Page 100 of Bully for Sale
He didn’t care.
But for some reason today he’d woken up, and a flicker of his old self spoke to him. “I won’t let them take it all from me.” So with Earl’s help, he’d made it up the stairs with his enormous belly, and now he sat outside, exposed to the elements. A cold summer rain was coming.
The babies twisted around inside. He put his hand on his taut stomach, feeling their feet and hands press against his skin. He wasn’t sure what he thought of the life inside him. He was afraid in too many ways to know whether he loved them or not. He wasn’t sure he was going to survive this. The doctor made increasingly dark noises whenever he came for a checkup, muttering under his breath about the smallness of Ezer’s hips, and then he’d smile at Ned and tell him everything was fine.
Ezer didn’t think everything was fine.
Nothing had been fine since his Da had been kicked out, since he’d signed that contract without having it read aloud to him first, since he’d sacrificed himself on the altar of another person’s happiness. And for what? Where was his da now? Was it worth it to have sold himself for a man who hadn’t fought for him, only conspired to work within the system for an outcome pleasing to everyone but him?
Ezer didn’t know how to contain all his feelings and dread, all his disappointment and disillusionment. He sat alone knowing that Ned would come home eventually. Maybe looking forward to his arrival, and maybe not. He didn’t look forward to much of anything. He definitely didn’t look forward to giving birth.
The skin beneath his hand jolted again. Terror vibrated just beneath his consciousness. He could lean into it or lean away. For sanity’s sake, he leaned away.
The gray of nothing was better than the fire of panic. He breathed in and out. He tried not to think. He was outside. By his own choice. He’d won this much at least.
The rain came down.
Ned met upwith Heath at Sivian, skipping school again in order to enlist his uncle’s help with Yissan’s situation. Ned had gone into the meeting optimistic, only to be dressed down before the drinks had even arrived for absolutelyeverything.
“You have no career, no future planned,” Heath stormed. “You planned to what? Rely on the boy’s father’s money forever? What kind of alpha does that?”
Lidell’s name hung in the air between them unspoken.
“What you’ve done to this boy is life-changing, life-creating, and life-destroying all at once. I don’t know what to do with you.”
Adrien was at the luncheon, too, wearing a scarf and nursing the new little one under it. He put a hand on Heath’s arm to calm him down. “Ned didn’t come here to be scolded. He came here for help.”
Heath scrubbed a hand over his head, took a calming breath, and then said, “What he needs isnothelp! What heneedsis a swift kick in the ass.”
Adrien sighed and turned to Ned saying, “I’m sure you’re overwhelmed right now, but you understand that Ezer is scared. Just give him time. Be there for him. In time, he’ll understand you better.” He smiled up at Heath. “Just like I did with your uncle.”
“Don’t believe that,” Heath said, rolling his eyes. “He ran away. Ran off back to college and took Michael with him. Don’t let him fool you.”
It was Adrien’s turn to roll his eyes. “Well, you’d kept a very important secret from me, and I was going through a heavy post-partum drop.”
“Exactly,” Heath said, turning back to Ned. “Omegas aren’t as easy as all that. I know people like your father like to believe otherwise, but he’s never lived with one, so what would he know? Omegas are difficult creatures.”
“Humans,” Adrien corrected. “And we’re not difficult. We have just minds of our own, which troubles alphas more than it should.”
Heath stayed focused on Ned and went on, “Which is whyyouhadnobusiness getting one pregnant at the age of nineteen.”
“Adrien was twenty when—”
Heath raised a dark brow at him, and Ned went silent. There was apparently a difference between a rich, older alpha impregnating a twenty-year-old omega, and a dependent and stupidly young alpha doing the same to a nineteen-year-old.
“If you want to salvage this situation, then convince Ezer you’re worth sticking around for,” Heath said, jamming the tip of his forefinger on the table. “Figure out how to do that, and thendo it. No matter what it takes. Otherwise, contracts be damned, he will leave you. And he should.”
“But how can I prove that to him?” Ned asked. He hadn’t asked Heath here to talk about Ezer. He was here to talk about Yissan’s request, but Adrien had asked about Ezer as soon as they’d sat down, and Ned had been too honest. That had set Heath off scolding, and now here they were. Ned was as lost as ever about how to make things right with his omega.
Heath shrugged. “If you can’t figure it out, the other option is to let him leave.”
“What?” Ned asked, his heart in his throat.
“He never wanted this—you, the children, the contract, correct?”
Ned nodded.
Heath sighed. “Then, if you care about his happiness, you have to give him the option to go.”
