“Well… people get to know each other what, an hour or two at a time? Normally. But an eight-hour day together? That’s at least four dates. So it’s just all… concentrated.”
Her voice is low, controlled. “Jamie, it doesn’t matter what you say, I’m not taking off that collar.”
“No! No, that’s not what I mean, just… give me more credit than two weeks. We’re…friends, at least, right?”
“Are you friend-zoning me?” Morgan teases.
My cheeks go bright red, and I sputter. “That’s not—I just didn’t mean—”
She brushes a thumb along my cheek, a soft smile on her lips.
I cross my arms, pouting. “Let me finish!”
She drops a hand to my inner thigh. “I thought that was only going to make you more desperate.”
I tremble, but I fight to keep control of my voice. This is important. “Let me do this for you,” I repeat. “I know the risks. And I… I have spent my entire life trying to be…” I chew on the inside of my cheek, follow the white veins in the marble floors, looking for words. “A… a good omega. And it has always felt like being cornered, like—on the one hand, I want to be kind, and accommodating. On the other hand, I owe it to omega-kind to not be a total doormat? I guess? Like I want to be myself, but not play into the stereotype, but then there are things that I don’t do because they’d be stereotypical, and so then I’m not actually being true to myself? And…” My voice tightens, and I take a deep breath, hoping I can avoid tears. “And… nobody knows what to do with a male omega. A female omega? That’s, like, patriarchysquared. But a male omega? People feel like it… cancels out or something… and itshould, right?” I’m rambling now, shit. This isn’t what I meant to get into.
“But you’re not a man,” Morgan says simply.
I blink. “What?”
“You don’t have cis-man privilege if you’re not a cis man.”
“I don’t know if it’s quite that simple…”
“That woman wasn’t the first one to grope you,” Morgan says quietly. “I could see it on your face.”
I swallow hard. “Well… yeah…”
“Are you afraid to walk home alone? Take rideshares alone?”
“Yes,” I breathe.
“Do you thinkIam?”
I hesitate. Scan her face. It feels like a trick question. I bite my lip. “I think… you know what could happen. But you’re not afraid of it.”
She nods. “Do you know how many women’s support groups I’ve been invited to during my professional career that are utterly useless for me? And it’s not that these things don’t happen. It’s just that I can and will break bones if they do.”
I crack a wry smile. “I can imagine.”
Morgan’s expression is thoughtful. “People like you and me… we don’t fit the mold. Any mold.”
“It’s made me… second-guess myself when the people who are supposed togetit… don’t. And I know I shouldn’t care what other people think, but…”
“Of course you would,” she says, with a surprising tenderness.
“But you don’t.”
“Not in the slightest.”
I fidget with the edge of the towel that falls over my shoulder. “So… shouldn’t I… also not?”
She gently touches the backs of her fingers to my cheek. “Why should you be like me? We’re very different people.”
“Because isn’t the alternative being… I don’t know, a doormat? Codependent?”
“It can get to that point. But you’re also sensitive. Thoughtful. Generous. Understanding. All things I’m not.”
