Page 71 of Labor of Love

For a given value of fine, anyway.

He’d had no warning of his father’s plans before the pack had been unceremoniously dumped into his lap. Hell, the man had called Giovanni from his plane to Hawaii rather than having the decency to notify him of the change in person.

At least the man had waited for the transfer of power form to clear before vanishing to his tropical paradise, but that didn’t mean Giovanni was going to be speaking to the man anytime soon.

Just because something was legal didn’t make it the right fucking thing to do.

When he’d told his mother about what had happened she’d laughed her ass off, barely refraining from telling him that she told him so. Which shehaddone—told him so, that was—and Giovanni had thought he was prepared for what might happen, but he’d also expected a month to settle in before his father started pawning responsibilities off on him.

The abrupt changing of the guard form a well established alpha to his out-pack son had led to the kind of chaos that attracted the attention of Regional Alphas. Giovanni had nearly lost control of the pack when a contingent of elders had decided to go above his head with an issue.

Rory let out an unintelligible snort. “You keep telling yourself that. You looked like you were drowning under the weight of everything. Well maybe not drowning—but the doggy paddle you managed wasn’t ideal. Everyone could see it.”

Giovanni glared at all three of them. “I could just kick you out of my house.”

“You love us,” Ginny drawled.

Then she stretched and yawned until her jaw popped, going boneless in her chair. She looked tired; she always looked tired these days, her work running her right into the ground. They all worried about her—not that she’d thank them for it.

Giovanni huffed. “Fine, but none of you are getting any of the cookies I picked up on my way home.”

His friends’ cries of exaggerated despair were music to his ears.

The airport was more crowded than Giovanni remembered it being when he’d flown in. That had been a Saturday during the holiday season, which should have been the busiest time as far as he was concerned. It was a random Wednesday in the middle of spring.

There was no reason for the crowds to be as thick as they were.

Giovanni probably should have stayed in the car and waited for Ezra to come to him, but he hadn’t known if he’d need help with his bags. The omega was a military-trained soldier and an adult shifter, but he’d also be moving his entire life back into his grandmother’s house, and you could accumulate a lot of random crap over the span of some six-odd years.

He sighed and stood on tiptoe, trying to crane his neck over the crowd, cursing the fact that he’d topped out at five eight and…

Giovanni nearly toppled over as the scent hit him.

He was staring, he knew he was staring, and he probably looked like a freak, but he couldn’t help himself. He had a feeling that Grandma Josie was having a laugh at his expense, especially since she hadn’t warned him about…

“Gio!” A visibly pregnant Ezra Fleet called as he strode across the airport terminal.

There was an error screen blaring in the back of Giovanni’s mind. A group of sleep deprived college kids stared; one business man did a double take as Ezra walked past them. Ezra had a green duffle bag slung over one shoulder and the biggest rolling suitcase Giovanni had ever seen trailing behind him.

Giovanni would be worried about the weight, what the stress of dragging around the bags might do to the precious life Ezra was carrying around inside of him, but his brain was too busy melting out his ears.

He’d known, intellectually, that the sight and scent of an unmatedpregnantomega was the kind of turn on that most alphas had a difficult time ignoring. It was hardwired into their biology. Even alphas who preferred other alphas or betas to the point of exclusivity would take notice of a pregnant omega. It wasn’t exactly a sexual response, it just flipped all the happy protective switches in the back of an alpha’s brain.

Shifters had come up with all kinds of reasons why that was, from the practical—natural selection ensuring the survival of the most vulnerable—to the just plain weird—ALIENS DID IT—but it remained a fact. A fact that Giovanni was now becoming intimately familiar with as his middle school crush came striding towards him, looking like sex on a stick.

His dark skin practically glowed with health. Even though his tightly curled black hair was still in a military cut, the neat trim looked good on him, defining his features in a way that made him look more delicate.

The omega was wearing a pair of sweatpants and a skintight t-shirt that strained around his biceps, neck bare for everyone to see—and lacking the scar of a mating bite.

As Ezra drew closer, Giovanni had to start breathing out of his mouth, which was only marginally better than breathing out of his nose; the scent of sun-ripe raspberries and honeysuckle in spring was so overwhelming he could taste it.

“Oh no, did Grandma forget to tell you?” Ezra sounded exasperated as he came to a halt barely a foot away. “I reminded her about it three times. I’m sorry, I really thought?—”

Giovanni wheezed and his hands itched to pull Ezra into a hug, the omega was taller than him—that was new. “No, no, you’re good. I can deal.”

The expression on Ezra’s face spoke of doubt, which was entirely fair, since that last word had come out as a squeak.

And Giovanni was going to have to apologize to Ginny, Rory, and Albert because they had told him something was off. He hadn’t listened, but he probably should have... even if Ezra looked genuinely worried about him.

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