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Which meant…

  But Zane couldn’t hope for that. He didn’t dare. Even if trying was what he did, he… he… He gave up. Just a little, but an important little. “What are you trying to say, Grant?” he asked, throwing his hands in the air. “You’re acting like things are different. Are they?”

  Grant said nothing. Just watched him, with things in his face that Zane didn’t know how to interpret. Were they good things? Zane hesitated, his heart in his throat. “Are… are they different? And seriously, don’t fuck with me. This is too important.”

  “Yeah, I get that.” Grant took both of Zane’s hands and held them loosely. “See, when you ditched me down by the river, I had what they used to call a come-to-Jesus moment.”

  “A what, now? No, don’t explain, I get the idea, I just never heard the phrase before.”

  “Eduardo would be ashamed.”

  “Eduardo hasn’t darkened the door of a church since he was a teenager.”

  Grant accepted that with a philosophical shrug and blazed right on. “So, come-to-Jesus moment. I realized a few things, right there, right then. Things I should have seen all along. Like how important you are to me and have been from the start. Just like you hired yourself, you fit yourself into a place at the shop, you slid right into my life like you belong there. No, that’s not quite right.” He took a tighter hold of Zane’s hands. “Like you should have belonged there for a long time, only I was too much of a dumbass to realize I had a big empty hole in my life. A you-shaped hole.”

  Zane snorted.

  “Hey now, don’t you make me laugh. This is my important shit.” Grant stroked Zane’s hands, not gentle, but nice and firm and comforting. “You are everything I never knew I wanted, Zane. Everything I was too blinded by my own drives to realize I needed. You are all I could ever hope for, and my only wish right now is that you’ll give me a second chance to prove it.”

  Zane would have answered. Really, he would have, only the knot in his throat was too big to speak around. He tried to swallow and that didn’t help -- but he could take hold of Grant’s hands in return, and he could squeeze them tight. And at that, his vocal chords let go just enough for him to whisper. “You mean that. You promise.”

  “I do.”

  It had the ring of a wedding vow. Zane heard it, and knew Grant heard it too. He swallowed again, with more success this time. “And kids? You don’t mind kids now? You won’t resent Hadrian? Wish he wasn’t part of this? Because he is, Grant, and he will be. He’s my son.”

  “Didn’t I point that out a time or two?” Grant’s grin softened, as did his massage of Zane’s hands. “I like Hadrian. He’s a little firecracker, and I do well with firecrackers. And you know what, Zane? That’s been bugging me all along. Every time I looked at you, every time I was with you, something in the back of my mind started ticking over, saying what-if, what-if, what-if.”

  And there went the lump in Zane’s throat again.

  “I like Hadrian. I could be part of his life, if you’d let me. Try to earn myself the title of -- what’s Spanish for father?”

  “Padre. You idiot,” Zane rasped. “You really want to be ‘padre’?”

  “Okay, I could be Da instead. If you don’t mind some Irish in you.” Grant waggled his eyebrows. “I kinda have proof you haven’t minded it so far.”

  He did make Zane laugh this time, and if it was a little watery, Grant was kind enough not to point that out.

  “And if there are other kids?” Zane pressed. “That happens, you know. I’m fertile as hell if I don’t take precautions, Grant, and I did take precautions with Hadrian. He was just too stubborn not to bull his way into the world. What would you think about that?”

  “I’d think a good few things,” Grant said. He lifted Zane’s hand to his cheek and held it there. “But here’s what I think most. I love you.”

  Zane gaped at him. “You what?”

  “I love you,” Grant said again, steady and true. “I think I have for a while now. I just needed a good smack to the back of the head to figure it out. If we end up with another kid, I’ll love him, too. If we end up with a houseful, even.”

  Zane stared at him.

  Grant pressed his cheek into Zane’s palm, but there was a challenge in his body language, his face, that hadn’t been there before. A dare. “So, what do you say, Omega? Give us another shot? Let me prove myself?”

  Because doing things, proving himself, was what Grant did. And once he’d made up his mind, stated his purpose, hell itself could not bar his way. And nothing except Zane could swerve him. He meant it. He really meant it.

  Zane took one deep breath to center himself, made sure he was sure of himself, gave up entirely on speaking, and leaned forward to press his mouth to Grant’s. Not a deep kiss, but a passionate one, a kiss that he put his whole heart into, betraying every vulnerability and hint of hope just for this moment.

  When he let go, Grant looked dazed, but delighted and growing ever more so. “That’s a yes?”

  “Yes,” Zane said, kissing him again, this time finishing with a nip to his lower lip. “And as soon as Eduardo’s gone and Hadrian’s asleep -- with earmuffs on and the bedroom door closed -- you’re going to put your money where your mouth is.”

  Grant was the one to give him the third kiss, and said with a grin, “Oh, Omega. You just watch me.”

  Epilogue

  Not long after midnight, and all through Zane’s house -- though it wasn’t Christmas and wouldn’t be for a few months yet -- not a creature was stirring, not even a four-year-old. Or the Alpha who’d gotten so pooped wrangling said five-year-old out of the bath, into pajamas, and into bed that he’d sacked out not long after, fast asleep on Zane’s couch.

  Zane chuckled to himself as he padded barefoot through his apartment. He hadn’t felt the need to check his perimeter and make sure the house was safe and sound since Hadrian was a newborn, but it made sense to him that he’d feel the urge tonight.

  For one thing, once again, it wasn’t just him who needed the security of locked doors. He had a family resting with him tonight. And what else should the resident night owl do?

