Searching For His Omega - Harper B. Cole Page 0,24

in a court room. Fuck this shit!

“Are you sure I’m the father?” He sat back, his arms folded.

And there it was! He was looking for his get-out-of-jail-free card! I counted to five. Again, the counting thing was BS. As I steeled my nerves, and shot him a disgusted glare, I spoke in a monotone. “Yes. You’re the first person I’ve slept with in over a year.” Turns out almost dying put a damper on your sex drive. Who knew?

“I need some time,” he said, and the last thing I heard was TV Chet announcing, “As well as being an excellent manager, Stan is an amazing dancer!” And he winked!

Sixteen

Chet

“I need some time.” What a fucking stupid thing to say. I watched as Stan’s face fell then instantly schooled itself. I was a fucking idiot. Here he was growing a human inside him...a human I helped create, and I was acting like I had one foot out the door.

“My feet are both here,” I vowed.

“I have no idea what you mean by that,” he snapped, his voice cracking slightly. Shit. Was he about to cry?

“I mean I’m not about to run. I would never do that. Never.” I took in a deep breath. “Don’t hate me, but I’m worried about your medicine.” And now I sounded like a bigger asshat. “I mean, is it okay for the baby—our baby?”

“Oh.” He fell back against the couch. “Yeah...no, it's fine. The doctor said I could take it the entire pregnancy if my therapist said I needed to, but they were already weaning me off of it. They think my anxiety is more situational.” He snapped his mouth shut. I knew things had not been easy for him and he let a little bit out, but he kept a whole lot more locked away inside him, which was fine. I didn’t need to know all of his secrets. He was telling someone and not trying to hold it all inside of him. It was fine for that person not to be me as long as there was someone.

“I didn’t mean to sound like an ass.”

“No. No, it’s good. It means you care. When you asked me if you were the dad I thought maybe—I thought you were trying to find a reason not to be in their life. And you don’t—I’m trying not to pressure you…” he trailed off.

I was going to be a father. A tiny human was going to rely on me to protect him, love him, and provide for him. And I wanted—no, needed to be that person for him. Stan didn’t need to do the job for both of us. We both made this child, and it was my responsibility—fuck it, it was my longing to be there for him.

“I want this baby,” I spit out. “I mean, not to take him from you, but I want to be a father. I want to be his father.” It was how that could or would work that had me in such a spiral. I was getting half the things I wanted to say wrong, I kept eating my shoe, and worst of all, I was setting Stan on edge just as his hormones were on a freaking joy ride.

“I want this baby too.” He spoke almost too softly for me to hear. “I really didn’t know about the meds.”

“And even if you did...how would that have changed things? Because from where I stand, we would have slapped the same condom on and not thought twice about it.” Maybe we’d have paid more attention to it after the fact and possibly noticed it had broken or leaked or whatever it did, but what would that have changed? Nothing.

“I’d have figured out I was pregnant sooner.” He shook his head. “But you’re right. I wanted you too badly, and condoms are supposed to work.”

“We’ll figure this out,” I assured him. We had to. Another human was depending on me—depending on us. I was going to be the father mine never was. Our baby deserved it. The little one deserved everything.

“I don’t want to burden you.”

“Having a child is not a burden, it is a blessing. We’ll figure this out. I promise. I’m not sure how it will look, but we’ll do it and kick ass doing so.” That earned me a little smile. “Look...this part’s you.” I brought his attention back to the show.

It was where he talked about the town and how wonderful it was. He was right. It was. If only