Page 104 of Bully for Sale
“I have a plan.” It wasn’t a good plan, but it was as good as Ezer could do right now, and it was the first thing he felt enervated by in weeks. “You just keep yourself quiet and safe. It’s going to be okay.”
He had no idea if that was true, but everyone kept tellinghimthat these days, including his doctor and alpha, so he decided it didn’t hurt to spread the lie.
First, he tied the softest robe he had onto his body, and then he took the softest blanket, the one from the sofa, and cut a hole in the middle of it. This he put his head through. He gathered the edges around his body and tied it together with a ribbon from one of the presents Ned had stacked up in the corner of the room. He’d brought them into the nest hoping to lure Ezer into caring about the oncoming birth with gifts of baby clothes, baby seats, toys, and books. Hoping to lure him into caring about anything really.
Then Ezer had to sit and rest.
His feet ached, and he could feel his ankles already expanding, but after a few moments to catch his breath, he hauled himself up. Finding his shoes, which he hadn’t worn in months, he struggled to get them on. The stairs proved a challenge. Usually, if he were going to head up to the pool, Ned or Earl helped him manage, and he always had to stop in the middle of them to rest.
On his own, with his enormous belly, he was struggling by a third of the way up. He paused, breathed, and, with the force of willpower, continued.
The main house was quiet. Ned was out meeting his uncle, and Earl had gone to the store. Since Braden’s attack, Ezer spent times like this holed up in the nest, preferably behind a locked door. But he pushed his feet onward, a rage burning like an ember in his heart. He felt alive. It was the first time he’d had any sensation in his dead soul since the attack and his subsequent confrontation with Ned.
The babies had gone still inside him, which was a relief. He didn’t have the energy to deal with their energetic ways, not when he had to focus on getting out of the house, down to the bus stop, and onto the big, heaving vehicle without anyone stopping him or doing more than looking at him oddly.
Which plenty of people did.
He’d covered himself, but it was clear he was pregnant.
People on the bus shifted away from him. Omegas watched with a hint of terror in their eyes as he tried to maneuver his big belly into the bus seat, barely fitting. Alphas twitched, some were angry, some concerned. One hero tried to approach but an omega blocked his path, saying, “He’s pregnant. His alpha won’t like it if you talk with him.”
“He’s in public!”
“I’m sure he has his reasons.”
The standoff lasted longer than Ezer would’ve liked, but the alpha backed off and the omega took a seat behind him, acting as a kind of guard against any other alpha or even beta who might get the idea to approach.
“Where are you going?” he asked.
“My father’s house,” Ezer said, knowing it sounded almost reasonable. One of the only halfway reasonable reasons a pregnant omega might give for being out in public at this stage of the pregnancy.
“Your alpha will come for you there, you know. There’s no getting away from him.” The omega’s voice trembled, as if he too had once run back to his father’s home while hugely pregnant, perhaps running from an alpha he loathed.
“I know.”
Ezer counted on Ned finding him. There was no way he’d have the strength to get back home if thingsdidn’tgo exceedingly badly with his father today. A certainty that he was walking into a tornado came over him. Was he strong enough to survive the storm? He touched his stomach. Would his father hit him? As pregnant as he was? There was no way to know.
“Are you going to be all right?”
“I hope so.”
“You look ready to birth at any moment.”
“Twins.”
“Oh,” the omega breathed with relief. “You should see yourself. I thought you might deliver right here on the bus.”
“I have time yet.”
The omega smiled encouragingly. “You’re going to do great. Don’t worry.” But then his eyes flickered over Ezer’s body, and Ezer knew exactly what the omega was thinking: if there was more time yet to go, what room did the babies have still to grow? Ezer’s body couldn’t handle much more.
The bus came to a stop downhill from the Fersee mansion. The walk was impossible. Ezer sat on the bench at the bus stop looking up toward the house he wanted to reach, seeing the sharp edges of the roof protrude from the neon-green leaves.
Between the summer heat, the robe, the blanket, and the pregnancy, he was huffing and far too hot. The material felt excruciating, itchy and horrible, the longer he wore it. His skin was hypersensitized, and the weight of the fabric was claustrophobic and itchy. Trying to put his discomfort aside, Ezer waited for the anger inside to generate enough energy for him to rise and attempt the climb. It was taking its sweet time.
“Ezer?”
The voice was familiar but for a moment he couldn’t place it. But as Ezer turned his head toward the car that had slowed and stopped in front of him, he recognized Pete in the backseat peering out at him. He was handsome and young, almost as young as Ezer himself now that he thought about it. Had he really disliked Pete? For what? For being what the world insisted he be?
