduardo and -- and…

  And Grant was there, there, sitting crisscross on the floor in front of Zane’s son, caught in the act of handing a fat kid-sized pencil to him while a sheet of Pre-K homework lay on the carpet between them. To give Grant credit, he only blinked at Zane for a moment, and calmly at that, before returning his focus calmly to Zane’s son. “Okay, so you have two apples, one pear, and one pineapple. That’s adding up, so put them all together. What does that make?”

  Zane’s son gazed back at Grant just as calmly, behaving as well for the Alpha as he did for Eduardo on his best days. “Fruit salad,” he said, firm as a preacher. “Can I have a bedtime snack? Please?”

  * * *

  Every word Zane had ever known, good or bad or pure as the driven snow or blue as a sailor’s finest phrases, flew out of his head and left him staring blankly at his son and his -- no, not his anymore -- Alpha.

  Grant raised one eyebrow at him, but betrayed no other reaction to the elephant standing in the room right next to the apples, pears, and pineapples. He looked at Zane’s son. “You’re not going to say hi to your old man?”

  Zane’s son frowned. “He’s not my old man. He’s my papa.”

  “Well then. You’re not going to say hi to your papa?”

  Hadrian wrinkled his nose. “He smells funny. So do you.”

  Grant regarded him for a moment. “You are definitely your papa’s son.”

  That made the contrary little monkey grin from ear to ear. “Yup. Hi Papa!”

  A smile at his son came naturally, and Zane was glad of the reflex now. “Hiya, kiddo. Who’s your friend?”

  His son heaved a huge, put-upon sigh. God help him, what Zane was going to do when he hit his teenage years… love him and learn to live with it, probably. “Grant’s not my friend.”

  “Hey!” Grant protested.

  “He’s your friend. He told me,” Zane’s son said. He clambered to his bare, still dirty from a day’s playing, feet and turned to Eduardo. “Can I have a bedtime snack? I’m hungry. Please.”

  Eduardo, who -- damn his eyes -- had been standing silently in the door to the hallway with a shit-eating grin behind his beard this whole time, tilted his head at Zane in question. Zane hesitated, then shook his head and gestured past Eduardo toward the bathroom. The kid needed cleaning before he was allowed extra eating. They’d done this bit of sign language before, and Eduardo nodded in understanding.

  “Bath time first,” Eduardo said in a tone of voice that Hadrian knew to pay attention to. He held out one hand. “Once you’re clean, mijo, you can have a fruit cup. Deal?”

  “I’m not mijo. You call Zane mijo. That means ‘my son,’” Hadrian said, though he obediently went to Eduardo and took his hand. “You should call me nieto. That means ‘grandson.’”

  “No sh -- kidding.” Eduardo shook his head as he escorted Zane’s son out. “Here I thought I was the one who grew up in Tijuana.”

  “I watch Dora. Come on, Wardo!”

  “That’s Abuelo Eduardo to you, smarty pants. Hang on, let me clear your homework out of the way. You go think up excuses for your teacher about why it isn’t done tomorrow.” The old Omega came and bent to pick up the papers still on the ground. When he stood, he patted Zane on the shoulder and whispered, “Things don’t have to be impossible, you know. Just try. That’s what you do, isn’t it?”

  Oh for fuck’s sake. Zane covered his face with one hand. That way he couldn’t see Grant’s amusement -- but he could still hear him chuckling away, quietly, almost under his breath, while first Hadrian and then Eduardo exited stage left.

  Well, that was one way to deflate a good mad-on, he supposed.

  “That is definitely, without a doubt, one hundred percent your kid,” Grant said.

  Ah. New fuel for the fire. “He’s not a ‘that,’ he’s a ‘he,’” Zane snapped. “And his name is Hadrian.”

  “That his other father’s name too?” Grant asked, too casually.

  Zane wasn’t anyone’s fool. Most of the time. He took his hand away from his face and met Grant’s gaze. “No, his other father isn’t in his life. Or mine. I’m not sure where he is right now, to be honest, and neither Hades or I miss him enough to ever even think about him. That’s what you were really asking, isn’t it?”

  Grant held up one hand. He waited, during which pause Zane picked up the sound of the bathroom door closing and water starting to run, before he started again. Eduardo would be standing right outside the closed door in case of emergency, but at least the thunder of water on porcelain would allow Zane to pretend his babysitter wasn’t about to hear all of this too.

