Searching For His Omega - Harper B. Cole Page 0,34

the know, but we’d been friends for a long time and telling him over the phone was not ideal. “I’m going to be a dad.” His breath hitched. “I want to do it right.”

A very drunken night with our friend Jack Daniels years ago had me spilling my secrets about my childhood. If anyone would get it, he would.

“I wish there was a way. I really do.”

“I hate this.” I slumped on the bed. I wasn’t going to cry. I. Was. Not. “When do I have to leave?”

“This is where you hate me...the car will pick you up at seven.”

“Tonight?” Fuck it. The tears were coming and I didn’t even care. Better to get them out now than when Stan could see.

Stan.

I was going to leave Stan when he needed me. Or maybe it was me who needed him. Either way, the baby needed both of us.

“How long?”

“They had me book a week.”

“And then I am coming back.” I was. This was my off time and they didn’t own me, except maybe they did. Why hadn’t I read that stupid contract?

“I’ll book the flight now, and Chet?”

“Yeah.”

“I’ll figure out a way for everything to work. I promise.” He would too.

We said our good-byes, and I looked at the time. Two hours. I had two hours before I had to leave, and it wouldn’t be forever, but that didn’t stop it from hurting. I wasn’t sure I could handle it when I had to leave. No. I was pretty sure I couldn’t. I’d have to think of something, but right now I had to do something even harder. I had to tell Stan that I was leaving.

I climbed down the staircase and found him in the kitchen arranging cookie dough onto large trays.

“Hey.” I stepped inside enough for him to see me, but not enough for me to be breaking any kind of health code.

He looked up at me with a smile on his face only for me to watch it vanish. He could see this wasn’t a social visit even with my everything is wonderful smile slapped on my face.

“Glenn called and I need to leave for a bit.” A week. So much more than a bit, but compared to what was on the horizon, just a blip.

“When?” He set the cookie scoop down and stepped around the table, taking off his gloves and throwing them in the trash on his way to me.

“Two hours.”

“I hate your fucking job,” he mumbled, and right then and there, I did too.

He walked past me and out the kitchen door, and I followed, stopping short when I saw he was not heading upstairs, but over to the front counter. He came back to me a minute later and took my hand, leading me back to the apartment.

“Is this what it’s always like?” he asked, breaking the silence that had grown between us on our way up. “I mean, calling and saying drop everything right now?”

“No. This is the first.” Although even if it had happened earlier in my career, I wouldn’t have cared. I lived for my job back then. It was everything I ever wanted all handed to me on a silver platter. Except it wasn’t everything I ever wanted, it was all I knew to want. How things had changed.

“Oh.” He pulled his shirt up and over his head. “I need to shower. I smell like Om, and I told them I needed to leave for the day so I’m de-workifying myself.” And just like that, he walked out of the room.

Part of me—no, most of me wanted to follow him in there, to wash his hair, kiss him all over, show him how much I was going to miss him. But he didn’t want that. He needed the time to process, and I got it.

I took out a pan and some shrimp I’d purchased the day before. If I was going to leave I could at least make him dinner. By the time the bathroom door cracked open, I had a simple shrimp pasta dish waiting.

“What smells so good?” He came out in a t-shirt pulled over his growing belly and a pair of pajama pants—or as he called the outfit, home clothes.

“I know it’s way too early, but this was what I had planned for dinner, and I thought maybe...maybe we could eat together?”

“I could eat.” He reached up to grab plates from the cupboard, his rounded belly slightly exposed. Damn, that was a good look on him.

“I really