Amusing You - Claire Cullen Page 0,56

spoke. He wished the alpha had said something more, had left him even a sliver of hope that he wanted more than friendship after all they’d been through together.

“Have you seen a doctor yet?”

“Not yet.” Harper couldn’t put it off much longer. “Maybe… next week? I haven’t found one yet. I’m thinking of going with Zac’s. He has nothing but good things to say.”

“Of course. I should have thought of that instead of taking you to that clinic. If I had, none of that with my father and Dante would have happened.”

“You can’t know that. Wait, can you know that?” The one piece of the puzzle he didn’t have yet.

William rubbed a hand across the nape of his neck. “When we were leaving that first day, after we walked out of the appointment, I thought I saw someone I knew. My cousin.”

Harper groaned. “That’s how Samuel knew about the pregnancy, how he was able to lure me to the hospital. There is so much wrong with that.”

“Yes, there is.” There was a determinedly mulish look on William’s face as he stared past him.

Before Harper could tackle that, William glanced back to him. “Do you need a ride home?”

“Thanks, that’d be great.”

They drove in near silence, one or the other of them making a comment now and then.

“I know there’s still a lot for us to discuss, but there’s a long road ahead of us. It doesn’t all need to be decided right away.” Harper wasn’t sure he could handle in-depth conversations about how they’d co-parent, not when his feelings for William were so raw.

“Of course. We’ll follow your timetable on this. Let me know about the appointment, okay? I don’t need to come with you if you’d rather I didn’t…”

Harper’s heart sank lower, his fears confirmed. William had been pulling away from him before the whole baby thing, hadn’t he? He’d almost forgotten, what with everything that had gone on. And now that they’d gotten past the shock of the pregnancy, the distance between them was still cavernous.

“I’ll let you know.”

He got out of the car, waved William off, and then clambered up the stairs to his apartment. It was only as he stepped inside and got hit with a burst of air almost as cold as it was outdoors, that he realized his heating was broken yet again. He called Colin, leaving a message when the omega didn’t pick up. Then he stood in the middle of his freezing, rundown apartment and pondered how pathetic his life seemed. Rather than wallow in his misery, he pulled out his phone again.

“Hi, Harper. How’s it going?”

“Hey, duck.”

He tried to keep his voice steady, but just the sound of a familiar voice after all that had happened brought tears to his eyes. He sniffed loudly and tried to get himself under control.

“Harper, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” he tried to say, but it came out garbled. “Everything.” His teeth chattered. “Fuck, it’s freezing in here.”

“Where are you?”

“Home.”

“The heat’s out again?”

“Heat, hot water. The usual.”

“Pack a bag, I’ll come get you.”

“You don’t need to—”

“What are friends for? And I know you; I know you’re not in tears because the heating’s broken again. I’ll be there in thirty.”

Later that evening, Harper curled up on the couch in Zac’s living room, little Henry dozing off in his arms.

“Want me to put him to bed?” Beckett asked, poking his head in the door.

“Not yet,” Harper murmured. “He’s not quite asleep.” That, and he wanted more baby cuddles.

Beckett grinned as if he knew exactly what Harper was up to but said nothing as he ducked back out.

Zac returned from bathing Luca, carrying the towel-wrapped boy into the living room and settling him down on the rug in front of the fire with a book. Then he joined Harper on the couch.

“You look better than you have in days. Does that mean you and William have made peace?”

“We were never at war, duck. I think… I think I was at war with myself. I don’t always have a very good opinion of myself or what I deserve.”

He’d never believed he was the kind of omega that alphas fell head over heels for. That they offered the world to. And everything with William just proved that.

“You’ve been unlucky in love,” Zac agreed. “But that’s not all on you. Those alphas had a lot of growing up to do. William is so different from the guys you normally go for that I thought you were joking at first. But the more I think