Page 64 of Glitterati Omega

“I thought you were concerned about how you were going to pay for the baby.”

“That presumes I’m going to have a baby, first, and second of all, why would Iwork? I thought I’d stay home with the baby.”

Winston peered curiously at him. “Don’t you want to do something else?”

Rupert shook his head. “It’s all miserable work. At least looking after children is something I like.”

“It’s not looking after. It’s parenting.”

Rupert waved a hand. “I think it will be rewarding. More rewarding than having some old curmudgeon throw a bedpan at me, at any rate.”

“I heard children sometimes throw tantrums and toss nappies at you.”

Rupert shook his head. “It’s different!”

“Because they’re cute?”

“No! Because it would bemychild. I have no emotional attachment to the old alpha throwing his shit at me.”

Winston tilted his head. “Perhaps you ought to. We are all related, after all. He was someone’s son, someone’s brother, cousin, uncle, husband, father, grandfather … friend. Perhaps there is more of a relationship than you think.”

Rupert stared at him. “I’ll let you handle the next person who punches me for trying to take blood.”

Winston gave a startled laugh. “All right,” he said, “point taken. But won’t you get bored staying home all day?”

“I don’t think I will.”

Winston lifted his brows. “I suppose you don’t need to find a job.”

Rupert swanned a little closer to the alpha, who had been perched on the loveseat at the end of the bed this entire time. “And if I’m not working,” he said, “perhaps then I shouldn’t give everything away, hm? Keep a little, that I can—”

Winston’s expression went flat. “Is that what this is about? You don’t want to give it up.”

Rupert wrung his hands. “Who in their right mind would?”

Winston glared at him. Finally, the alpha pointed to himself. “I told you, I give most of my money away.”

“Yes, well, you have a job. And you don’t give all of it away.”

Winston shook his head. “I just said you could get a job.”

“And I said I don’t want one—”

“So you can’t have it both ways—”

“—because I think being a parent is enough of a job.”

They stared at each other for a moment. Rupert felt his cheeks heating, especially as time dragged, and he waited for the alpha to offer some crushing rebuttal. Everyone always did—being a parent wasn’t arealjob.

Instead, Winston smiled and laughed. He ducked his head. He was still laughing when he lifted it and patted the cushion beside him. “Come here, poppet.”

Rupert’s flush increased tenfold. He expected to be lectured on why he was silly, on why being a parent wasn’t real work or what have you, but he perched beside Winston nonetheless.

The alpha took his hands in his. “You are not wrong,” he said.

Rupert blinked. “I’m … not?”

Winston shook his head. “Being a parent is one of the most demanding jobs there is, I think. Yet we treat it very poorly, don’t we?”