Foster
I told my omega I was all in whenever he wanted to start a family. And we’d semi-joked about starting on it right away, but I trusted him and also Fate. I’d stopped trying to control everything that happened. But in my mind, it was going to be a while. After I finished school, for sure. Confident of that, I went about trying to make that happen, desperate to be ready when the day came for us to be a family. I dreamed about it as I worked, but sometimes it was all too much to imagine.
What would our children look like? I hoped they’d be exactly like my mate, with his kindness and balance, something I strove for and often in my mind fell short of. His classes were amazing, and everyone who came into the studio benefitted from his guidance. A couple had tried to call him guru or teacher, but he brushed that aside. “I’m just teaching you the techniques I learned. How you go forward with your practice is entirely up to you.”
I spent more time in the studio, took classes when I could, but of course nothing had changed about my obligations for work and school. Yes, I’d learned how to work smarter and actually have a life, but not as much as I wanted.
Being mated to this omega had me questioning almost every decision I’d made up to now. How had I ever thought I had a life? Certainly not one with any quality. My herd mates might not have been earning much money or following an individual dream, but I could see the positive aspects of their choices instead of judging them for them. I’d been all about me and what I wanted and needed when I left.
No, I wouldn’t ever have been a good fit for what the herd leadership would have chosen for me, but I also didn’t recognizethe alpha and betas’ need to think about the group as a whole. To make decisions that were often unpopular but benefitted all.
Dang. I might be starting to grow up.
As a mated alpha, I had to find a path that would benefit our family. We might be a smaller group, but the principle remained the same. My mate and I would, if the Goddess was kind, have young of our own. One or more little deer or bears who would look to us to show them how to live a good life.
And no way was the one I’d been trudging through only a short time ago one I’d wish for any of our children.
With each day that passed, I grew less satisfied with my work and more ready to find alternatives. I prayed to the Goddess that I’d figure it out because if we were going to have a child, I needed to be able to be there for them. And for my mate. What I had been willing to accept before, a job that took seventy or more hours a week, was no longer a good choice.
Briar didn’t have a nine-to-five job, but he’d have help now to give him more free time, and I wanted to spend it with him.
I had money put away, but it was not a lifetime’s worth. I would need to work, for sure. And it was starting to look like I’d have to stay in school for another semester due to the troublesome class that still had not been approved. One class. How maddening. My boss had been making noises that seemed to indicate he would not be able to hold my position if I didn’t graduate now, but there wasn’t a whole lot I could do about it.
I hated feeling helpless. An alpha should be someone an omega could rely on. Unemployed, I’d be dead weight.
Staring at my laptop yet again, I tried to think of another solution, a way out of the situation I’d put myself in, but I had nothing. If I didn’t keep my job, I would be useless to us both.
My phone chirped with a notification, and I grabbed it, hoping it would be my professor, He’d promised to try one moretime on my behalf but had warned me not to get my hopes up. The text was not from him, however.
I read it and jumped up, grabbed my car keys, and ran for the door. My omega needed me. Now. He didn’t say why, justCome over right away.
Parking in his driveway, I was too close to his car to open the driver’s door and had to clamber over the center module and climb out the passenger side. The delay had me frantic. Briar had never asked me to rush anywhere. It wasn’t his thing. Was he all right?
“Briar.” I didn’t knock, just opened the door and ran inside. “Where are you?” He was not in the living room, or the bedroom, or…
“Foster.” My mate stood in the bathroom doorway. “Are you all right?”
I stopped and blinked at him. “Me? You’re the one who texted that something desperate happened.”
“I did not.” He frowned. “Did I?”
Yanking my phone out of my pocket, I read his message again. “Um, no. I guess not. But you asked me to come right away and you’ve never done that before, so I guess I assumed the worst. So, what’s up?”
Briar shook his head. “Alpha, you need more breath work.”
“And that’s why you texted me?” It made no sense.
“Of course not. It’s just a fact. I wanted to show you something.” He reached behind him and then held his hand out in front of me. “I took a test.”
“You took a…” Test. A pregnancy test if the stick with two plusses on it was any indicator. “Are you…are we?”
“We are. I am.” He set the stick down on the sink and came out to step into my embrace. “We’re having a baby.”
An hour later, we celebrated over honey-vanilla ice-cream sundaes at the local soda fountain, my phone buzzed.
I ignored it.
“Aren’t you going to check that?” he asked.