  His memory hadn’t tricked him. Doors were secure, windows closed, Eduardo paid for the night and sent home, still wearing a shit-eating grin that Zane suspected someone would have to surgically remove from his face. He’d never let Zane live this down.

  Zane decided he would be surprisingly okay with that.

  Perimeter, check. Zane turned on his heel and made for Hadrian’s room next. Grant had promised to paint a mural of rolling hills and stone walls on there, which had made Hadrian scowl until Grant also promised to paint dinosaurs ravaging the countryside. Then he’d gotten a soon-to-be gap-toothed grin and a fist bump.

  Grant hadn’t done a bad job of tucking Zane’s son in. Sure, the covers were lopsided and his pillow on the floor, but Hadrian had curled up with his head on his teddy bear instead and plugged his thumb in his mouth. He slept peacefully, limp with the boneless looseness only little kids seemed to manage, not a care in the world. Back when he was a teenager and just coming into his own as an Omega, Zane hadn’t ever imagined he’d be the kind of parent who’d tiptoe into their kid’s room and kiss them goodnight.

  Yeah, well, what had that teenage punk known? Zane walked as silently as he could to Hadrian, rumpled his hair with the lightest touch, and bent to touch his lips to his son’s forehead.

  Hadrian, check.

  Zane retraced his steps back to the living room and sank to a crouch in front of the couch, taking the rare opportunity to study Grant at peace. He could see the little boy Grant had once been -- only glimpses, mostly subsumed by the man he’d become -- but there was an innocence and sweetness to Grant when he slept that never showed when he was awake. He sighed and turned more deeply into the couch cushions, almost like he was moving instinctively closer to Zane.

  That, Zane didn’t need to decide he could be okay with. He was sure of it before the question even occurred to him. “Y
ou weren’t the only one who fell in love,” he said, reaching out to brush his fingertips over Grant’s forearm with all its bright colors and inked patterns. “Just in case you needed to know. Or even if you didn’t, I still wanted to say it.”

  Grant huffed again, but his eyes drifted open. He blinked at Zane, who grinned back. “I fell asleep?”

  “Like a rock, like a log,” Zane confirmed. “It was downright damned cute, Alpha.”

  Grant scoffed and turned with a flop to lie on his back. “‘M not cute. ‘M never cute. ‘M an Alpha.”

  “And don’t we all know it.” Zane stood, considered his options -- he hadn’t planned to wake Grant, but now that he had -- and, what the hell? He threw one leg over, planting his knee carefully between Grant and the couch back and then one on the near side to the couch edge. Poised there, not yet sinking down, he reached to cup Grant’s cheek. “But still cute. Sorry, I don’t make the rules. It is what it is, Alpha.”

  “This feels familiar.” Grant batted his hand away, but caught it in the next second and brought it to his lips. “You don’t want me to go home?”

  “Nope,” Zane said cheerfully. He had the feeling he and Hadrian would be the ones moving to Grant’s home soon enough -- Grant wouldn’t leave the apartment over his shop, and why should he? -- and besides, there was plenty of room for more than one man up there. Whereas he and Hadrian would burst this place at the seams before much longer. “I want you to stay right here.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  “Mm-hmm.” Zane eased himself down and kissed Grant, light but with plenty of promise, his hips moving in much the same way. “You promised me another seeing-to tonight, Alpha. In case you forgot.”

  “As if I could.” Grant put his hands on Zane, stroking his chest, his hips, kneading his ass. He breathed in deep and let his air out in a sound of pleased satisfaction. “You’re mine, Omega. Just so you know.”

  Oh, Zane knew. He let his eyes go half-lidded in enjoyment and satisfaction at least equal to Grant’s. Because there was something more Grant didn’t know. To be fair Zane didn’t know himself, not for sure, not yet, but there was nothing wrong with his memory or his understanding of his own body. They’d been careful earlier when Grant was inside him, sure. As careful as he and Hadrian’s father had been the night Hadrian was conceived.

  And he felt the exact same way now. As if he wasn’t alone inside his body. There was someone else within him, someone so new they weren’t really even a clump of cells yet, but someone all the same.

  Grant’s firstborn. Forming, becoming, making himself known. Like father, like son. Zane wondered if he might be just a little too fertile for his own good, then figured he was the most okay with that of anything else that’d happened this night. He’d get confirmation soon enough, and so would Grant, and then the three -- four -- of them would make a family. They’d tuck themselves in above the tattoo shop snug as bugs, and their kids would grow up rough and tumble, surrounded by the sharp smells of ink and disinfectant, and they’d be fed, taken care of, happy. What more could an Omega ask for?

  Zane laughed suddenly, making Grant stop the important work of kissing him and look up with a patient scowl. “What’s funny?”

  “Nothing,” Zane said, then amended, “Everything. Life’s funny, Grant. Don’t you think?”

  Grant’s scowl faded to a grin. He drew Zane back down to him, getting back to work. Zane went happily, but he kept the thought that’d made him laugh in his mind. Marshall is going to hold this over our heads for the rest of our lives.

  Let him. After all, it’d be his turn soon enough.

  So thinking, Zane let everything else go and melted into his Alpha’s arms. Safe. Loved. Mine. Mine, mine, mine, and forever mine. And that was what Zane called a happy ending.

  Willa Okati

  Willa Okati is made of many things: imagination, coffee, stray cat hairs, daydreams, more coffee, kitchen experimentation, a passion for autumnal weather, a little more coffee, a newfound gym habit, and a lifelong love of storytelling. Definitely one of the quiet ones you have to watch out for, her muse has woken from its long winter’s nap and she’s got a ton of stories all lined up ready to tell.

  Willa at Changeling: https://www.changelingpress.com/willa-okati-a-35