  “What happened to him? His other father,” Grant clarified. He stayed on the floor, fingers laced loosely across one knee. Calm, for fuck’s sake. Calm as the sea on a windless day. Damn him.

  Zane didn’t have a choice but to do the same, or it’d put them on unequal footing, which would be Grant’s entire plan. He had to pick not just a stubborn Alpha, but a smart, shrewd one, didn’t he?

  He sighed as he sat, but firmly refrained from giving anything else away about the turmoil bubbling inside him. “Before you ask, Eduardo’s not my papa by blood. He’s just a friend. An Omega whose mate is dead and whose kids live half a world away.”

  Grant only nodded. “He told me. Real forthcoming, Eduardo was.”

  Oh, Zane would just bet. “What else did he say?”

  Grant’s nod turned into a shake of the head. “Things only I was supposed to hear.”

  Zane resisted the urge to tear at his hair, more so when Grant’s grin widened. “Stop enjoying this. No one is supposed to be enjoying this. This is the breakup fight, Grant, so why are you acting like you’re having fun?”

  “No one told me it was the breakup fight,” Grant said with a shrug. “‘Just try,’ Wardo said. ‘That’s what you do.’ Cool. I fight for things, not against them. That’s what I do. We don’t need to fight, Zane. What we need is to have a talk.”

  * * *

  Talk? Okay, fine. Zane could do that. “You need to know that I am not ashamed of being a single father. I’m a fucking fantastic dad. I’ve fought people who thought I should be, so don’t go there, and don’t you dare ever make Hadrian think it.”

  “Wasn’t planning to. What do you think I am, a monster?”

  No. Zane thought Grant was the best Alpha he could ever have hoped to meet. One who didn’t want kids.

  Grant sighed. “Okay, let’s get some basics out of the way first. Mind you, this still isn’t a breakup fight, this is just -- clearing the air.”

  Zane reserved the right to decide on that, but he let Grant go on.

  “I get why you didn’t tell me about Hadrian, you know,” Grant said. “I was a dick.”

  “Glad to see we’re on the same page there.”

  “But you didn’t give me a chance not to be,” Grant pointed out, a lick of fire entering his eyes now. “Didn’t give me a chance to change my mind.”

  “I was supposed to think I had a shot at that? You were firm as hell, Grant. You made your position on family life abundantly clear.”

  If humans could have huffed steam
out their noses like cartoon bulls, Grant would have. But he stayed his course, God help them both. “Maybe so. But you didn’t even try, and that makes you kind of a dick.”

  “Bite me.”

  “I did. Not half an hour ago. I ran till I was out of breath and I still couldn’t catch up with. Not sure how I got here ahead of you, but I did, in time to meet Wardo and your son. Your kid -- Hadrian -- took one look at me and thought I was the funniest thing he’d ever seen.”

  Zane’s mouth twitched without his permission. Yeah, he’d just bet that, too.

  “And then he took me by the hand, dragged me inside, and shoved that homework at me and demanded I help. He is so your kid, Omega. Didn’t ask, didn’t make nice, just took what he wanted. Like father, like son.” Grant’s grin widened. “And if the run didn’t give me a heart attack, that will. You wait and see. That ought to comfort you whenever I piss you off, yeah?”

  Zane’s mouth twitched again, and he only just barely got it under control. “Don’t make me laugh, asshole. I’m mad at you.”

  “Why do you think I’m trying so hard?”

  Fair point. But, and -- Zane gave in to the urge to rake his hair up. “I don’t understand.”

  “I know.” Grant hitched himself a few inches closer, near enough for Zane to feel his body heat. His own traitorous body responded, the first stirrings of heat making themselves known again. “That’s partly why I’m here. Well, mostly it’s to make sure you didn’t throw all your shit in the back of a beat-up VW and take off for the border before I had a chance to see you again, but explaining, that’s the main point. Explaining, and… making sure I didn’t lose you.”

  Zane’s heart gave a great, painful thump-thump-thump and he lost his breath. Trying to cover it, and in a vain effort to recover some distance, he sat back on his heels. It didn’t help.

  Grant watched him as calmly and patiently as he’d watched Hadrian, and just as inexorably as he had when he’d sworn up and down he didn’t want kids, didn’t want a family, only had room in his life for the shop and what it took to get its door back open.