Page 26 of The Last Great Omegaverse

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Dinner happens at the Ashworth farmhouse two nights later, an invitation delivered by Coop with the kind of exaggerated formality that makes it clear he’s been looking forward to this for days.

“Cal’s making stew,” he announces, practically vibrating on my porch. “Actual stew, from actual scratch, which he only does maybe twice a season, so this is basically a historic event. You’re required to attend. I’m not taking no for an answer, I already told Asher you’d be there, and he’s excited. If you don’t show up I’ll have to explain that to him, and he’ll sulk, and nobody wants that.”

“That’s a lot of pressure for stew.”

“It’s very good stew.”

I go, mostly because refusing feels like more effort than it’s worth, and partly because some small, stubborn part of me has been curious what their house looks like since the first morning I watched Asher cross the field toward it.

It’s hotter than I expected. Not just in temperature, though the wood stove’s going strong enough that I shed my jacket the moment I’m through the door, but warmer in the way a place gets when it’s truly lived in and loved.

It has mismatched furniture that’s clearly been rearranged a hundred times by four different opinions, a wall of photographs that I catch myself studying longer than is probably polite, Coop as a gangly teenager grinning next to a goat, Silas younger and less guarded than I’ve ever seen him look, Cal standing slightly apart in most of them, same as he does in life.

“Don’t stare too hard at the photos,” Asher says, appearing at my elbow with a glass of red wine. “There’s an incident in at least three of those that nobody’s cleared me to discuss.”

“Now I have to know.”

“Ask Coop. He loves telling that story. I sound terrible in it, for the record, that’s the only reason I’m not volunteering it myself.”

Dinner’s chaos in the best possible way, four alphas talking over each other at a table clearly built for exactly this kind of noise. Coop recounts some disaster involving a runaway pig with increasingly implausible embellishments each time Silas tries to correct the details, Cal quietly, methodically demolishing two full bowls of stew while letting the conversation wash over him without needing to contribute much to it, Asher faking outrage at some old joke I don’t have the context for but laugh at anyway because his delivery alone is worth it.

“Can I ask something?” I say, mostly to fill a lull, wine loosening my tongue more than I planned. “How have none of you ended up with an Omega? Four alphas, your own farm, this town seems fairly set on that sort of thing, from what I can tell.”

The table hushes just long enough that I wonder if I’ve stepped somewhere I shouldn’t have, before Coop, predictably, is the one who breaks it.

“The town’s tried,” he says, grinning around a mouthful of bread. “Hollow Creek’s got maybe six single Omegas total, and half of them are related to Dot, who I’m pretty sure vets every candidate personally before they’re allowed anywhere near us. She likes us fine. She’s just very protective. Says we’re a package deal, and most people aren’t looking to adopt a package.”

“That’s not the whole reason,” Asher says dryly. “The whole reason is that I dated Marnie Wilcox for exactly six weeks two years back, and it ended so badly the entire county still brings it up at parties.”

“It wasn’t that bad.”

“Asher cried in the feed store.”

“Hey! I had allergies.”

“You don’t have allergies.”

“I have allergies now, Silas. People change.” Asher points his fork across the table, mock-offended, and the whole group dissolves into laughter loud enough that I catch myself laughing too, the wine warm in my chest.

“For what it’s worth,” Silas says, once it settles, “I never much saw the appeal of chasing it. Figured if it happened, it happened. Wasn’t going to force something just because the town thinks four unmated Alphas under one roof is some kind of open question that needs closing.”

“It is a little bit of an open question, though,” I say. “People clearly wonder.”

“People clearly gossip,” he corrects. “Not the same thing.”

Cal hasn’t said much, still working through his second bowl of stew with the same unhurried focus he brings to everything. When he finally does speak the table hushes again, out of habit more than command.

“I wasn’t looking either,” he says. “For a long time, actively wasn’t. Didn’t think I had room for it, running this place, keeping everybody happy.” His eyes flick toward me briefly, then back down to his bowl. “Didn’t mean I’d stopped hoping, somewhere underneath all that not-looking. Just meant I’d gotten good at telling myself the difference didn’t matter much either way.”

The table silences again, softer this time, nobody quite willing to follow that with a joke. I can feel the weight of it ease somewhere tender and unexpected in my chest, four men who’ve apparently spent years half-convinced this kind of family wasn’t coming for them, circled around a table with stew and bad jokes and, apparently, me.

“Well,” Coop says finally, breaking the quiet with a gentleness he seems to reserve for exactly these moments, “the town’s going to have a field day with this whole situation regardless of what any of us say tonight. Might as well enjoy the stew while they gossip.”

“Best advice you’ve given all night,” Asher says, already refilling my glass without asking.

Nobody explains anything to me. Nobody needs to. I get folded into the rhythm of it without any formal invitation, passed the bread basket before I’ve asked, and included in a round of teasing about Silas’s driving that I have no business weighing in on and do anyway. Somewhere around the second bowl of stew I realize I’ve stopped keeping track of how strange this is, four men and a farm I never asked for and a kitchen that smells like cedar and thyme, and it just feels, simply, like dinner.