Page 97 of Bully for Sale
As the police had proceeded with prosecution of Braden, the atmosphere at school had become intolerable. If Ned wasn’t certain Ezer would accuse him of being cowardly again, he’d just drop out and start at a new school the following year.
Instead, he trudged along, going to classes, enduring his new outcast state. He was infamous. He’d knocked up an omega and taken down Braden Tenmeter, and all the wealthiest, most entitled alphas were nervous around him now. Betas avoided him, too, though he didn’t know why. Maybe it was his impending fatherhood? He didn’t know for sure.
But it was the wary eyes of omegas that hurt him the most. They all stared at him as if he’d taken one of their own against their will. As ifhe’draped Ezer. Ned supposed the idea of being pregnant in high school was terrifying to them, too. And they should be afraid, because what he and Ezer had done was no joke. It was enormous and terrifying. None of it had never been a joke. Not even little bit, not from the start.
They’d been misled by their parents and his hormones, and now they were in a position that no person—no alpha, beta, or omega—envied. At least Ezer got to stay home, sheltered from all of this shame and humiliation, this social outcast status. At least he was spared that.
At night, Ned came home and did his homework, doing math problems with his quiet, withdrawn omega who showed him the solutions with no enthusiasm. Ezer was someone else now. Someone he’d never been before, and Ned hated it. He even told Ned to pick the babies’ names. Ezer didn’t fight him anymore over anything.
It was exhausting.
“I don’t know what to do,” Ned said, his head in his hands, and his father’s hand on his shoulder. “He’s so unhappy. All I want is for him to be happy.”
“Omegas are like this,” Lidell told him, in exact opposition to what he’d told him before about the happily pregnant omegas of the world. “They’re hard to please.”
“You really have no advice for me?”
“I’m afraid not. But I’m going to be leaving town again. This time for the islands. Tropical drinks and omegas wearing little thongs and nothing else. I can afford it now, so why not?”
Why not? Because his son was facing a trial with Lidell’s former business associate—because, yes, Tenmeter had ended those contracts—and was dealing with an unhappy omega who was pregnant with twins and was only a month away from giving birth to them.
“When will you be back?”
“Oh, before too long. You’ll barely have time to miss me.”
Ned took in Lidell’s anxious expression and realized his father couldn’t be the man he needed him to be right now. Lidell was incapable of allowing any attachment to form with an omega, even with his son’s, for fear of losing them. Santino’s loss had destroyed his heart, and he didn’t have the courage to risk what was left of it, even to support Ned and Ezer. It was yet another way in which his father had been, and perhaps always would be, useless in his life. Hadn’t he just been congratulating himself on having a father who loved him? What good was love if it had no courage behind it?
“Yes, you should go,” Ned said. “Enjoy yourself.”
Lidell rubbed his hand over Ned’s hair affectionately. “Earl will take care of you, and if you have any problems with the boy, just call Heath. He’s got his fingers in this pot now, might as well let him stir it.”
Ned followed his father to his room and watched as he finished his packing. Before he knew it, Ned was on the front porch waving goodbye to Lidell again. Or rather, standing there with his arms crossed watching his father go.
“He’s always thought of himself first,” Earl said, from over Ned’s shoulder. “I’m glad you’ve grown into a different kind of man.”
But that was not what Ezer thought, was it? Ezer believed Ned thought of himself first and Ezer a distant second, and Ned still wasn’t sure how to prove that it wasn’t true.
Maybe because it was. After all, even now, he was more focused on what he wanted—Ezer’s trust—and less on what Ezer wanted—to feel safe again.
He went down to the nest and found Ezer asleep. He was sleeping more and more these days, which the doctor said was appropriate. Growing two babies was very tiring work.
Ned watched him sleep on the sofa, his dark curls against a white pillow, his lips stretched into a mild grimace, and his beautiful eyes hidden beneath silky-smooth eyelids. Even in rest, he didn’t look peaceful.
How could he fix this?
For weeks, he didn’t know.
It was arainy Tuesday when Ezer’s oldest brother, Yissan, reached out to Ned asking for a meeting at a local park. Ned had never seen Yissan before or talked with him and was surprised by his boldness in reaching out to an alpha, but he agreed to meet him.
“Did you have to skip school to be here?” Yissan asked, motioning Ned beneath the wide umbrella he held up to the relentless pitter-patter from the sky.
Ned didn’t resist the tug but felt uncertain being so close to another omega. Yissan was undeniably beautiful with wavy dark hair, ebony eyes, and a lush mouth many alphas would fantasize about. He was also tall, well-built, and held himself with a confidence Ezer lacked except when he was angry. Ned tried to hold his body away from Yissan’s, not wanting to show too much impropriety, and unsure how Ezer would feel about him being snug under an umbrella with his omega brother. Though Ezer wasn’t a possessive type, at least not of Ned, given that he didn’t seem to care about him much at all anymore.
Ned said nothing, waiting as Yissan lit a cigarette and blew a plume of smoke into the air. The gray sky hung low, and the duck pond they stood beside echoed it in steely, glittering misery. It fit Ned’s mood these days. The season had turned, and so had his hopes for his life with Ezer.
“How’s my brother?” Yissan asked, picking a bit of tobacco from his tongue, and flicking it away.
“He’s…” Ned wasn’t sure what to say. Miserable? Scared? Enormous? Resigned and defeated? “He’s going through a lot and could use some support from his brothers.”
